The Division details The Last Stand, update 1.6
Dark dark dark dark
The free The Division [official site] update accompanying its third expansion will "almost double the playable size" of the current Dark Zone PvP murderhell, Ubisoft say. While they haven't yet said when they'll launch the expansion, The Last Stand, they have started chatting more about new things coming free or for cash money. The Last Stand sounds interesting too, introducing a new team-based PvP mode in instanced murderzones separate from the main world.
A blog post on Friday introduced update 1.6, which will launch free alongside The Last Stand.
It'll open up regions 7, 8 and 9 of the Dark Zone, which will hugely expand the size of the PvP space. However, Ubi say they won't increase the playercount of Dark Zone instances. "In practice, this means that players will be spread out more, opening up more opportunities for PvE," they say. 1.6 will also introduce fast travel between Dark Zone checkpoints, so the size doesn't become a chore.
Also in update 1.6: new 'Contamination' events in the Dark Zone with hourly sweeps of Cleaners; Dark Zone leaderboards; a new 'Legendary' difficulty mode for three missions, offering exclusive vanity items; and balance tweaks.
As for The Last Stand itself, this blog post explains it's a big battle over capturing information terminals:
"The Last Stand game mode offers session based player versus player combat in The Division, mixed with a strong PvE aspect, and a brand new way to experience the Dark Zone separate from the regular game. In it, two teams of eight players are fighting each other on an instanced map to control the aforementioned terminals, until one team has transferred enough information to win the match. When taking part in Last Stand, the game will always assume that your team are the Division agents while the enemy team will be seen as Rogues (note that they are just labeled as Rogue for lore reasons, as the actual Rogue mechanics do not apply in Last Stand). In other words, you will always be the good guy when playing Last Stand. When the match is over you can go straight back to the queue and don’t have to return to the main game to queue up again."
Hack the planet.
We were won over by The Division, declaring it one of our favourite games of 2016. Somewhat less enthusiastic about the upcoming movie.