The feedback is especially good when taking on heavily armored tank-style bosses, whose protection needs to be shredded away piece by piece. A flash of XP pops up when an enemy is killed, making sure you know you've eliminated a target even when a fight is taking place in near darkness or at a great distance.

You really can tell when your bullets are connecting: enemies falter and stagger, a nice red x flashes in your reticle and the sound of your bullets hitting are clear and unmistakable in your headphones. You're still going to have to pour a heck of a lot of lead into them, though.įeedback feels a bit stronger than I remember from the original.

The Hyenas, the paramilitary faction we mostly faced in this session, are pretty heavily armored, a far cry from the plainclothes gang members encountered in the original's early game. At least now they look a bit more like they can take it. In the Division 2, I wouldn't say that's really changed all that much: enemies comparable to your level still absorb a pretty ridiculous amount of damage before they drop. I recall in original The Division emptying entire magazines into gang members who were wearing sweatshirts and jeans and watching them essentially shrug it off. I also imagine that seeing a settlement improve and grow over time will-just like your White House HQ as it grows and expands-give you a feeling that you're actually having some impact in the world beyond just shooting the parade of bad guys and acquiring new gear.Īs far as shooting all those bad guys: I'd heard from a few people who attended an earlier Division 2 event in December that the AI enemies felt a bit less like bullet-sponges than the enemies in the original game. After liberating a settlement on our first mission, I called in support a few times, and while it never felt like the settlers were doing a heck of a lot to turn the tide (they can't revive you if you're down, for example), at the very least they provide your enemies a few extra targets. In battle, you can fire off a flare gun and armed settlers you've helped in the past will show up to provide assistance in your fight. Liberating and aiding settlements also gives you backup when you're completing open world missions.

The division 2 gameplay