Given the success Destiny has experienced as a first-person affair, many may have thought that the genre would have lent itself quite well to The Division in lieu of the final third-person romp. According to a recent interview we conducted with the game’s associate creative director Julian Gerighty, however, it was explained that there was much thought put into how the game would play out. With plans to incorporate a number of different core gameplay mechanics, Gerighty explained that third-person seemed like the best way to go.
GR: Why did you opt to go third-person with The Division?
Truthfully, had the game instead gone the first-person route, then the comparisons to Destiny would have been in record-setting numbers. Of course, it’s almost ridiculous to suggest that Ubisoft chose the third-person genre to simply avoid such lines being drawn by fans, as the aesthetic of the game as a whole seems perfectly suited to the gameplay mechanics that Gerighty and his team had in mind for the initial concepts of The Division.
Since the MMO-like software has been in development for quite a while now, it’s obvious that the execution on the third-person aspect of it took a while to nail down. That said, the team at Massive appears to have done a rather bang-up job based on our ample hands-on time with the game. Hopefully the beta-based experience is just a taste of what fans can expect from the finished title, but it won’t be much longer until dedicated followers will find out for themselves.
The Division arrives for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 8, 2016.
