Ubisoft's recently canceled title, Ghost Recon Frontline, had a poor reception when it was revealed, but elements of its battle royale leanings could find a new home in the yet-to-be-announced The Division 3. While Ubisoft currently has no plans for The Division 3, there is an incredible opportunity for the publisher to capitalize on recent trends in gaming if it chooses to.
In late 2021, Ubisoft unveiled a trailer for the next entry in the Ghost Recon franchise which was panned by fans for chasing trends instead of staying true to the mil-sim roots that Ghost Recon had been known for. Among the many criticisms was its overt similarity to Call of Duty Warzone, and less than a year after the trailer dropped, Ubisoft announced it was canceling Ghost Recon Frontline. As the ebb and flow of gaming trends saw an over-crowded market for battle royale titles, Ubisoft's previous entry in the genre, Hyper Scape, also saw an untimely end with its servers shut down less than two years after release.
The Future of The Division
Fans of Ubisoft's suite of Tom Clancy games have their sights set on the upcoming The Division Heartland, which will put the series in a more rural setting with a free-to-play monetization model. While Red Storm finishes work on the upcoming title, speculation is already swirling about the next mainline entry in The Division. With Ubisoft pulling out of the now-canceled E3 in favor of hosting its own event, late spring of 2023 should shed light on the future of the publisher's many celebrated franchises.
While battle royales are currently an over-saturated genre, the emergence of extraction shooters provides a unique opportunity for Ubisoft to catch a trend in gaming at its height, rather than at its tail-end. Many gamers consider the Dark Zone in The Division to be the inception of extraction shooters, with high-stakes PvPvE gameplay which imbues a sense of gear fear in its players. The chance to lose hard-won loot to another player's ambush adds a tension that has proved successful for titles like Escape From Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown, and The Division 3 could expand on that premise.
Combining The Best of The Division and Ghost Recon
The 100 players dropping into an ever-shrinking battlefield that Ghost Recon Frontline boasted in its trailer was a standard battle royale blueprint; its unique spin came from the tactics and realism that are hallmarks of the franchise. If and when The Division 3 comes to pass, a battle royale mode could be a big draw for players who prefer a third-person viewpoint and the moment-to-moment cover-based gameplay that The Division offers. At this point in its lifespan, however, tacking on a prototypical battle royale mode to The Division would feel half-baked, and would need a spin on it that would feel on-brand for The Division.
A better marriage between the two concepts would be to add the sense of scale that Ghost Recon Frontline promised into The Division 3. The Survival mode introduced as an expansion for The Division was a battle royale-lite with 24 agents fighting against the elements and each other in order to obtain lifesaving antivirals and escape the Dark Zone. Expanding on that concept for The Division 3 with the lessons learned from Ghost Recon Frontline has immense potential to bring in and appease both the battle royale and extraction shooter audiences.
While fans of the franchise are currently awaiting more information on The Division Heartland, the prospect of a new The Division title in an urban setting with a larger emphasis on PvPvE gameplay is something fans have been adamant about wanting. As more AAA studios catch wind of the extraction shooter trend like Activision with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2's DMZ mode, a new offering from one of the genre's earliest adopters could take the world by storm.
The Division 2 is currently available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
