The Division is Starting to Self-destruct Because of Gamebreaking Bugs and Exploits

Contributor Paul Tassi argues that bugs and exploits in Tom Clancy’s The Division threathen to damage the health of Massive and Ubisoft’s online-focused third-person shooter/RPG on the pages of Forbes. I’ve heard about some of these bugs myself, in spite of the fact that I haven’t been following the title particularly closely, so they seem to be very widespread:

While I’ve been critical of some aspects of The Division in the past, how the Dark Zone works, the loot system, and so on, that was me trying to suggest ways to make a game I like even better. But now? We’re entering new territory where many aspects of The Division have become downright unplayable, threatening the health of the entire game, and draining the interest of a would-be devoted fanbase.

First, the bugs. Ubisoft games are known for being glitchy at launch, but there hasn’t been anything so (hilarious) as Assassin Creed Unity’s invisible-faced monsters, so it hasn’t been as widely reported. But these bugs are even worse, as they directly impact players’ ability to play the game.

There’s the backpack bug, where a glitch involving an overstuffed pack has locked many players out of their account for ages. Then recently there’s the biggest bug yet, where many Xbox One players logged in to find their characters erased. Though Ubisoft has promised to bring them back, there’s still no ETA on that, nor can these players play on alts, as their entire account progress will be rolled back when the fix comes.

While those are the two major ones, there are so, so many others as well, almost all of which I’ve experienced personally. Players can fall through the floor during missions and be unable to complete them. Many story missions will fail to start at all, leaving solo or grouped players standing around a locked door. The new Incursion is putting some players in an infinite loading loop when they try to play the mission, and many haven’t been able to play it at all as a result. And though it may not be a specific bug, players are heavily abusing the (kick) system, booting players from harder missions to allow friends to join at a late stage, or just for the hell of it.