Games
The MMO-shooter’s new expansion unleashes a hurricane in Manhattan, but there’s more than freak weather to watch out for.
In Warlords of New York, your mission is to liberate Lower Manhattan. But, true to Ubisoft’s gun-toting sandbox series, you won’t do it without a fight. Lots and lots of fights.
Released on March 3, this paid expansion tasks players with hunting down Aaron Keener, a former Division agent turned rogue.
You might remember Keener as the big baddie from the first game. Now he’s recruited an army of scorned countrymen and split Lower Manhattan into four districts, each governed by a bloodthirsty lieutenant. You must work your way through his chain of command and put Keener out of commission before he can orchestrate a deadly biological attack.
Along the way, you’ll loot exotic new weapons and gear, experiment with new skills, discover major landmarks, and even pet a tiny little German shepherd puppy in your brand new base of operations. So read to discover every single major talking point in The Division 2's Warlords of New York.
The Division 2: Warlords of New York preview video
How long is it?
Warlords of New York is an entirely bigger deal than the previous major update, Pentagon: The Last Castle. Where that contained two main missions and a moderately sized hub, this dwarfs it with five main missions and one massive chunk of NYC to explore. There are also eight side missions compared with Pentagon: The Last Castle’s two, as well as eight control points and four safe houses.
Progression through the story works slightly differently. Main missions and side missions are linked together, with evidence uncovered in one assignment leading you onto the next. The story is like an epic, city-wide investigation as you work to uncover the whereabouts of Keener and his gang leaders. If Pentagon: The Last Castle’s campaign took you two hours to complete, this should take you about five or six, and that’s without factoring in everything else contained in this expansion.
Raising the level cap
With new missions comes more opportunities to level up. As such, Warlords of New York lifts the level cap from 30 to 40. Raising the ceiling should prevent you feeling like you’re flushing all that XP down the drain as you take on hostile factions, hunt bounties, and do everything else a good Division agent does to stay busy. That said, if and when you do manage to hit level 40, a new infinite progression system gives you incentive to keep pushing forward.
This system lets you invest points into core attributes so your character continues improving. For instance, put points into the scavenging attribute and you’ll yield more credits and crafting materials. As the saying goes, you simply can never have too much polycarbonate.
Legendary difficulty
In The Division 2’s new expansion, you’ll be able to select a new and incredibly tough difficulty: legendary. It’s the hardest setting you’ll experience anywhere outside of raids, putting you and your friends up against enemies with more health and greater firepower. One enemy you’ll need to watch out for in legendary difficulty is the new sub-faction of military organisation Black Tusk, who’ll come after you with revitalised ferociousness.
It's worth keeping in mind that legendary difficulty is not for the faint-hearted. To select it, your agent first has to reach level 40. From there, you can trigger it during three missions: Roosevelt Island, Capitol Building, and District Union Arena. As well as legendary difficulty, you can also select a new heroic global difficulty, which affects the overall open world, including control points and bounties.
Activate directives for more XP
Those after an even greater challenge may activate directives. These are essentially gameplay modifiers that enhance the difficulty of main missions, side missions and open world activities. You can have up to five directives active at once, scaling up the XP rewards while scaling down your chances of survival. It’s proper risk/reward stuff.
Afterall, no one likes a difficulty spike – for example, where enemies suddenly pose an insurmountable threat and you have to quit the mission to put it on easy mode. Directives remedy that by giving you greater control over the level of competition, allowing you to finetune it just enough that it tests you without making you want to pull out your own hair. That stuff takes ages to grow...
The new map
This may take place in the same city as 2016’s first game, but it’s a completely different area entirely. Instead of traipsing around Times Square and Madison Square Garden again, Lower Manhattan introduces the likes of Wall Street, Chinatown, Battery Park, and Two Bridges.
It also looks markedly changed. Eight months on from the winter outbreak that unleashed smallpox on an unprepared population, all the snow has melted away to reveal an almighty mess. Streets are flooded and sinkholes abound. The hurricane certainly didn’t help. In the intervening months, New York City was hit by a massive storm that ripped up subway tunnels, caused oil tankers to run aground, and even tore the Brooklyn Bridge in half. Good job the Division agents are here to save the day, right? Well...
Your base of operations
On the upside, at least there’s less noise pollution. Division agents are no longer knights in shining armour. Distrust is rife among a population who’ve had about enough of their heavy-handed ways. As such, what’s left of the government isn't overseeing your new base of operations, located in city hall. Instead, Haven, as it’s known, is run by the Peacekeepers. This civilian group has replaced the now-disbanded Joint Task Force coalition of police officers, firefighters, and civil volunteers, making it their duty to save America from itself.
Expect plenty of tense conversations with the Peacekeepers in Haven, as well as everything else you’d want from a good base of operations, including crafting benches, upgrade tables, and weapon vendors. It’s nice they’re not making you travel all the way back to White House between missions for a breather, because that would be quite a trek. In fact, it’s impossible to do so: once you start this expansion, you cannot return to Washington D.C. until you finish it.
A truly open world
There’s another fundamental change to the map in Warlords of New York, and that’s the lack of level restrictions. Now you can enter any district you like without worrying that you’re under-levelled. This means you’ll be able to freely take on whatever mission you like in any order you choose. Don’t worry about enemies losing their bite as you level up, though. AI scales with you, giving you a consistent challenge throughout.
At the start of the campaign, a fog of war covers your map screen, and only by visiting areas can you add them to your map. This incentivises you to roam far and wide across Lower Manhattan, making Warlords of New York a far more open expansion than any seen before.
Seasons
The Division 2’s seasons give you reason to return, rolling out new events and activities over a 12-week course. The first one kicks off one week after Warlords of New York launches. During its runtime, you’ll have the opportunity to take part in seasonal manhunt targets, leagues, apparel events, season events, and reimagined global events. The latter – and its temporary modifiers – has proved popular with fans. One example of how it alters the game is by making all headshots explosive.
Succeed and you’ll earn rewards, from skill mods, to seasonal gear, to cosmetics. In order to qualify for the season and take part in the in-game activities, you’ll first need to have reached level 40.
How to buy it
Warlords of New York launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on March 3, followed by a Stadia release shortly after. New players can buy it in a bundle with The Division 2 (it requires the base game to play), while existing players can purchase it outright for £24.99.
Accessing the expansion requires you to have hit level 30. Don’t worry if you haven’t, though, because you can choose to boost your character straight to level 30 and start cavorting around Lower Manhattan immediately. To get nice and prepared for Warlords of New York, you can download the two-mission prologue right now for free if you’ve got a Year 1 Pass for The Division 2. If not, you can download the prologue for free on February 19.
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