The Division has released a $15 expansion mode called Survival which has made the game even more intense than it already was. Kotaku contributor Stephen Totilo says that the new expansion only seems to be a good addition to the game because the “clever but brutal game mode keeps killing [him].”
Survival, as the name suggests, turns The Division into a struggle of 24 players to survive. At the beginning the 24 players are separated and are at edges of a virtual recreation of Manhattan. The narrative explanation says that you’ve been sent to the city to obtain some antiviral drugs, but the helicopter you are on crashes. Instead of a snowy Manhattan, you are in a Manhattan hit by a blizzard.
The end goal of Survival is to obtain the drugs, get to the center of Manhattan and escape on chopper that you have called in. You start with bad gear and weak weapons. The enemies aren’t particularly strong; they’re as about as weak as you are.
You can play as PvE or PvP but you still are going to have face the wrath of the blizzard, which is probably going to be what is going to kill you. You have to battle off hunger and thirst as well as the blizzard and enemies coming at you. If you use medicine to heal yourself from battle, you’ll end up with a resistance to the medicine, making it less effective. If you can’t handle the cold, sickness, hunger and thirst, you are sure to fail.
If you play PvP, not only are you facing the blizzard and the enemies, you are also the facing the other 23 players. However, you will receive more points toward your Survival score at the end. You earn points via the amount of enemies you’ve killed, the amount of gear that you’ve scavenged and more. If you get a high score, you can unlock rewards in the main game.
The Division is an online-only open world third-person shooter. You can play The Division on PS4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.