Ubisoft Massive announces that it's launching a free weekend to try out The Division on PC, as well as a major discount on both the base game and its Gold Edition.

Gamers who haven't given The Division a chance will soon have an opportunity to do so for free. The Division is opening its doors to gamers exclusively on the PC this weekend.

Ubisoft Massive revealed that The Division would be free to play this weekend on the PC. Gamers who haven't purchased the game will be able to play the base game as much as they like between 10 AM PST on December 15th and 1 PM on December 18th. Gamers can begin preloading the game today via Uplay, Ubisoft's gaming platform. Ubisoft is also offering a significant discount on the title, asking just $25 for the base game during the weekend, or $45 for the Gold Edition, which includes the base game and a full season pass.

Unfortunately for console gamers, this offer doesn't extend to either the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, at least at this time. It's possible that Ubisoft could hold another free weekend in the near future, especially since the holiday gift rush still has a few weeks left in it.

This method of enticing new players has worked well for other game developers and publishers. Blizzard previ0usly held a free weekend for Overwatch in an attempt to further increase the size of its player base. However, unlike the lasting and massive popularity of OverwatchThe Division has struggled to keep its players playing. While The Division was one of the most hyped games of the year, its player base quickly dwindled, as many players were disappointed by its bugs, exploits, and grinding gameplay. In addition, many potential players who chose to wait until the critics and players had their say chose not to pick up the game, and that may account for part of the audience that Ubisoft is hoping to entice now with its new content and gameplay tweaks.

After floundering for many months after its release, The Division has finally received major improvements to its gameplay and it's experienced a resurgence in popularity as a result. Multitudes of players returned to The Division after the Survival expansion was released. In addition, the game underwent a massive amount of changes and tweaks with the 1.4 update, which received a positive response from the majority of its players.

The Division has had a rocky run thus far, but Ubisoft Massive has made a major effort to fix the biggest problems players had with the game. Gamers who initially avoided the title and choose to give it a chance during the free weekend may find that the game is now worth playing.

The Division is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.