The Division 2 Open Beta Revealed

The Division 2 will be getting an open beta. Ubisoft's upcoming shared world shooter had its private beta for those who pre-ordered it last week. Now it seems that The Division 2 will be getting a beta for all. The Division 2 open beta release date was not revealed, but its safe to say it would take place soon given that game is out on March 15. Oddly, Ubisoft didn't announce it in the traditional sense, rather its developers casually mentioned its existence during a live stream this weekend following a barrage of issues surrounding the game.

Reddit user TiniestBuckle captured a clip from the live stream that has The Division 2 developers stating "we're going to fix that for the open beta" when talking about an issue currently in the game. This should come as no surprise considering The Division 1 had private and open betas. Nonetheless, given the less than warm reception The Division 2's beta has had, allowing would be buyers a chance to check out the game before its launch could help Ubisoft prop up its pre-order numbers. More so considering the amount of work done to improve the first game's biggest painpoint, its endgame.

According to Ubisoft Associate Creative Director Chadi El-Zibaoui‏, The Division 2 endgame is an "extension" to the campaign.

"First thing is, we have a huge endgame offering – it's not just PvP [player versus player]," he said in conversation with Gadgets 360. "[T]he endgame is going to open an extension to the campaign – there is a narrative twist, with the Black Tusks invading Washington DC, there are a lot of narrative reveals around that. This will cater to players who want more narrative content, and play more solo or PvE [player versus enemy]."

In addition to this, El-Zibaoui explained that this would tie-in with The Division 2's Dark Zones — areas where players can take on others for the best loot. The game has three Dark Zones. Two of them would feature normalisation, which gives advanced and newbie players the same damage output for their weapons. The third Dark Zone however, won't have normalisation and would be invited by the game's Black Tusks faction.

"If you have an AR rifle, the base stats will be the same for beginners and those who have more advanced stats," he said.

"But to cater to the hardcore players who don't want normalisation, each week we will have one of the three Dark Zones invaded by the Black Tusks, and this has old rules from the first game with no normalisation. We are trying to have pieces of content for everyone, rather than funnel everyone into the same content. We have a full year of post-launch content with three major episodes, and all of these episodes extends on the narrative, and the map, so you have new areas to explore, and also game modes. We cater to people who want more story, more areas, and new PvP."

Our time with The Division 2 beta showed off a fantastic looking albeit somewhat uneven opening hours of play. It would be interesting to see how The Division 2 endgame plays out in practice given El-Zibaoui's comments.

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