The Division Resurgence Gives You The Dark Zone on the Go

The Division series is a truly odd one. It's the Tom Clancy ethos writ large, depicting a picture of complete societal collapse and yet somehow, US Government agents with guns still survive. They're also the progenitor of the Extraction Shooter genre, but that's a conversation for another day. 

As someone who was addicted to the first Division game back in 2016 and have spent hundreds of hours grinding to WT5 and doing solo DZ runs for the adrenaline rush of it, I was a little skeptical when they initially announced a mobile game back in 2022. Of course, how would they capture what most fans love about both the first game and the second game in a mobile game?

Title: The Division Resurgence

Developer: Ubisoft

Publisher: Ubisoft

Platforms: iOS, Android

The Green Poison Prequel

The Division Resurgence takes place during the events of the first Division, to the early Green Poison outbreak days in New York City, as we play as a first-wave Strategic Homeland Division (SHD) agent, whereas in the first Division we play as a second-wave SHD agent. Fans of the original game might be familiar with the setting and characters as the game takes place in the same map - Manhattan, albeit half the size of it and you’ll also meet familiar faces such as Faye Lau and Jessica Kandel. Resurgence basically serves  to expand the Division lore with new factions, missions, and enemies.

The story plays out similarly to the previous Division games, taking place at the start or during a pandemic and the SHD has to maintain order as various opposing factions rise and society fractures. Considering it takes place in Manhattan, you’ll meet familiar factions such as Raiders, Rikers, Cleaners and newly added Freemen.

You progress through the story and play the different game modes such as the Dark Zone and Conflict as you expand your weapon arsenal, improve your gear score and upgrade your skill trees according to your playstyle and team needs, pretty much the usual Division loop fans of the franchise are familiar with.

The Core Loop

Sometimes mobile ports or mobile game versions of existing PC/console games tend to stray away from what makes the game “feel” good to play, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and fortunately Resurgence captures exactly what it felt like to play the Division games. The movement feels fluid and the gunplay feels snappy.

While general movement feels fluid, the cover system, which is a core mechanic of the franchise, feels a bit stiff and sometimes unresponsive, at least when we used touchscreen inputs which made moving into and out of cover difficult which I’ll talk about more in the next section.

Specializations makes its return from Division 2 but this time there’s 4 Base Specializations: Demolitionist, Field Medic, Bulwark, and Vanguard. With each Base Specialization offering 2 Focus which are further Specializations for the Base ones so you can pick the skill that suit your preferred playstyle with Demolitionist being an explosive AOE DPS dealer, Field Medic being a healer / AOE poison damage, Bulwark being a crowd controller, and Vanguard being a mobile shooter. All of these Specializations use skills you’re probably familiar with from the series such as Seeker Mines, Oxidizing Hive, Breach Combo, and Scanning Pulse.

Other than combat, the game introduces touch-specific mini-games which broke a bit of the immersion and pacing for me. For example, there was one bomb defusal mechanic that required you to interact with the touchscreen to unscrew panels, move wires, and cut cables. It felt jarring and ruined the pacing for me as it went from intense gunfights, to defusing the bomb through the mini-game, then back to rounds of intense gunfights.

Swipes, Sticks, and Gyros

After having a go with the control schemes the game offers you- the traditional touchscreen controls, a Bluetooth controller, and touchscreen controls with gyroscope, I would definitely recommend a controller for those who want to feel like they’re playing a console game like Division 1 and 2 or touchscreen controls with gyroscope for those who want a more unique experience to Division while also having a more precise mouse-like aim. The whole run and cover system that the franchise is known for is also a little difficult to do on the phone as you still have to aim and shoot while you do that, which is another reason why I recommend using a controller such as a PS5 controller, Backbone, or just any supported Bluetooth controller.

One of the issues I faced with the Bluetooth controller was that, while the game has full controller support, menu navigation and touch-specific mini-games don’t seem to have intuitive controls for controllers as you’re only given a mouse pointer and you have to move the pointer around to navigate menus and solve the mini-games instead of just moving through menu buttons or rotating the sticks seamlessly. Otherwise, combat felt very fluid in terms of movement, the cover system and shooting though you might need some tweaking especially when it comes to the sensitivity as I found myself over-flicking several times when trying to aim or tracking at enemies.

Looking through the control settings however, there seems to be a menu for keyboard and mouse. While I haven’t personally tested it, it seems like a nice addition especially for players who are looking to get into the game and prefer playing with their PC setup just like how they played The Division 1 or 2 on PC.

Manhattan In Your Pocket

Resurgence visually looks stunning especially for a mobile game, while it doesn’t completely capture the beauty of Division 1’s Manhattan but for something that you can play on-the-go, it’s still impressive. Running on my Galaxy S23 Ultra with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the game runs at a capped ~30FPS on the highest settings (Very High) with everything maxed out.

While the graphics were impressive for mobile, I experienced some minor texture pop-ins both during gameplay and in cutscenes especially between scene or shot changes. Another problem I faced was that because of the small screen size, it made distant enemies a little bit difficult to spot and I had to rely on either the floating health bars or the enemy indicators on minimap, rather than the actual enemy character models.

You can adjust the framerate setting between Standard, Medium, High which is basically 30FPS, 45FPS, and 60FPS respectively however, this will force you to lower the graphics settings with High framerate (60FPS) forcing you to play at Medium graphics and Medium framerate (45FPS) forcing you to play at High graphics.

My personal recommendation would be to play at High graphics and Medium framerate (45FPS) as it provides a nice balance between graphic fidelity and gameplay smoothness. I’m hoping this is something that is not tied to the device used or at least something that gets changed later on as more devices are becoming capable of running at Very High graphics at 60FPS.

The Division Resurgence Verdict

Fans of the original The Division will be pleased to know that Resurgence isn’t just a 1:1 mobile port of the game. The story runs parallel to the events of the original game but also expands on the lore and offers a perspective from the first wave of SHD, adds new quality-of-life changes catered for mobile, and maintains the immersion and feel of the original- especially the Dark Zone.

While it’s definitely re-sparked my interest in the series and definitely a nice entry for players who want to get into the franchise but never had the chance to with the previous two games, it’s hard to stay it has much staying power or hook for veterans of the franchise especially for those who already play the games on their PC or consoles. That said, it’s still definitely worth a go if you’re even remotely interested in the franchise or looking for a new looter-shooter to try out on mobile.

Game reviewed on Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Review access provided by Ubisoft