As part of Saturday's Ubisoft Forward presentation, Ubisoft shared new information regarding its in-development free-to-play shooter The Division Heartland. It's been some time since The Division Heartland was last showcased due to some substantial delays, with some questioning whether Ubisoft had changed plans for The Division franchise going forward. Developed by Red Storm Entertainment, it seems The Division Heartland remains on track and could arrive sooner than expected.
The Division Heartland remains a spin-off from the main franchise of The Division. It's also still planned to be a free-to-play standalone experience, separate but based in the same world around the same time period as the other The Division games. Where The Division and The Division 2 both take place in reality-based major urban areas, however, The Division Heartland takes place in a fictional rural community. The setting will grant The Division Heartland the opportunity to provide a unique multiplayer experience.
In the new trailer for The Division Heartland, dubbed a "Developer Intro" to the game, a much more in-depth look at the game's setting is shown. It's named Silver Creek and looks like any give American city. There's a main street lined with coffee shops and small businesses, a downtown area with a mix of mid-sized business offices, subdivisions of single-family housing, and even what looks like nuclear power plant cooling towers that give The Division Heartland a bit of The Simpsons je ne sais quoi.
Exactly what The Division Heartland's gameplay will be remains a grand mystery, however. It's described as a survival game, oddly enough, but it does clearly feature traditional The Division co-op combat scenarios, crafting, a base of operations, and a familiar story-based mission structure. It could very well be exactly like The Division 2, only heavily monetized and build around live service progression systems given its free-to-play nature.
Why Ubisoft has been so withholding of The Division Heartland content isn't clear. With a release date tentatively planned as soon as late 2022, it's surprising how little of the game has been shown. That's perhaps worrying, especially since The Division Heartland is a free-to-play game. Some may worry Ubisoft is hiding the game's monetization to avoid criticism, though it is unclear if that is the case.
What the short trailer for The Division Heartland does show is that if The Division players are looking for more content, the new game will deliver it. The trailer offers a very familiar The Division experience, going off of what little has been shown. That may change as more of The Division Heartland is shown, but for fans of the franchise, it's a positive direction.
The Division Heartland releases in 2022/2023 on PC and consoles.