The Division 2’s latest expansion, Echoes of Central Park, has finally been fully revealed, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have an early play test. I dip in and out of The Division 2 these days, but since launch I’m about 1,000 hours deep, and it’s been one of my favorite games to play across the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S era.
I’ve written previously in covering the game that it’s a testament to its community and the reaction to said community by the developers that The Division 2 is still getting new content to this day. The original plans would have seen it sunset into maintenance mode long ago.
But a reversal brought new modes and experiences, the Battle for Brooklyn DLC, and now, Echoes of Central Park. With this latest expansion, Massive is taking The Division 2 down a path that we’ve never walked before. Yes, there’s a new map and new locations to explore, but there’s also a much darker tone.
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If you can get darker than a pandemic that brought civilization to its knees, that is.
Echoes of Central Park is introducing horror elements to The Division 2, and while I have played it, I still don’t fully understand where that’s leading. But it feels different, and I’m here for it.
This article was produced based on an early playtest of The Division 2: Echoes of Central Park on PC provided by Ubisoft. It was a limited selection of the finished content and has been published specifically without content that could be deemed a spoiler. Nobody at Ubisoft had any input nor saw the content of this article prior to publication.
Central Park is a dark and terrifying location
The premise behind Echoes of Central Park is that once again Division Agents are responding to a distress call. We’ve been deployed across much of New York City since the start of the first game, but Central Park has always been out of bounds.
I always assumed it would have been used as a mass grave for all the casualties of the Green Poison, and on that front, I seem to have been correct. But there’s something else going on in there. Something mysterious and terrifying.
You get a little teaser of it during the introduction mission (and don’t worry, this entire article will be spoiler free).
It also adds a narrator for the first time, rather than just other members of The Division or from the settlements in your ear. It feels like it’s going to play out like some kind of horror story, and it’s built very much in that way.
You don’t know what you’ll be facing at the end, but again, there are teasers to get the brain matter working during your introduction.
But it seems pretty clear that whatever we’re building up to fight against is unlike any other foe we’ve faced yet in any of The Division series.
Lots of familiarity, but some new mechanics to get to grips with
I’ve played two of the main missions in the Echoes of Central Park DLC and while I’m not allowed to talk about much of the specifics, I can generalize.
On one hand, everything still feels familiar. The same enemy factions are present, and they’re still as irritating as ever (looking at you, Black Tusk and your stupid drones) but the core gameplay loop doesn’t seem to be changing too much. There is still a new endgame experience that I haven’t seen, too.
What I have enjoyed is that during these missions, there are some new challenges. Considering I was playing on Story difficulty, some of the bosses were far more difficult than I expected. Though it should also be said I was playing with a character provided by Ubisoft, not my own, with maximum stats and a stash of gear built to shred. When I play through again, it might be less stressful.
(Image credit: Windows Central | Ubisoft)
But there are some mechanics to the boss fights beyond just “this is a seriously tanky enemy” that you need to get your head around. They feel like proper boss fights, which is good. While melting high-level enemies is fun, I want something that’s going to test my credentials as a good Division Agent.
You also now, for the first time, have the opportunity to use AI teammates. Your companions have their own respective skillsets that you can also improve upon, but they’re also there to deploy alongside you in combat.
Matchmaking has always been pretty good in The Division, and there’s rarely been a time when I haven’t been able to find a squad to take on more difficult content. But having a little NPC backup certainly doesn’t hurt. And I think in Echoes of Central Park we’re going to need it.
Echoes of Central Park really does feel like The Division at its very best
I can’t pass a full judgment yet, because, like everyone else, I haven’t seen the whole thing, and I haven’t taken this new darker path to its conclusion.
But what I have played has left me in no doubt that this looks like being the best expansion to The Division 2 to date. It feels familiar enough not to try and reinvent the wheel, but it’s going down a different path to the narrative up to this point.
I love that you feel like a superhero saving what’s left of humanity as an Agent of The Division. But I love even more that Echoes of Central Park makes you feel vulnerable. Something is going on that we haven’t experienced before. It’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be terrifying.
That hooks you from the first moment, and since I played, I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with an idea of what’s actually going on. I’ve got nowhere. But I cannot wait until it releases and I can see where this new, darker story is taking us.
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