The Good and the Bad of The Division’s Dark Zone

The Concept

On the outskirts of Midtown Manhattan lies an area where the infection wreaked havoc. An abandoned quarantine zone has left a section of the city explorable only to those willing to put everything on the line. Seeing as these locations saw a heavy military presence before they were deserted, some of the most powerful loot can be found in locked crates, on randomly placed NPCs, and on the other agents who have ventured into the abyss — even your friends.

In the Dark Zone, players encounter NPCs and other human-controlled agents. As they explore and engage enemies in combat, they will begin to accumulate loot. Any loot that is discovered in The Dark Zone is contaminated with a level of the virus that makes it unsafe to use until it is extracted and decontaminated. Agents in the area are all marked as non-hostile upon entering The Dark Zone, but at any time an agent can choose to disavow themselves from The Division and go rogue by opening fire on a fellow agent. In doing so, they will be marked for death with a red skull and a countdown clock that increases every time they engage another non-hostile agent in The Dark Zone. Survive the countdown and the rogue agent will earn significant XP and an in-game cash reward. If the agent is neutralized by any other agent, the penalty is a decrease in XP, in-game cash, and a loss of any loot that the player was carrying at the time.

In order to extract a package, the player must navigate to one of the three extraction points and fire off a flare to call in a helicopter. In doing so, all other agents in The Dark Zone will be alerted that an extraction has been started, and an icon will come up in their HUD to signal where the extraction is taking place.

This is where the fun begins. More often than not, the signal for an extraction will send all of the agents in the area flooding the player’s position, each with their own intentions when they arrive. Are they just looking to take advantage of the extraction peacefully, or will they go rogue to take the loot others are trying to send out?

Not only is the concept unique, but its implementation is quite well done. Like anything though, it has its strengths and weakness. Let’s take a look at some places where The Division got it right and others where it could improve.

Good: The Atmosphere

The Division’s Dark Zone is an exercise in caution and teamwork that many games aspire to create but often fail to. From the very first step taken after vaulting over the wall a sense of uneasiness starts to settle in. Every person the player comes across may have nefarious intentions, and there is absolutely no way of knowing if a player intends to engage.

In my first experience in The Dark Zone, I came across another agent who was eyeing me slowly and cautiously. As we both aimed down-sights at one another and assessed neither of us were threats, I decided to be on my way. He joined me as we loot-lessly wandered The Dark Zone. That was until we came across an agent carrying loot on his back (denoted by a yellow pack underneath his backpack). Without even thinking twice, the player traveling on the road with me went rogue, downed the other agent, and looted his body.

That’s the beauty of the Dark Zone. Tension and uncertainty can define it. With other human-controlled players wandering around, The Dark Zone gives players that “anything can happen” feeling quite regularly.

Not so Good: Communication with Other Agents

Communication with your squad is of vital importance in the Dark Zone, but just as important is the ability to assess the intentions of other agents. Knowing that other agents can turn at a moments notice makes every encounter in the middle of the street or at an extraction point filled with tension.

There are two ways to communicate with other agents in the Dark Zone, proximity chat and gestures. If a player is not in a party and is wearing a mic he can be heard by other players near him. However, it seemed as though a player had to be incredibly close in order to hear what another agent was saying, and even then it was often faint and easy to miss.

Gestures such as waving, surrendering, and the popular jumping jacks are also available to use in the Dark Zone. While these may give players a glimpse of the other agent’s intentions, it is easy to break loose of the animation and engage from it.

Simply making the distance for proximity chat a bit larger would help to alleviate some of these issues, and of course the option would always be available to turn off when another agent decides to blare his poor taste in music throughout the infected area.

Good: Teamwork, Strategy, Communication

The choreographed trailers that were shown during press event were at times cringeworthy because of the way that the team communicated during the fight. ‘No one talks like that while playing an online game,’ was what most people were probably thinking as they watched it.

There is something to The Division’s Dark Zone though that makes that kind of teamwork, strategy, and communication feel natural. Often times I would find myself asking my squad if they had eyes on a target that entered the area, setting up ambushes behind walls for unsuspecting loot carriers, and recommending a retreat when the fight got a bit too hot.

In the same way, The Division makes its cover system both easy and rewarding to use. It is a cover-based shooter after all, and the game does not lie when it says that death is imminent for those who don’t adopt it quickly and well. That fact rings truer than ever when facing off against other agents in The Dark Zone. Ducking behind cover to get relief from a hail of bullet, and suppressing the enemy in order to open the flank from teammates are just a few of the ways The Dark Zone require the player to use strategy when playing.

Not so Good: Action Is Fully Contingent On Others

The flip side to the “anything can happen” feeling generated by this area is the all-to-real possibility that nothing happens. The responsibility to generate conflict rests almost entirely on the other players populating the server. This means that there are times where an entire area can be occupied by players unwilling to engage with one another, resulting in extraction after extraction being called in as hoards of users attempt to attach their loot peacefully.

Part of the reason for this has to do with the way the loot system is handled in The Dark Zone. While there may be scarcity to the rare items that can be found, almost every firefight with a group of NPCs will result in some sort of loot drop. At any given time, almost every player on in The Dark Zone can be carrying a yellow bag of goodies on their back.

Loot is the only reason in The Dark Zone to want to engage other players, unless there is someone on the server who just likes to watch the world burn. If there is no scarcity to loot or way of denoting the level of loot being carried by a particular color on the bag, there is very little that forces the fight. Imagine the tension the player would feel carrying a blue bag of rare loot knowing that if a player catches a glimpse of it they could become a victim of their envy.

The Verdict

In creating a mode that aligns perfectly with the narrative of the game, The Dark Zone focuses in on what makes the setting of The Division interesting; its uncertainty and hopelessness. Its abandoned buildings and underground tunnels littered with dead bodies bagged and since forgotten have been reduced simply to another arena to find gear that will prevent this from happening on the other side of the wall.

With an atmosphere and concept uniquely innovative, The Division’s Dark Zone shows quite a bit of promise coming out of the beta. The tension that is created while searching the area for loot and attempting to extract it unscathed by rogue agents, makes this mode standout from any other PvP experience.

What did you think of The Dark Zone? Have any stories of being stabbed in the back by friends for a piece of loot? Let us know in the comments!

More The Division

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