“What will you do to survive?”
The Division’s 2nd DLC, titled Survival was delayed as the team worked on fixing some core issues; but was it worth the wait? Let’s start on what Survival is. Survival pits you (or a team) of agents going into NYC looking for an experimental anti-virus that has been lost in the Dark Zone, sounds easy right? Well, how about you throw in a storm with temps that drop to -26°C. But thats not all, when you begin your journey you are injured during the crash. Which now gives you an idea on why its called Survival, right? After you wake up in a random part of the map, you (and your friends) are now tasked to survive by crafting weapons, warmer clothes & gear along with searching the map for food, water and medicine. Why, do you think you need to scavenge? As you move throughout the city on your way to The Dark Zone you will need to eat and drink throughout your travel as well as continually find pain killers and medicine, wait what!? Well remember when I stated you were injured? During the crash you contract Sepsis and unless you take pain killers (to numb the pain) or medicine (to slow the progress) you have 1 hour to live.
The concept for Survival is a unique one, it gives you the ultimate feeling of resource management as you scavenge across the map as you have to manage not dying from the cold or disease, you have to also make sure you pick your battles, because your enemies are also out. However, Survival is not like the main game or Underground, in Survival you can ether play PvP or PvE with upto 24 players at a time. The one thing this gives you is a fight or flight when crossing paths with other agents, which can give you the choice to help them, leave them, or wait for them to die and take their stuff because with up to 24 players on the map, resources are scarce. But wait, what happens in The Dark Zone? Unfortunately I do not want to give it away but fight or flight comes into play alot more than in the main map.
With all this, Survival gives you a unique concept that is executed well but it does have a one issue. Loading into Survival does take some time which can leave you not wanting to play alot of this mode but if you can get passed that and get some friends together, Survival is one mode that takes your abilities to the limit. With that, I give The Division: Survival DLC a 8.5 out of 10.
