Attack of the clones: The Division vs. Destiny

It is the question everyone is asking, “Did Ubisoft copy Bungie with their latest title?”.

It is hard to say, although there are elements of Destiny in the game, The Division has set its own course and will make its own “destiny”, excuse the pun.

I am a veteran Destiny player with three level 320 characters and months of gameplay clocked, and while playing The Division for just a week now, I can actually chat about the possibility of it being a clone.

Saying that, it is not an attack on the game, rather a compliment on my side. Let me explain to you why The Division has managed to bring the best of both worlds and created a shooter which will go down in history.

The Division takes place in a post-viral New York City. Smallpox spread on the eve of Black Friday and a few days later society collapsed.

Factions have now been formed to take over what remains of the city. Some are trying to use the infection as a weapon, while others are just determined to loot and kill as much as possible while society is in disarray.

The setting of The Division has barely been done before. Previously all these “end of the world” games are all about zombies, or some sort of version them.

You will not find anything supernatural about The Division at all, rather it is as realistic as other Tom Clancy titles in the past, and lacks any sort of unworldly story behind it.

This is what sets The Division apart from other RPGs in its genre as Ubisoft have managed to merge a shooter with am RPG and MMO, similar to what Bungie did with Destiny – hence the heavy comparisons of the two games.

This is expected though as there has not been such an ambitious game with so many different elements coinciding since Destiny.

But in order to understand the two different games, you need to understand why everyone is comparing the two, and what grounds they have to do so.

As I played through The Division, more and more Destiny showed its face embedded deep within the game’s mechanics

However, as much as I tried to pinpoint the exact copy-and-paste elements, The Division then blinded me with something fresh and new.

The gear system in The Division has a typical RPG feel to it. Weapons and gear range in various ranks from Specialist to High End, and as you level up you will then find better gear that fits into these specific rarities and power ranges.

Blueprints you find in the game are used to make weapons, something that Destiny has never done before, although you will need weapon parts which you obtain in the game by dismantling or “deconstructing” weapons and gear.

The gear system in The Division is unique. Although at times, I did feel that the tiers and level system that the gear relies on mimics Destiny’s, The Division takes an an MMO point of view that doesn’t directly copy Destiny.

In the game, you start off with a crappy green weapon and by the time you are level 30 you have an orange one. This is comparable to Destiny‘s colour system to identify item rarities and strengths.

Rather look at it as an RPG element, Diablo 3 has orange gear, so does The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, and WoW. Just because its guns compared to swords and shields, does not mean it’s a clone.

If there is one thing that The Division has done right compared to Destiny, it is the drop rate of items.

For the first year of Destiny, legendary items were the rarest drop rate and we spent our time grinding mindlessly to try and get rare equipment.

One example of this is the notorious loot cave that saw us shooting into a cave to try and get engram drops. I did not feel that I ever needed to loot a cave in The Division.

The merchants sell guns that you actually want to buy and the guns and gear you find from defeating mission bosses actually have a purpose, and are not just another weapon part.

The Division has a deep skilled-based system which grows as you level up and complete the main missions in the game. You unlock new skills based on three skill trees and earn perks and talents along the same lines as you go about your character improvements.

You can switch to a different class at any time so if you feel like you’re doing a mission and there is no support, then you open your menu and change things up.

One thing that Destiny lacked was a unified skill system. Instead of skills being equal among each character class, if you wanted Weapons of Light then you would have to switch out to another character.

Destiny also lacked balance for each playable class. There was also no real balanced support sub-class for each character.

For example, you would have to tackle raids knowing what your clan was using so that you could keep your squad balanced each time around.

The Division lets you go about structuring your class the way you want when you want to.

Although in the game, the progression of each tier depends on how far you are in each story mission and by the time you hit level 30 you should have each skill available to swap around.

Matchmaking in The Division is very similar to Destiny and any other MMO at that.

When exploring the city you can join up with any players, or invite anyone to your squad. Upon starting main missions, you can change the difficulty to hard or challenging and match with players from around the world.

There is really nothing we can compare here besides the missions themselves, which are packed with content and superb gunfights. The missions are very reminiscent of the challenging Strikes in Destiny.

Each mission in The Division sees you infiltrate an area controlled by one of the gangs in the game, you then fight your way to the boss and kill him.

It’s a typical MMO mission layout and it’s pretty good. What Destiny lacked was the amount of Strikes. When The Taken King came around, they eliminated quite a number of them by moving onto the new gear system.

The Division has many missions to play through. We’ll have to wait and see how these missions will play out post-game and whether they will be relevant after 50 hours of playing.

Destiny’s biggest strength is its fantastic PvP and I have to say that The Division‘s PvP does not come close to replicating it at all, rather it is a different take on PvP completely.

Saying that does not mean it is a game changer in the world of PvP, rather it makes you wish for a solid team versus team based game mode. Give me Team Deathmatch or Domination then we’re talking.

In The Division, the Dark Zone is fun but it really does not show your character’s strength and loadout as much as Destiny’s PvP does.

The Crucible in Destiny requires skill whereas the Dark Zone requires a team of players who are hell bent on taking you down and stealing your gear.

Often this requires very little skill, you just wait for the right moment before extraction and take them down. In terms of PvP, the two games are very different and you can’t really compare them.

In Destiny, you play to get your K/D (Kill/death) ratio up and show just how salty the world is. The Division, on the other hand, is all about loot and surviving long enough to bring it home with you.

The Division has quite a large amount of content in store for gamers with expansions releasing later this year. This is a similar move to Bungie’s release schedule for Destiny.

As for post-game content, we can expect a few raids to be released as well as something Destiny still lacks today, player trading.

How these raids will work is still unknown at this point in time, but after playing the game I am pretty keen for sitting for a couple of hours getting a long rewarding mission done.

All I hope is that Ubisoft gets the reward system for the raids perfected so that we do not sit with another Destiny disaster on our hands. We all know how terrible the reward system for Destiny’s raids has been.

If I had to give a verdict on the comparison between the two, I would have to say that Ubisoft in theory probably wanted to copy Destiny, but not in its mechanics or story.

Ubisoft set out to create a game that was everything Destiny was not and wanted to best Bungie. This is why Ubisoft heavily advertised player trading and post-game content for The Division.

This is something Destiny has lacked for its entire life cycle. Ubisoft took a closer look at the Destiny community than Bungie themselves and took note of everything players wanted in the game.

Somehow, Ubisoft implemented a better version of it into The Division. The game is not a Destiny clone at all, but rather it’s a game that finished what Destiny started.

What are your views on this debate? Let us know in the comments and forum.