A game from another time. Review of the expansion pack Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn

To be honest, I was saddened by the closure of Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland. Not that I'm a big fan of Free-to-Play games, but I like The Division universe and would love to look at it from a different angle, especially since there's been no word on The Division 3 yet. So when Ubisoft unexpectedly announced a new DLC for The Division 2 - Battle for Brooklyn, I didn't hesitate for a second, especially since it really had the powerful vibes of the first The Division. Well, let's see how this second return to New York turned out.

As Ubisoft Connect reminds me, I last played The Division 2 in March 2020, when I was playing through the Warlords of New York expansion and getting a taste of the content that was added to the game during its first year (which was really cool, by the way). It felt a little strange to be playing a game that was about the aftermath of a global pandemic in the midst of COVID-19. Launching The Division 2 now, in 2025, is like going back to a time when we thought the world had gone crazy, when in fact it hadn’t even started yet.

As promised in the trailers, Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn does have a strong vibe from the first part, despite the fact that the events of the expansion take place in the fall, and not in the winter, as in the original game. However, I want to remind you that this is not the first time we have returned to New York, a similar atmosphere was also present in the already mentioned expansion Warlords of New York.

Compared to Warlords of New York, the new DLC is quite small. While the first expansion added four districts of Lower Manhattan to the game: Battery Park, Civic Center, Financial District, and Two Bridges, Battle for Brooklyn only adds two new districts on the other side of the East River: Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO (this is the real name and is an abbreviation for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Two districts, four outposts, 10 SHD containers, and no additional missions.

There are eight story missions in the expansion, unfortunately, you can complete them on the normal difficulty level in just one evening. The second evening will be spent "cleaning" the areas and searching for containers. The Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO areas themselves are quite colorful, but we saw almost the same in the original The Division.

As for the main missions, only the last two story missions – in the Art Museum and at the military base – can be called relatively interesting, but they take place outside Brooklyn and are designed as mini-expeditions, meaning we get there by helicopter. But even they don't measure up to the missions in the Capitol, the oceanarium, or the space museum in the original The Division 2. Not to mention the suburban expeditions in Washington.

In the story missions, we will once again encounter the Purifiers, who this time have a new weapon - a purple flame that causes corrosion and gradually destroys the player's armor. In addition, the DLC returns Smart Covers - special cannons that create temporary shelters.

After The Division 2's release on Game Pass on May 27, 2025, and big discounts on other platforms, the game has seen an increase in new players, so you can always find company to complete missions, expeditions, and bounty hunts on high difficulty levels, but there are much fewer people in the Battle for Brooklyn missions, and that's to be expected.

However, in the main part of the game, in Washington, there are enough people, as well as additional activities that have appeared in The Division 2 in the six years since its release. This is the Black Tusk invasion, with high-difficulty Citadels; and new interesting missions in the suburbs of Washington (the zoo is very cool); and a large expedition to Kenley College; and bounty hunting; and dangerous raids for 8 players; and small classified tasks. Add to this a separate bounty hunting from Warlords of New York, a chic mission in Coney Island and a new endless mode The Summit. That is, The Division 2 really has something to do, over the years the game has grown a lot of additional content.

In general, it seems that Tom Clancy's The Division 2: Battle for Brooklyn is an attempt to bring old players back to the game, while the release on Game Pass is an attempt to attract a new audience. Well, it seems that Ubisoft succeeded. Because despite the small size of the new DLC, I, for example, wanted to stay in the game for longer, replay old missions on a new difficulty, try new modes and raids.

And although The Division 2 is no longer as impressive in terms of graphics as it was 6 years ago, it is still a beautiful game, and on modern PCs it simply flies at maximum settings, and all the bugs have been fixed long ago. So if you wanted to try The Division 2, or return to it after a long absence, the release in Game Pass and the Battle for Brooklyn DLC is a good opportunity. And the notes of nostalgia for the good Covid times are a nice bonus to the gameplay.

PS Still, I'd love to see the world of The Division develop further, including events in rural areas, as we were promised in The Division Heartland, or on the West Coast of the US, in Seattle or San Francisco. But let's not go Free-to-Play this time.