With a slew of new content getting ready to drop in The Division 2, excitement over the game's future is finally beginning to build. With the ann0uncement of Warlords of New York, The Division 2's next big story expansion, fans will be returning to NYC, where they'll see quite a few familiar faces from the first game, including Aaron Keener. However, for newer fans of the franchise, it may not be clear who exactly that is.
Keener is a rogue Division agent that has become a major player in The Division's narrative. He was featured as a primary antagonist in the first game, and will continue to have a major role throughout Warlords of New York, in which players are tasked with taking him down. Keener is noted as highly personable and an excellent military strategist, which made him an ideal candidate for The Division before going rogue, and explains how he was able to draw other agents to his cause.
According to Ubisoft, Keener isn't a black and white character. As players progress through Warlords of New York, and possibly earning seasonal rewards, they'll steadily learn more about Keener and the other warlord's ambitions, which come from more of a moral grey area than many players might expect. "Throughout the collectibles, cinematics, and cutscenes, we have a full extent of tools to tell their motives and their personalities," Chloé Hammoud, The Division 2's world content manager, told Game Rant in an interview, "What's interesting with the expansion is being able to show that being a rogue agent isn't necessarily black and white. [Aaron Keener] has his reasons, and so do the other rogue agents as well."
Even with other rogue agents being heavily featured in the expansion, Keener will still be the star of the show, Hammoud explained, "He has a hand on every one of his rogue agents, so it's going to be really interesting for the players to dig into every story." For Ubisoft, the goal is to have players question whether or not Keener is on the wrong or right side.
For those unfamiliar, Keener disavowed the Division after being abandoned in the Dark Zone while trying to get a group of civilians to safety. During an ambush, Keener radioed for JTF reinforcements but was denied. After a Molotov thrown during the ambush killed everyone but Keener, he made the decision to go rogue, setting many of the post-outbreak narrative events in The Division in motion.
It's now up to the players to pursue Keener and bring him to justice. His ambitions have changed somewhat since the first game, with the character being more comfortable in a chaotic world than one founded on law and order, providing a fundamental rift between current Division agents and Keener himself.
Exploring Keener, and the other rogue agent's, ambitions is sure to be an interesting element of Warlords of New York. According to Hammoud, it will finally wrap up The Division's narrative, leaving players with more of an endpoint to the first game's narrative. With any luck, it will be a worthwhile conclusion to what has become a long-running story.
Between the narrative, refreshed mechanics, and fresh take on New York City, Warlords of New York is shaping up to be a promising new direction for The Division 2. While the game initially under-performed, this may be enough to draw in more players, making the game as popular as it has the potential to be.
Warlords of New York is still about a month away, but Division 2 players with a Year One Pass can dive into Episode 3's content starting tomorrow, so there should be enough to hold players over for some time. Division 2 has had some growing pains, but the game has become a pretty interesting experience in the year since it launch. Hopefully, that evolution will continue well into Year Two.
The Division 2: Warlords of New York will launch March 3rd, 2o20, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.