The Division 2 is one of our top games coming out in March and it’s finally here. If you’ve already pre-ordered it you might be hitting end game now. But if you were waiting to see what all the hype was about then you may only be starting now. Well, keep on reading if you want us to help you save the world.

What Skills To Unlock First?

The first question for any game ever. What skills. Now, there are a lot of tempting skills and perks you’ll want to unlock. The automated turret that helps with crowd control. That chem launcher that fires a canister of gas, making the entire area flammable. But do yourself a favour and get yourself a second primary weapon, first. I’m sure the reason is pretty self-explanatory. The rest depends on your play style.

But don’t pick Pulse. Pulse was a signature skill in The Division 1, and with enemies even harder to spot in The Division 2, you would think it would be useful here too. It isn’t. The range on Pulse is hilariously terrible at base level. You can increase this later on in the game but at the beginning, you can literally be looking at enemies a few dozen yards away and your Pulse will tell you the area is all clear. Its range is just pitiful so don’t waste your first few skill points on it. Later on, is another option.

Other perks worth investing into (in whatever order you want) would definitely be armour kits and XP bonuses. Additionally, there’s a perk that gives you increased vision of loot objects in the world for a set amount of time. This means that it will highlight all loot objects in the world very clearly, allowing you to see just how much crap there is to find. This will get you way, way more crafting materials and possibly even gear if you find bigger chests this way. This would be a later game skill though.

Armouring You Up

This is almost too obvious a point but you’ll need to keep an eye on your armour health. Because when it fails your health plummets pretty fast. Make sure to use an armour kit to repair it.

A key change in The Division 2 is that enemies also have armour, surprise! Heavy enemies have separate bits of protection on their arms, chest, and head. Focus on weakening specific location and you’ll knock that armour off, exposing the easier to hit flesh below. It can take a while to wear down, but once it’s gone you can watch their life bar plummet.

The new chem launcher’s corrosive clouds are one of several abilities designed to deal with heavily armoured enemies, and it’s a whole lot more satisfying than pumping lead into what feels like bulletproof baddies. Stay in cover, use abilities, and pick your shots.

Control Points Are The Best Sources Of At-Level Loot

Obviously, the point of this game is to get as much good loot as possible, and the best way to do this is to take over control points. Control points can be spotted out on the street as basically barricaded spots on the road.

Completing them will unlock a supply room that almost always has 2-3 pieces of armour and 2 weapons in chests in it. The best part? The gear will always drop at your level no matter what zone you’re in. And they’re usually the higher end of whatever is currently available at your character’s level, be that blue, purple or gold gear. Start doing control points right after you level up so you can get 4-5 pieces of new gear exactly at your new level.

The GPS Arrow May Not Be The Best Option To Follow

Have you ever put in your destination in Google Maps and have them take you the long way round? Well, The Division 2 seems to want to recreate that experience, for some reason. The game even warns you about this, saying the GPS arrow is not the fastest way when you create a waypoint. The problem with the arrow is that it does not factor you doing things like…not walking on roads. You’re better off picking that waypoint in the horizon and just running toward it, forcing the GPS arrow to adjust to you. As it will not do things like assuming you can walk over grass or jump over objects. The GPS arrow is most useful for navigating out of confusing buildings or in the sewer system, but for general travel, it can waste more time than it saves if you follow it exactly.

The Best Skills For Playing Solo

The Division 2 can be a bit brutal to play solo. Particularly during open world activities with no checkpoint and no one to revive you. Here are two skills you’ll definitely want to sink some point into if you’re playing solo.

The auto-fire Sentry Turret or Drone Turret. Having this is basically like having another guy on the field taking hits for you. Even if they don’t take as much damage as actual teammates. Just having them dividing the enemies fire will be a lifesaver. Remember you can also hold down the deploy button to blow them up before they expire naturally, which shaves minutes off their cooldowns.

The Hive Revive perk actually will auto-revive you on death as a solo player. So that’s very useful when you’re 0ut on the field and the last respawn point was miles away. A must for any solo player.

Craft Every Weapon Mod You Can

The mod system has totally changed in The Division 2 for guns, where all gun mods are things you only craft once and then they are unlocked permanently for every gun they apply to. As such, as soon as you have the materials, you should craft any mod that sounds interesting because it’s a permanent unlock that will apply to all weapons for the rest of the game, unlike gear or skill mods. I would…not craft weapons or armour until you hit the endgame and get actually good blueprints for those. Crafting blues becomes pointless pretty quickly.

Rewards For Exploration

The Division 2 is a game that rewards exploration. You’ll find some of your best high-end gear from the random weapon and armour chests in the wild. Not attached to a mission, not as boss drops, but literally just exploring around and finding random chests. I think some of these chests are weighted for higher drops than others. Explore. You will be rewarded

Literally, Any Random Enemy Can Kill You If You’re Not Careful

Do not underestimate any enemy in the The Division 2. If you don’t take every enemy encounter seriously you can end up wasted and marching all the way back to your body again. This isn’t Destiny where a Dreg can stand there shooting at you for ten minutes and not break through your shield. In The Division 2, even if you encounter three red bar enemies on patrol if you take them on out of cover and don’t immediately kill all of them, even a single clip from one can waste you. This is not to say that it’s just impossibly hard, but it does say that you need to be hyper away of every engagement and where every enemy is at all times. Any one of them can end you if you give them the chance.

Gear Brand Sets Give A Bonus

 The Division 2 gear is available from hats to trousers, knee pads to gloves. This is as much for protection as it is looks, and this time it’s all branded. Like those rich kids growing up think, collecting all the branded sets can give you a boost. If you accumulate gears of the same brand they will unlock talents. When you get two gear items with the same brand you will unlock a talent, three will unlock a stronger talent.

Changes To The Dark Zone

In the previous Division, the Dark Zone was a place to fear. This time things are a little less dangerous. Previously all your hard earned loot could be reaped from another player in the zone. Now there’s loot you can send straight to inventory and keep without extraction. In the first game, you were looting contaminated loot and you had to extract it so there was a big risk and reward ratio, and sometimes you could lose everything. Now there’s direct to inventory loot so it no longer needs extraction. Of course, the loot you extract will be better, but now you have loot that just goes to your inventory so even if you die you can keep it.

One of the more interesting elements of the Dark Zone in the first game was the ability to go ‘Rogue’, effectively killing other agents for gear. You could get great loot but also mark yourself as a target to every other person in the Dark Zone. This time the Rogue system has levels. You have the lower Gray Rogue level where you have the option to steal loot that will take you into that first level. So there will be a bounty on you but maybe it won’t create a big incentive for other players to shoot you because then they might turn to the first level of full Rogue. While there’s a bounty time on your head the players that kill you get extra bounty and rewards.

However, if you decide to keep on killing players you’ll reach manhunt status – which his the biggest risk-reward situation. To get out of a manhunt you have to interact with Division terminals that are spread in the Dark Zones. There are three of them. You have the choice when you reach one to trigger it and stop the manhunt and you will get the rewards accordingly. But you can choose to disable the terminal so you have two left, increasing your reward but reducing the choke points for players to come at you. The more risks you take, the bigger the reward.