Last weekend was the last open beta before Tom Clancy’s The Division hits store shelves on March 8, and Ubisoft has announced some of the outstanding open beta numbers from the weekend event.
According to Ubisoft, The Division recruited over 6.4 million players in the four day session, on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It’s not the over 9 million that EA got for last fall’s Star Wars Battlefront beta, but then again, that’s Star Wars. The Division is a entirely new IP, and while it has the Tom Clancy’s branding, it is not based on anything prior to its debut on consoles. That says something.
Other numbers released by Ubisoft indicate that players spent, on average, five hours playing the beta missions in The Division. And players also spent an average of two hours in the game’s infamous Dark Zone. A troubling fact is that almost 50 percent of players went rogue in the Dark Zone, meaning that gamers can all but expect to get screwed by half of their partners — friends of strangers — when the full game is released. I weep for humanity.
Over 63 million items were extracted from the Dark Zone, meaning that a ton of loot was earned and then lost when partners and allies went rogue.
The numbers released by Ubisoft indicate that The Division has a dedicated base of players ready to take on the indelible task of taking back New York after the world ends. The Division’s version of New York is reportedly 1:1 to the real thing, making the map in The Division one of the biggest ever.
Also, there were some differences between the closed beta and the open beta, proving that Ubisoft is still tinkering with the game prior to release, which is always a good thing. The biggest change I noticed is in the Dark Zone. There seemed to be a warning now when a partner was going rogue, so players could try and prepare themselves. In closed beta, the first time it happened, I was essentially assassinated from behind. And I didn’t like it much. Hopefully, more tweaks are coming, as The Division is one of the best looking games I’ve played on this console generation, and I can’t wait to explore New York for real in two weeks.
Tom Clancy’s The Division releases on March 8 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Come back to TheHDRoom for a full review shortly after launch.
