The Division 2 has a great selection of enemies, ruffians and soldiers who are designed to keep you moving between cover points as they attempt to flank your position. Amongst the many enemy types, there happen to be Rushers who’ll try and flush you out with shotgun blasts while their comrades provide covering fire. The problem here? Higher difficulty games are currently seeing all enemies adopt an approach to see what lasts longer: Their faces or your bullets.

Fans haven’t exactly been happy with the skill mod system in The Division 2, as the requirements to have mods working in your gear is kind of ludicrous. Developer Massive has heard this complaint, which is why today’s update will rescale the entire system so that perks can match up with your skill level.

I’ve returned from two weeks of leave, which means my brain is currently a coconut flavoured pudding, or a reasonable approximation thereof. For the most part, things have been just fine in my absence, but in my haste to switch everything off and go the hell on holiday, I forgot to remind Darryn to do the draw for the Xbox One The Division 2 Dark Zone competition.

Ubisoft wants to keep The Division 2’s servers full with a constant supply of fresh content that won’t take a whole year to get right. They’re planning to throw a few spanners into the game from as early as next week, when the first major update rolls out and ups the difficulty ante as the focus shifts towards the endgame space.

As a first step towards a future of more live service content, The Division 2 already feels amazingly complete. It works from day one, its various systems are staggeringly deep and its combat is in a class of its own. Everything else that’s still to come over the next couple of years? That’s a satisfying cherry on top of an already massive sundae of excellence.

Is there anything more reliable than a shotgun? It’s the jackhammer of video game weapons, able to carve a path forward with sheer brute force and always satisfying to load another round into its chamber with a satisfying pump of the barrel. In The Division 2, you’ll find plenty of these valuable corrider-cleaners, with the very best shotgun being the Exotic Sweet Dreams.

There’s no shortage of sidearms in The Division 2, but with all manner of SMGs, light machine guns and shotguns available to grab in the ruined streets of Washington DC, these little lifesavers and life-takers are often neglected. The Liberty Desert Eagle on the other hand, is a hell of a gun. With eight rounds and an RPM of 150 it might not sound like much, but it is able to unleash upwards of 30 000 damage in Tier 4 of The Division 2, which is holy smokes a lot for a sidearm.

I’m a big fan of SMGs in The Division 2. They’re nippy, able to offer quick reloads and more than capable of taking down a single enemy before you’ve spent every round in the magazine. Favouring an aggressive playstyle, they’re perfect for the type of player who enjoys closing a gap and getting up close and personal with their prey. One of the more agile SMGs that you can find in The Division 2? Easily the Exotic Chatterbox, which has a staggering 60 bullet magazine and a 700 RPM stat that will absolutely shred anything in front of you.