The Division 2’s first raid, Operation Dark Hours, launched without—controversially—matchmaking. Given that I don’t have seven friends who play the game on PS4, and The Division 2 doesn’t support cross-platform play, it would probably be a while before I got to experience the gruelling five-to-10 hour affair for myself.
That’s okay, though. I play this game almost entirely solo, anyway. While it’s helpful to have players to team up with to take down the final wave of enemies in challenging missions—Roosevelt Island’s frenzied last push comes to mind—I’ve enjoyed the demanding difficulty of going it alone. It’s not the ideal way to explore the open world; going down while tackling a side activity like a Public Execution or Control Point forces you to respawn at one of the marked spots that sparsely populate the map, often minutes away from the activity. As a dedicated soloist, I’m hoping Ubisoft tweaks this design choice to make the game friendlier to solo players.
But, quirks aside, the steep challenge of The Division 2’s main missions makes solo play exhilarating and, at times, terrifying. Many critics noted that The Division 2’s combat was more exciting than that of the loot-shooters that came before as a result of Massive Entertainment’s decision to eschew bullet-sponges (a longtime staple of the sub-genre) in favor of wily fighters; combatants who strafe, sprint, sneak and suicide bomb the player out of hiding.
Excellent sound design amplifies the fear that these unpredictable enemies instil. The game rarely feels unfair, even when you’re being strafed and shot at from behind, because The Division 2 uses audio cues to clue you in on the position of your opponents. Laughter, footfalls, hard breathing; I often find myself frantically turning to meet a Hyena with a glowing red bomb strapped to their chest, and then scrambling to shoot them down before they close the distance. But, I’m never blindsided if I’m paying attention.
Fortunately, for the times when I’m not paying attention, respawns are more forgiving for solo players within the confines of missions. Instead of shipping me off to a nearby safe area, death here sends me back to the most recent checkpoint. Of course, you’ll often die on the last foe of the wave, the not-quite-a-bullet-sponge-but-certainly-bullet-porous baddie.
These mini-bosses come in a couple varieties. Some just have guns and a lot of armor. Others, though, hold weapons that can make your life hell. One carries a flamethrower with a ridiculously long reach that causes intense burn damage if it hits you. Another hefts a sledgehammer, and will chase you down—not the least bit fatigued by their heavy armor—until they slam half your health away with a single swing.
This structure—long, challenging battles between checkpoints with a final, difficult encounter before safety—produces a gnawing sense of anxiety as the firefights wear on. For example, during the final fight in the Potomac Relief Camp side mission, a Hammer Bro pursued me relentlessly around the bowl-shaped, multi-tiered structure. I jumped down a floor and he jumped down a floor. He was inexhaustible and the best I could do was run out the clock on my cooldowns, then throw some grenades and drop a turret. If I stopped, or fumbled while mantling over a ledge, or got caught up on some level geometry, I was finished. It was pulse-pounding; a nightmare of a monster giving chase.
Eventually, after a few tries, I killed him. The Division 2 is the rare nightmare with a happy ending.