Tom Clancy's The Division 2

The Division 2's campaign is full of great gunplay, loot, and missions. Only toward the end of my 60 hours of play did it start to suffer from a lack of interesting incentives, but the journey was enough fun that it made up for the destination.

Fantastic world design, exciting combat, and a seemingly unending sense of meaningful progression make it easy to get completely rapt by The Division 2.

The Division 2 manages to improve upon the original formula in almost every way, but its tale and tone are frequently awful.

A packed, rewarding, and frequently thrilling looter shooter that should have a bright future.

And, while the story-based campaign and leveling system provide plenty of thrills, it takes about 50 hours to actually get to the real shit. The endgame is where I can now choose between playing as a sniper, a bomber, or a non-specific character who can do a bit of everything, and join up with other super-achievers to take down a tougher gang called the Black Tusk.

The Division 2 is a seriously accomplished looter shooter, with a gameplay loop that keeps on giving, and an endgame that will keep you playing for months (or years) to come.

The story falls short, but The Division 2 is filled with loops to keep you invested in upgrading your agent well beyond the endgame, including gear score optimization, Dark Zone ventures, and daily challenges

Post-apocalyptic Washington DC is splendidly imagined but the insipid techno-thriller plot ensures the struggle to save civilisation can't be won

I find it better to approach this as a good waste of time, a detailed disasterworld to saunter through for a couple of weeks.

For now, I have to at least commend The Division 2 for getting the basics right. There’s a compelling endgame, there’s loot that actually matters, and missions don’t feel like they’re copy and pasted to bulk out the runtime. If some of the frustrations can be ironed out, it could be the best of its genre.