Ubisoft Allocated Only 5 Devs to “Restart” The Division 2, Goal Was to Build Something “Bigger and Lasting”
Say what you will about Ubisoft, but the company does not give up on its games. While The Division 2 failed to reach the same heights as its predecessor when it launched in March 2019, that didn’t stop Massive Entertainment from constantly pushing updates and content to lure the player base back in, and entice new players to join the fight.
After releasing DLC (Warlords of New York) a year after release, most assumed the looter shooter’s post-release support was finished, especially since Ubisoft publicly said that the game was a commercial failure.
Apparently, someone at Massive forgot the memo, as the studio continued to develop seasonal content, culminating in the release of a new premium expansion titled Battle for Brooklyn, which was released this year.
The Division 2’s “Restart” Was Started by Only a Handful of Developers
While The Division 2’s comeback is commendable, did you know that Ubisoft only allocated a crew of five people to revive the game? This was revealed by Massive Entertainment developer Palle Hoffstein, who also commented on the game’s future.
Hoffstein mentioned that he was part of the revival of not only The Division 2, but also Rainbow Six Siege. Hoffstein, who developed art for The Division franchise, said, “I’ve been part of two big turnarounds with Rainbow Six Siege and The Division 2. Amazing to be part of both. But we had 5 people to restart Division 2. Five! What were we thinking? Ah that was fun.”
Talking about The Division 2’s new Year 7 roadmap, Hoffstein shared he didn’t want to resurrect the game only to see it sunset again, and that they’re building something that’ll last.
“When a few of us made a small team to resurrect TD2 I had zero interest in adding a year or two, just to sunset the game again. The goal, what we believed we could do, was to build something bigger and lasting. This is fun to see but there’s still so much more we want to do,” the developer noted. Adding to that, he said, “Launching a game is hard and I had the chance to help a couple other games do that. But this seemed even harder to do and with less of a roadmap as to how to even do it. In other words interesting. I have a hard time turning down interesting.”
This implies Massive has a lot of content planned for The Division 2, of which we have no doubt, given that the “Survivors” content for the game has just been announced. Based on what was shared, we won’t be getting it anytime soon.
I admit, I was one of the many people who assumed Ubisoft had given up on The Division 2, especially since Ubisoft announced that The Division 3 was in development in 2023. My initial reaction was they would leave The Division 2 with occasional apparel events and nothing more. Imagine, to my surprise, that an entire year’s worth of content is planned.
This isn’t the first time Ubisoft did this, either, as titles such as Rainbow Six Siege, For Honor all failed to sizzle at launch, but thanks to the company’s non-stop tweaking and updates, they are now in a stable place. It goes to show that with a lot of hard work, even if you don’t nail it out of the gate, you can still thrive in the long run.
What Hoffstein has shared is good news, but it also means we probably won’t be getting The Division 3 anytime soon. If I had to hazard a guess, we’ll hear more about it next year, with a release planned for 2027. Once we know more about that, you’ll hear about it here on MP1st.
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this game is the best game ever invented I love it play every day for over 10 years every day
Hmm, they gave up on Breakpoint lmao
I go back to Div 1 and Div 2 as fallback games while waiting for others to come out. Now that Survival is coming to Div 2, maybe my Div 1 days are over.
Div 2 is amongst a short list of franchises that I will replay over and over