Tom Clancy fans are clamoring for the release of the new video game The Division later this year, but the author and game developer UbiSoft are frustratingly tight-lipped about an actual release date as speculation on a March alpha looms ahead.
Tom Clancy's The Division has already been delayed from the original launch window last year, but Ubisoft is careful to stay away from specific release dates for this year.
But next week's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco is thought by many to be where the game will make a big announcement. Will that announcement be the release of an alpha or beta test, or will it be more about a possible release date? No one is quite sure at this point, but the fact that Ubisoft is sending people to GDC for interviews points to some news coming soon.
Tom Clancy's The Division is a third-person shooter game that combines traditional role-playing game elements with those of a survival game. The game takes place in an apocalyptic setting where you're part of a special team of tactical agents that is hired to restore order when a disease spreads through New York City. The team, known as the "Strategic Homeland Division (SHD)" or "The Division" for short, are given direct authority by the president of the United States to do whatever is necessary to stop the spread of the outbreak.
The Division was originally set to be a console-exclusive title, but the developers stated that other platforms have not been ruled out after online petitions called for the game to be released for Windows as well. During E3 2013, Ubisoft announced that the game will be playable on tablets as a supplement to the full game, and later that year, the PC Windows version was officialy announced.
"The game engine works well, it's not done, but works well. The actual game development has barely started, however," an anonymous insider said regarding the game's development. Because of the use of an in-house game engine called Snowdrop, the game is taking much longer to develop than those that use something like HeroEngine or Unity.
But a recent interview following Ubisoft's quarterly earnings report states that Tom Clancy titles The Division and Rainbow Six Siege will both launch in 2015.
"Today, Ubisoft held their third quarter 2014 financial call for investors and analysts and also provided some updates on their line-up for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in 2015. Ubisoft reconfirms that new installment in Assassin's Creed franchise (which is rumored to be Assassin's Creed: Victory set in Victorian Era London), Tom Clancy's The Division and Rainbow Six Siege will launch in 2015," Gamepur noted.
The game's February 2015 Q&A also speaks up about the game and how important it is to be authentic. "This being a Tom Clancy game means that we strive to be authentic. This is particularly important when we create the world and the various enemies and allies that populate it," Massive Entertainment IP Developer and Communications Exec Martin Hultberg said.
And localization is another big deal to the Ubisoft team as the game is said to be aiming for an "unprecedented" level of localization for a global audience. "Rest assured, we like to go the extra mile," said Localization Project Manager Ștefan Petrică. "We aim to always challenge ourselves and attain that level of quality each player desires, for we take pride in our finely crafted products. Therefore, I hope you'll be at least as excited as I am whenever you play this great title!"
Tom Clancy's The Division will release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows platforms later this year.
