layered in via your smart-watch and go-bag without breaking the all-important immersion into this new world. Forging into new territory again, The Division will integrate with your smartphone or tablet as well. A friend can pilot a flying drone into battle alongside you, marking enemies, providing fire or buffing you up before soaring away. Where these crossplatform integrations often fall down is in benefit versus bother: simply put, if you have to stop playing, it had better be for something worthwhile. Ubisoft seem to have understood this, adding a fun and useful (but not vital) perk for the tablet crowd.
What it comes down to in the end is choice. The Division has no rules of engagement and no-one to answer to, so it’s down to the player to decide how they will interact with this new, stunningly bleak view of social ruin. This is not a world focused on you: when you see a building explode five blocks away and rain rubble onto the car-choked street, that’s someone else going about their own business, and it may not spell good news for you. Brimming with potential and tense atmosphere, the game looks to be asking one question: how do you save what remains?
WRITTEN BY AARON MILLIGAN (WWW.STICKYTRIGGERentertainment.COM)
format: Xbox ONE | PS4
Out: 2014 tbc
RATING: ctc