Tom Clancy's The Division at Comic-Con

The Division. A game that has been mired with delays, and was thought to never see the light of day. Well I think all that has definitely changed. I was fortunate enough to play a very well put together demo with eight other lucky players.

In the Xbox Lounge at San Diego Comic-Con they had a Tom Clancy's: The Division setup. Three sets of three consoles, one set for each fireteam or squad. The game type was the same as what was shown at E3. Get to the loot and extract successfully. There are variables at play to hamper you: like NPCs (Non-Player Characters) and most notably the other squads' players. They will all have motivations to stop you. The players especially, as they will try to kill you and take your loot for their own.

The gameplay is refreshing, in that it is a Third-Person Shooter, rather than the oft used First Person perspective. I remember mentioning my love for third person shooters in a previous post, although I cannot remember which post specifically. The game is really more of an RPG than a fully focused shooter. I would say that it is an RPG-Shooter, in a way that all of the abilities and perks are from shooters, with weapon damage being more influenced by RPGs. The weapon damage counter shows up above the target in values of hundreds and thousands, depending on where you shot the target that is.

There were a few different character classes. I can't remember the exact name of each, but your RPG staples are present of course. There is a DPS (Damage Per Second) class, a Tank class, and a Support class. Each class has different abilities catering to their specific play style.

One thing that shakes up the gameplay is the "Rogue" mechanic. As a team nears the extraction point and has all the loot that they want, you can decide to go rogue and eliminate anyone from another squad; or your own squad, if you want to be that guy, or girl. That mechanic keeps you on your feet, you never get too comfortable. I liked the inclusion of the Rogue mechanic, although in my demo nobody wanted to be that much of a troll.

This is definitely a highly anticipated game for me. With the March 2016 tentative release date, you don't have to be patient for much longer. I am ready!