‘The Division 2’ Open Beta Preload Starts Now, Here’s When You Can Play

For those looking to get into the Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 open beta, pre-load is now live with the beta period becoming available tomorrow on March 1. This gives interested fans a chance to check out what’s new with the franchise and how Ubisoft has planned to deliver on their promise of a fulfilling Tom Clancy experience.

How to jump into the action is easy! Just open up Uplay > The Division 2 Open Beta tab > Click “Preload now”. Once the whopping 45GB download is complete, it’s a simple waiting game to play when the beta goes live at 1 AM PST and will last until March 5 at the same time.

For those that played the closed beta, here’s what’s new that you didn’t get a chance to play before:

• Opened Viewpoint Museum mission.
• Capital Ruins now available in Skirmish.
• Chem Launcher skill now available.
• Raised the Level Cap from 7 to 8.
• Character progression in the Private Beta is not carried over to the Open Beta.

There have also been quite a few balance changes as well:

Weapons:

• The drop rate of signature weapon ammo have been increased.
• Adjusted weapon mods to make sure drawbacks are generally lower than the positive bonuses.
• Recoil and accuracy statistics tweaked on several weapons.
• The RPM of semi-automatic weapons have been reduced overall.
• Fixed Lucky shot talent to make sure it doesn’t proc on every pellet of a shotgun.
• Fixed Extra talent to give percentage based ammo increase instead of a fixed number.
• Made several adjustments to the power level and handling of Specialization weapons.

Enemy Health and Armor:

• Decreased Jefferson Trade Center boss’ armor and damage.
• Decreased enemy health/armor in co-op while also slightly increasing enemy lethality.
• Decreased Veteran/Elite Rushers’ Armor by half.
• Decreased armor plating “health” of the Grand Washington Hotel boss on Story mode only.
• Decreased health of early game Hyena NPCs.
• Decreased armor plating “health” for the Underground Tank.
• Decreased the lethality and health/armor of enemy NPCs in the world tiers.

Enemy Attacks and Behavior:

• Removed the Bleed status effect from RPG explosions.
• Decreased damage of the Black Tusk Rusher’s weapon.
• Enemy NPCs will now hit the player slightly more often when the player uses Cover-to-Cover.
• Decreased accuracy of early game Hyena NPCs.
• Decreased accuracy and duration of early game Hyenas Thrower’s tear gas grenades.
• Increased visibility and fuse of tear gas grenades.
• Improved accuracy of the Outcast Tank’s melee attack so that hitting a backpedaling target is easier.
• Increased the team-wide cooldown for enemy NPC grenades, RC Cars, and Suicide Drones.
• Slightly decreased accuracy of the Hyenas Thrower’s grenade launcher.
• Decreased speed of enemy NPC Airburst grenades slightly.
• Increased wind-up time for enemy NPC grenade launchers.
• Greatly decreased the Elite version of the Hyenas Rusher’s stun baton Shock status effect and added a cooldown on when it could be applied again.
• Despite the meme potential (sorry, Reddit), Rushers do not curse as much while rushing the player anymore.
• NPCs will now stop reacting to a Seeker Mine if it is retargeted.
• Decreased the maximum distance enemy NPC Medics will travel to revive their allies.
• Removed erroneous light flare from the True Sons’ Turret.
• Enemy NPC flying drones will now explode mid-air when their owner dies.
• Black Tusk Mini Tanks will no longer erroneously climb ladders, use drop-downs, do leap overs, and other types of special navigation.
• Veteran, Elite, and Named NPCs are now easier to stagger.
• Increased the mobility of the Big Dog during combat slightly. Good dog.
• Enemy NPCs interacting with an object will now be easier to interrupt.
• Decreased movement speed of the Elite version of the Hyenas’ RC Car.
• NPCs will now switch targets a bit more frequently and naturally during combat in co-op situations.
• Elite NPCs will no longer stagger when afflicted with the Disrupt status effect.
• Increased size of Black Tusk Suicide Drone hitbox.
• Decreased speed of Elite Suicide Drone.
• Increased wind-up time for NPCs using a Mounted Weapon and added more signaling to their use.
• Decreased likelihood of early game Hyena NPCs from flanking the player.
• Decreased the Black Tusk War Hound’s self-destruct wind-up time slightly.
• Enemy NPCs are now able to hear nearby bullet impacts.
• Decreased the range at which enemy NPCs hear player gunfire.
• Enemy NPC Throwers and Controllers now attempt to avoid targeting the same player in co-op situations.
• Improved appearance of NPCs using LMGs if they briefly lose line of sight to the player.
• NPCs reaction radiuses now correctly match those of grenades thrown by player.
• Fixed some inconsistences with NPCs reacting to player grenades and skills.
• Black Tusk Revive Drones now correctly shock those around them when their weak point is destroyed.

Combat:

• Decreased time required to automatically “mark” a target.
• Decreased time required to transition out of the combat state for the player.
• Reduced cooldown on combat roll to 0.5 seconds.

Skills:

• Decreased Airburst Grenade and Incendiary Airburst Grenade damage.
• Improved player skill drones’ follow behavior when player is vertically navigating.
• Sniper Turret now does extra damage with headshots.
• Sniper Turret aim improvements to more closely match input.
• Assault Turret aiming improvements to be more snappy and accurate.
• Improved path finding of Seeker Mines so they prefer a more direct path to their target if available.
• Increased movement speed of Airburst Seeker Mine and also reduced enemy NPC detection of the skill.

Mission:

• Greatly reduced difficulty of Grand Washington Hotel mission on replay.
• Improved the combat behavior for Agent Kelso.

There were also a ton of bug fixes as well, which you can learn more about right here on the official Ubisoft blog post!

As for the game itself, The Division 2 is scheduled to release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC platforms on March 15th. Excited for the upcoming sequel? Sound off in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy!