I’ve been a post-apocalyptic junkie for decades. Long before Hollywood took the genre, turned it into its glitzy subject du jour, and littered it with zombies. Movies like Mad Max and Planet of the Apes, Stephen King’s novel The Stand, games such as Fallout and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl… if it had to do with the end of our world, I was all over it.
So when I first saw the seven-minute gameplay footage for Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s The Division I squealed like a little school girl.
In case you’ve been living in a bomb shelter: the game is set in New York City after a devastating pandemic turns the Big Apple into a rotten core. Basic services quickly cease and everything collapses into a roiling mass of unfettered chaos. “The Division” is activated. This super-secret unit of government agents have been seamlessly embedded into mainstream society for just this sort of worst case scenario. The agents uncover an epic conspiracy and must fight to prevent the end of life as we know it. “When everything collapses, your mission begins.”
Sorry, got caught up in my Movie Trailer Voice there for a second, but doesn’t that sound all kinds of awesome? Be sure to watch the aforementioned 7-minute gameplay footage with a towel.
The Division is set in a persistent, dynamic environment… an online, open-world RPG where exploration and player-progression are essential. If you thought I was describing an MMO, you’re not far off. Though Ubisoft never uses that terminology specifically, that’s more or less what it is.
But my elation at such a fantastic concept was immediately followed by a bout of crying when I learned that it wasn’t coming to the PC. I even found myself whispering out loud that I’d go so far as to buy one of those newfangled consoles in order to play it.
Thankfully, I may not have to.
The French company is nothing if not shrewd. During E3 they revealed that while they were currently focused on console versions, a PC version would be made… if there was a demand for it. Hell, they went so far as to challenge PC gamers by telling us we needed to “sign petitions, get on the forums and post their requests”.
That sounds suspiciously like an old school marketing ploy known as a “fishing expedition“: toss out a line, see what bites. And just like piranhas in the Hudson River… PC gamers have taken the bait!
Sean Tyler started a “Release Tom Clancy’s The Division for PC” petition not long after, and as of this writing nearly 116,000 signatures have been collected. A very good start indeed, but the louder the PC community yells… the more likely we’ll get to be a part of The Division.
So get to clickin’ and jot down your digital John Hancock! While you’re at it, go “like” the associated Facbook page as well. If not for me and my insatiable need to romp around in a magnificent looking post-apocalyptic world… then for the disheveled people of a virtually ravaged New York City.
