‘Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’ Is The Perfect Apocalyptic Game For This Moment

Walking down Washington, DC’s 12th Street, I try to commit my route to memory. I’m told upcoming video game Tom Clancy’s The Division 2‘s rendition of the city is accurate enough that I could recreate my route, and I’m eager to give it a try.

“We are very mindful of virtual tourism as a pillar of our production,” says Chad Chatterton, lead environment artist on The Division 2. “We want that exact experience for players.”

Well, almost exact. The chaotic streets in the game are so changed that in some ways they’re unrecognisable. Yet sure enough, beneath them a recognisable spirit is entwined around some very recognisable bones.

In the real world, a man at Lafayette Square minds a collection of signs facing the White House’s northern windows. “Love thy neighbour (no exceptions),” they read. “Wanted: Wisdom & Honesty.”

Behind The Division 2’s dilapidated White House, in almost exactly the same spot, similar signs stand staked into the park’s overgrown grass. “U are working for the citizens! We demand action!” reads one. “Where is order & law?” says another.

Both groups illicit no response. In our world, no-one’s listening. In The Division 2, no-one’s left.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is set in a world where a smallpox epidemic has ravaged the globe, killing billions. Deliberately spread via infected dollar bills during New York’s 2015 Black Friday sales, the engineered virus had no cure or vaccine, and quickly spread.

In the US, sleeper agents for the Strategic Homeland Division were activated to help restore order and combat aggressors. Now, seven months later, these agents have received a distress call from Washington, DC – their base of operations.

Driving through real-world Washington, my Uber driver tells me New York is only an hour flight away, or a four hour road trip if you prefer to drive. He asks me where I’m from, then where I’m from originally. I forgive him because he has lived in America for 21 years but is still Ethiopian.

“The president doesn’t like us,” he says.

It’s impossible to avoid politics here. Washington, DC is the political heart of the Western world, and its vessels run thickest here. Every street reminds you of the omnipresent authority thrumming beneath.

Stone buildings trimmed with American flags stand among monuments to dead presidents. Statues of historical figures appear to populate every park. The sky remains visible and the streets “light and airy” due to laws regarding building heights, but the architecture is as politicians perceive their own jaws: Square, strong and built on European traditions.

It’s a striking city, containing many of the world’s most recognisable structures alongside a cohort of powerful government organisations. The US Capitol is a straight 20 minute stroll from Trump International Hotel, which is just across the road from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters.

If you’re going to build an almost 1:1 recreation of real city in a video game, Washington, DC seems an obvious choice. And if you’re depicting the utter collapse of society as we know it, there are few symbols that convey this as efficiently as the US Capitol on fire.

Chatterton recounts a research trip he took to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial next to the Pentagon.

“I turned a few degrees and took a [photograph] down the side of the Pentagon, and three or four guys came out of nowhere, grabbed my camera and deleted that shot.”

According to him there are over 20 security services in the city – a statistic that isn’t hard to believe. After all, Washington is rife with high value targets. I myself saw several men equipped with guns and vests during my exploration.

Nevertheless, despite the tight security, The Division 2’s development team was able to get significant access to many of the city’s most secure buildings during their research trips.

“You’ll be surprised,” Chatterton tells me. “You get quite a lot of access to the White House.”

In addition to these trips, the developers were helped by the wealth of information about the city available to the public, including LIDAR and GIS data.

“It’s really incredible the amount of public information available on the exact age and purpose of all the buildings we know, the position and age and type of every tree in Washington, DC,” says Chatterton.

Of course, it would be impractical to replicate the precise placement of every tree in Washington, DC, and would take much longer than the three or so years The Division 2’s development team had. As such, they also considered how to accurately recreate the spirit of the city.

“We have to pick and choose what we think will look and feel like an authentic, plausible DC in the hands of the player. So that’s part of the task – we have in a way too much information, and we have to make a choice what things do we not show and what things do we keep that are particularly DC.”

Though The Division 2’s development team were allowed to investigate many of Washington’s nooks and crannies, not everything in the city is accessible to the public. For example, the secret of how the National Archives Building protects the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights when not on display is as heavily guarded as the documents themselves.

To fill these information gaps, the developers flexed their imaginations.

“We do as much research as we can to that space, we look at similar buildings, we look at the likelihood and potential of the spaces that we can’t access, and then we build into that,” says Chatterton. “So, do our best to recreate what’s there and then we build on that fantasy where we have to.”

Rather than ascending its imposing stone steps, visitors to the National Archives Building enter through a side door. A security guard tells us there are “no photos, no photos, no photos and no photos” allowed, then clarifies that this means we are not allowed to take photographs.

Heavily faded after years of neglect, the historical documents we’ve come to see are now protected by climate-controlled cases in the building’s Rotunda. Two guards flank the centre display, and two giant oil paintings depict the origins of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The murals in The Division 2 are different, and the guards are long gone, but the in-game images I’m shown retain the building’s structure and spirit. In a side mission, players enter the Archives to make like Nicholas Cage and steal the Declaration of Independence. Though parts of the building are invented out of necessity, Chatterton tells me it culminates in the player ascending into the recognisable Rotunda.

The development team was also able to get creative when dealing with Washington, DC’s typically unseen underground spaces.

“We do tend to take more liberties once you get underground,” says Chatterton. “You know, out of sight, out of mind. A lot of people don’t know even about the undercroft under the Lincoln Memorial.”

“It’s quite easy to tap into ideas of, you know, nuclear bunkers, secret passages, to ensure the safety of important figures and all that kind of thing. So there’s very true and actual examples of those things, and then there’s other things that we don’t know about that we play into.

“So for us, the underground in Division 2, we really try to push that as a space for exploration for the players. There’s special loot down there, there’s even faction archetypes that you just find underground, collectibles, Easter eggs, we have a bit more fun down there.”

Even with accessible locations, The Division 2 made some concessions to ensure engaging gameplay. The Dupont Underground – an abandoned tram station currently being turned into an art space – was moved into the area covered by the game.

Liberties were also taken with building interiors. “We built a lot of missions and side missions into iconic locations,” said Chatterton. “And the more gameplay you’re building into an interior, the more adjustments you have to make so that it flows and plays well, ‘cause that’s more important than hitting the exact metrics of the building that’s there.”

But largely, The Division 2 aims to recreate Washington, DC as accurately as practicable, and retains the city’s overall layout and structure.

Viewing the in-game map, I can recognise the shape of the streets and the location of landmarks. My hotel on K Street is just outside the area available in the game’s beta, but it’s exciting to think that I could relive my visit in the full game, walking the same roads and exploring the same places.

In The Division 2, Pennsylvania Ave NW is littered with cardboard signs, abandoned vehicles and fallen barriers. An empty gurney stands by an empty ambulance. 

In the real world, the street is clean to the point of sterility, roped off with police tape and guarded by Secret Service agents. A man with a beanie and a metal cup holds up a cardboard sign reading “Fuck Trump” and displaying his Instagram, Twitter and Cash App ID.

In both worlds, the White House still stands, and the people within it decide their country’s future. But at least in The Division 2, they’re making it better.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will arrive on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on March 15.

 

Junkee travelled to Washington DC as a guest of Ubisoft.