What Happened to the Brooklyn We Saw Before?
The confinement to Midtown Manhattan was in the interest of The Division’s mechanics and narrative, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Developers certainly have creative freedom to do what they feel is right, and Ubisoft undoubtedly thought long and hard about this. But the question remains: what happened to the content no longer being released in the base game?
The Division had a few gameplay trailers and Brooklyn played a prominent role in just about all of them. The areas used in the demos look pretty much complete, and the view across the East River is stunning. From the outside looking in, it seems as if everything was set. Now that it’s gone, one can’t help wonder what happened to all of the beautiful areas we were shown, especially the Dumbo neighborhood near the Manhattan Bridge.
It’s already known that there will definitely be DLC for the Division, and it’s hard to believe that Ubisoft would just scrap all of the hard work done by Massive in recreating such a large section of Brooklyn. There is a chance the area may appear later down the line as DLC. With the studio going for an MMO feel, such an expansion could be how they plan to keep players engaged and invested in the experience.
New areas are one way to grab attention for a long period of time, whether it’s for strictly endgame content (such as Destiny’s raids), or for full on exploration and a new story, like The Witcher 3’s upcoming Blood and Wine expansion.
