Interview – How The Division: Resurgence squeezed the MMO looter shooter onto mobile

The days of match-3 and bird-flinging puzzler being the heights of mobile gaming are long behind us, and we now see the likes of Call of Duty, EA Sports FC and more have mobile counterparts, not to mention megahits like Genshin Impact where phone and tablet are first in mind. Yet there’s still something about The Division: Resurgence finally launching for iOS and Android that feels like a bit of a milestone moment to me.

First announced back in 2022, in the middle of a lull for the series on consoles and PC, it’s taken a good long time for it to finally launch this week. We spoke to Producer Pierre-Hughes Puechlong about how it came together and the scope for what it offers.

The game sets you as a First Wave agent that is sent to a snowy New York right at the start of the outbreak, but soon skips ahead to a later point in time. Pierre told us that, “If you’re a fan, you will be very happy that the game is canon to the the universe of The Division so the actual story takes place between The Division 1 and The Division 2 so I guess it’s a prequel and a sequel at the same time, depending which other game you are referencing it from.

“And the thing is, if you’re a fan, clearly you will find yourself in your familiar universe and in the lore you know. Obviously there are new things – I don’t want to spoil too much on the narration part – but clearly with a brand new faction for example, even if you’re a fan, you’re going to have some surprises. And of course, if you are not a fan or a player of The Division, it’s not a problem at all. You don’t need [to have played before] to enjoy the game at all.”

I’d agree on that front, given that you have the introductory prologue to build you into the game, and then are dropped into a New York that feels very familiar to the first game. Sure, there’s a quick story recap, but for me, this is a video game story and setting that lives on its vibes. Still, we do have the Freemen – the new faction that Pierre mentioned – and returning factions like the Cleaners and Rikers that you’ll do battle with, each providing a different kind of challenge. The Freemen, for example, come with hefty homemade armour that you need to chip away. You’ll need to spec up and build up your character class to overcome the mounting threat.

“When you start, after the tutorial, you can select one of the currently available classes,” Pierre told us, “and you’re going to be able to pick different skill trees in terms of specialisation on top of your gear, your weapon, your equipment and all, and you may have not seen it yet because we want to make sure also players are comfortable and learn the systems peacefully you know, and at the class level, you actually have several skill trees, right? It’s not one skill tree per specialisation, you have several and they offer a broad range of completely different skills as well within each specialisation.”

I’ve personally gone for the Field Medic, heading into the fight with microdrones that can be used in two ways. The Tactical Pharma focus makes them corrosive and deals more damage over time as you target enemies, while the Combat Medicine focus shifts that over to supporting, healing and reviving teammate.

“My favourite one is the Bulwark,” Pierre said, “because at the end of the day I’m so glad, even if I can take cover automatically or manually, then anytime I’m shot at I have my shield and that makes a whole lot of difference when someone is trying to get in front of me, because well I’m shooting at them, I’m absolutely protected by that. Not to mention the fact that you have that little skill to stun your enemies with the electronic projectile you can throw at them. So yeah, definitely the Bulwark!”

And, of course, the real reason why you have different classes – five of them at launch – is to foster team play in addition to different individual approaches. This is an MMO, so there’s tons of other players scurrying around doing missions, jumping into world events alongside you, and you can matchmake into instances that are open. The map is roughly half the size of The Division 1’s, but it’s still open for you to run around and explore, and it’s filled with all of the activities and game modes that you’d expect.”

While I’m still working my way through the main story, Pierre told us, “Right at launch and for free you’re gonna have a massive story experience, if that’s the part of the game you like, with main missions that you have to go through, not to mention the dozen of secondary missions we have and if you want to explore the open world and join the site activities and so on and so forth. And for the future of the game, well, I can’t wait to share more on our roadmap for the players, but in the meantime, I think the easiest is just to stay tuned and join us on our community channels and make sure you can chat with us, because we are so happy to collect feedback and chat with our players and fans.”

The difference, of course, is that mobile gaming can have a different cadence to a sit-down console experience, so you might want to jump in and out of the game more compulsively.

“Because it’s also a mobile game, it’s all about your play style.” Pierre confirmed, “If you want to spend a lot of time just enjoying the game, whether it’s about completing open world activities or starting a PvP match, a PvPvE experience in the Dark Zone, it’s up to you. But you can also complete and just enjoy a few minutes of gameplay here and there, because that’s the beauty of it, right? You’re on mobile, you can play anytime, wherever you want. And the same, you can instantly switch between playing alone or with your friends, join your clan, just ask who is online at this time and just join them because it’s an MMO at its heart and it’s going to give you tons of options to enjoy the game differently.”

Underpinning this game is Unreal Engine, as opposed to Massive’s original Snowdrop engine, since Ubisoft jumped to the more broadly used tech for this game. While it can still look good, it has led to a shift in the visual fidelity and tone when compared to the previous titles, and I asked Pierre the thinking behind this.

“Well, it’s as simple as, I mean, you know how game development works. It’s the compromise between all the constraints and the needs we had back then that ultimately led us through Unreal Engine. And we are very happy [to launch] The Division: Resurgence and […] mobile players will be able to enjoy a game with high quality graphics, especially with our open world New York, on mobile for the first time so we are very, very happy to be there.”

The Division: Resurgence is out now for iOS and Android. Check out our review in progress here, and keep an eye out for our scored review down the line.