Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is now available on Steam
It's heavily discounted, too
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot once said that Tom Clancy's The Division 2 being absent from Steam was "a long-term positive". Perhaps he meant that only in the sense that, long-term, the game would come to Steam anyway. That's what has happened now. As announced late last year, the open world cover shooter is now available on Steam after a period of Epic and Ubisoft store exclusivity.
The standard edition is currently 70% reduced, making it just £7.80 to grab it from Steam.
Ubisoft announced that more of their games would return to Steam in November 2022, with Assassin's Creed Valhalla the first of the bunch. Roller Champions and Anno 1800 followed, and The Division 2 is the first of a second wave.
An Ubisoft spokesperson said during the announcement that they were "constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are." The 'how' is pretty straightforward: you just put the games where they used to be, by putting them on Steam, before Ubisoft decided they preferred their own storefront and Epic's 12% (versus Steam's 30%) revenue cut.
As for The Division 2, it's big dumb fun according to Brendy's The Division 2 review - "one of those mega Snickers you can only find in the cinema." Also a game in which an EMP blast causes a bunch of TV screens to flicker the word "Truth" through digital noise. As Brendy wrote, "Wow, game done made me think."
I enjoyed The Division 1 though, for its methodical cover shooting and its PvP extraction mode. The Division 2 is a better version of the same formula, so it's ultimately a good thing that it's finally available where more players might try it.