The Division and Destiny Comparison

Destiny has had little competition in the Shooter MMO realm since its release over a year ago, but with the release of Tom Clancy's The Division rapidly approaching, could its player base be at risk of jumping spaceship for a ruined city?

The similarities are hard to miss but let’s just start with the story. They may take place hundreds of years apart, but both revolve around rebuilding a beat down human civilization, The Division drops players in a disease ravaged ruin of New York, while Destiny has you running around ruins on other planets. Of course there’s a good reason for using a post-apocalyptic setting for a game as it pretty much lets you do whatever you want with the story.

Although we don’t have the full picture of what The Division holds, the overall gameplay looks like it will be very comfortable for the Destiny player. There will be safe zones (social areas) that you use to regroup and restock before heading out into the dangerous quarantine zone. Once in the quarantine zone you’ll be fighting to reclaim lost parts of the city, while looking for any sweet loot that you may come across.

Speaking of that sweet sweet loot, it’s one more area that the two games cross paths. From the brief gameplay trailers and leaks we know that rare weapons and gear are primarily drops off of high level enemies in The Division (which we know to also be true in Destiny). In fact, the endgame content for The Division also appears to place a large focus on boss fights. One of the gameplay trailers recently leaked contained a short clip of a flamethrower wielding bad guy with a whole lot of health being chipped away at by a team of 3. If you’ve played Destiny at all you’ll be very familiar with bullet sponge bosses.

Destiny’s weapons have an interesting customization mechanic that revolves around unlocking weapon perks that enhance the guns stats and give it special abilities. The Division looks like it will be offering similar customization, only in the form of modular upgrades like scopes and other attachments. Whether or not guns will get special abilities like Destiny is still unknown.

One of the areas where Destiny and The Division veer away from one another is when it comes to PvP. In Destiny the PvP is cordoned off into controlled matches that players enter into for a set period of time with set objectives. In The Division, you’ll head to “Dark Zone” areas for PvP. Instead of it being structured matches, it’s more of an open world PvP experience where you can either choose to fight or avoid other players you run across.

Open world PvP has had a hard time taking off in the more traditional MMO’s so it will be interesting to see how well it works in The Division.

When you go out on those raiding runs you’ll want to compose your group accordingly. Like the RPG games that came before it, The Division will operate using the trinity system (tank, healer, damage). This is another major difference between The Division and Destiny as Destiny has no real healing class. This could work for and against The Division, as employing a trinity system does encourage team play, but it can also be very restricting if you don’t provide a means to switch your players class or at least have a way for them to play at least one other role.

In terms of advantages one game has over another, it’s impossible to compare a game that’s been out for a year plus with one still in development. That being said, The Division has had a year to analyze Bungie’s moves and communities reaction to them. Hopefully they were able to take those lessons and use them to make The Division a better game.