Thank you Ubisoft for giving me the oppertunity to try out the private beta for Division 2! I dragged along a friend of mine and together we ventured to the overgrown Washington DC.
First off the game looks great. Every street corner felt handled with care and filled with detail. I loved how alive the city felt with its wildlife and people roaming around. We often got sidetracked by some random alley way that had decent loot. I had an issue with launching the game at first, but that was fixed by disabling my overlays such as geforce experience etc. Another technical issue I and my friend ran into was that the audio sometimes just stopped working. We wouldn't be able to hear eachothers guns or the sounds of our guns reloading etc.
The controls felt very smooth. The animations for vaulting looks great and overall felt neat. It's only during combat that it can feel a bit clunky with trying to take cover. I also wished there was a Hold to Sprint keybinding instead of only a Toggle to Sprint.
The story felt good and not too restricting. it gave enough breathing space to also go and do as you like and I enjoyed how doing the side missions affected your main hubs. Some random missions though, such as public executions could use a bit more heads up. As when we encountered a random event, we weren't always sure what kind of event it was. We also ran into issues where we find audio transmissions and they would randomely stop playing, cutting off before we heard it through the end. An echo near 15th ST NW inside a restaurant didn't seem to activate for us either. The main missions were clear and whenever you were forced to use an item they were highlighted well. I never got confused of what to use or where to go.
The loot felt a bit weird for me. My friend found a variety of guns from different shotguns to snipers while I was mostly just found vectors, model 700s or another AUG. Luckily the share mechanic allowed me to try out the other weaponary as well. I liked new gear stuff as well such as the drone and all. Though I hardly used the turrets or drones that you had to aim manually. It felt a bit chaotic to do that on the fly. I'm not completely sure on the Modifications. I had them all maxed on in the perks section, but still couldn't really use them. It would be nice to specificy which category guns are using the muzzles/mag/ etc, as when I was selecting the perks I wouldn't really know which guns will be able to use them.
We also tried out the Multiplayer Skirmish mode and that was pretty fun. It's a lot about flanking and trying to take the enemy by suprise, while keeping them off your back with the usage of gadgets. I felt that high RPM guns like SMGs or High damage weapons like sniper rifles worked better than ARs though.
We didn't try much of The Dark Zone, but the introduction mission was quite informative without feeling like a big tutorial. We ran around a bit and found some gear, but we mostly just got killed by people being better at the game than we were, haha.
Overall, I enjoyed my time in The Division 2 Private Beta!