For all those folks that looked at The Division and thought, “Sure, but I ain’t paying for that,” then do I have some good news for you, cheapskate. Ubisoft has announced The Division: Heartland, a free-to-play spinoff of the franchise that will launch in late 2021 (or early 2022) for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. Presumably those will be the current gen versions of the consoles but there’ll likely be versions for the Xbox One and PS4. Heartland is being developed by Red Storm Entertainment, who you may remember from Ghost Recon but beyond that, we don’t know much about what the game entails.
Let’s be real, it’ll probably be more of the same looter-shooter experience The Division is known for but more… free. So more cosmetics and most likely more microtransactions. Beyond The Division: Heartland, Ubisoft’s roadmap for the franchise also showed off a future mobile game which is probably in development right now, as well as more content for The Division 2, a novel based on The Division (which notably doesn’t have late author Tom Clancy’s name attached, presumably because his estate wasn’t all keen on it) and an eventual Netflix movie which, according to Eurogamer, stars Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal.
It’s honestly remarkable how much blood Ubisoft is able to squeeze out of such an uncompelling stone. The Division never felt like a unique idea to me, just more of Tom Clancy’s gruff soldier dudes doing soldier dude things; doesn’t strike me as having any kind of narrative potential outside of the clichés. Still, I may be speaking too quickly. If you’re interested in trying out The Division: Heartland, you can register yourself here for a chance to playtest the game.
Last Updated: May 7, 2021
