While the beta will be available on PC and PS4 from tomorrow, those who play it on Xbox One get an extra 24 hours to run around the disaster-hit city of New York. This is part of Ubisoft’s on-going partnership with (Xbox One platform holder) Microsoft, which also includes the The Division Xbox One bundle (which comes with a 1TB hard drive and a digital copy of the game) and a 30 day exclusivity period for the game’s post-launch DLC.
And this isn’t just the closed beta with a new name and (a lot) more players either. The biggest addition here is a story mission regarding The Division’s tech wing, whereas the closed beta focused on a medical wing mission. For this quest, players will head underground to locate an engineer who has been kidnapped by an enemy faction called the cleaners, and in rescuing this engineer, players will also bag themselves the deployable turret skill. Skills are a huge part of The Division’s gameplay and so this should offer a good chance to see how the game’s character improvement mechanics work before the beta ends on February 22.
Also new to The Division’s open beta are changes to the Dark Zone PvP (player versus player) areas. Previously in the closed beta, many players found themselves going ‘rogue’ or even causing other players to go rogue by accidentally shooting a teammate or by accidentally walking in front of a teammate during battle, respectively. Now, a certain amount of damage will have to be inflicted before a player is deemed ‘rogue’ and other players will need to take them down.
Moreover, players should expect The Division open beta to include a whole host of fixes for problems such as stat matches and the invisibility exploit. Between the alpha testing and the closed beta testing, the development team busted over 10,000 bugs and many fans will appreciate that those efforts are still continuing per their feedback.
The Division is set to release on March 8, 2016 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
