Members of Ubisoft Massive recently got together in a video interview to talk about their upcoming project, Tom Clancy’s The Division and set about answering queries about the survival aspects of the game. This included scavenging
“Consider that our game is a lot about the fall of society, and things that we take for granted in our everyday life such as clean water and food, they suddenly become scarce resources in the game.
“Not only do you actually have to go out and look for food and water, but [they] become very valuable and rare resources that can be used to trade and stuff like that. But when it comes to having to drink water and eat food to be able to survive, that’s not really what we want from it. Food and water will be a very important part of the game, but players will not need to eat and drink to stay alive.
“When we start the game, the player’s character only has his go-bag with him, right? When it becomes activated, that’s the only thing he can really bring with him. In that go-bag he roughly has 72 hours of supplies, he’s got his weapons and his gear, and that’s what he starts with.
“Then when moving throughout the world, it’s going to be a lot about looting and acquiring new gear as you progress. We’re focusing a lot on the RPG aspects of the game since we are very much an RPG, so acquiring loot and gearing up your character is going to be a very big part of the game.”
It was also revealed that your character doesn’t follow a set, class-based leveling. Instead, it will be more determined by the choices you make rather than the class you opt for. As for whether New York’s vehicles are available for use to players, Rydby brought forth an interesting scenario concerning the use of one’s resources.
“If society fell and suddenly you had to hunt for food and water, you couldn’t go down to your local supermarket and buy whatever you want, you have to actually start conserving it and start to think about how your spending those valuable resources that you have.
“If you did have access to fuel, would you use it to make sure you have access to clean water or make sure that you have access to be able to heat your food by a mobile generator you can fuel and produce electricity. Or would you use it to fuel your car? I know what I would do.”
But will you be able to use vehicles or not? Game designer Mathias Karlson added that, “The way you navigate and move through the city or a game that is open in nature, it’s very core to how you experience the world. We are currently investigating what is the best for our game, what can we do to give you the best experience as a player because that is, in the end, what’s most important to us.”
The Division is currently set to release in late 2014 for the PC, Xbox One and PS4.
