In a recent interview with Edge Magazine, Ryan Bernard, the director of the upcoming Tom Clancy’s The Division, spoke to what we can expect from the game in terms of both game play and next- gen functionality. Here are some choice excerpts from the interview.
On whether or not the entire game will be open world:
“Yes, and I think that’s important in an open-world game. But it’s also an RPG, so there’s a level progression. If you go somewhere right at the start of the game, you’ll most likely die horribly. There will be a progression that you want to follow in some way. I think it’s far more interesting, especially for a group-focused multiplayer game, to have relatively fixed enemy strength. If everything scales with you, it’s all somewhat the same.”
When asked to provide some information about the game’s class based skill system, Bernard stated, “The word we use internally is ‘playstyles’ – we don’t really talk about classes. Really what it comes down to is a role. All we want is for you to feel like you serve a purpose in the group. There are definite skill and talent directions that fit together but none of them are locked in trees.
“You will be limited by how many you can actually purchase, and how many you can have loaded at any one time, but you can swap them out at any time [out of combat]. Having that trinity of someone who’s doing a lot of damage, someone who can take a lot of damage and someone who can support the group is a very good trinity for RPGs in general, and we want to keep that going. But by not forcing you to pick a class at the start, you get to figure out how you like to play and you don’t have to re-roll.”
On the benefits of working with next-gen gaming technology, Bernard felt there was far less compromise involved this time around. “When you start to picture games in your head, you always end up having to make sacrifices when it comes to the end of the project. You have to settle at some point. With what we can do for this coming generation, it just means you have to do less of that. You don’t have to compromise as much on what you do in your head versus what you can actually build.”
As of now, The Division is slated to release in late 2014 for PC, Xbox One and PS4.