'Tom Clancy's The Division' Release Date Coming: Three Development Teams Now Working On Game

“Tom Clancy’s The Division” is now being developed by three different teams – with Cary, North Carolina-based Ubisoft Red Storm joining United Kingdom-based Ubisoft Reflections and and Massive Entertainment.

“While Massive is running the development of ‘The Division’ – building everything from their proprietary Snowdrop engine powering the game, to the design of the world, the innovative gameplay systems and the intriguing story – the Swedish studio began to seek out additional Ubisoft studio support last fall,” the developer explained on its blog April 9. “Red Storm was naturally at the top of their list, simply based on their long history with Clancy games. Founded in 1996 with a small team that included Tom Clancy himself, the North Carolina-based studio created the original ‘Rainbow Six’ and ‘Ghost Recon’ – and has been an integral part of the Ubisoft development ecosystem since it was acquired in 2000.”

According to the blog post, Red Storm will be working on the title’s weapons, with a dedicated team of three artists in North Carolina who will collaborate with Malmo, Sweden-based Massive. Red Storm has a lot of history with actual military-based weaponry and has a number of connections with distributors and manufacturers. The company plans to use this knowledge to create weapons that are both realistic and fun. “They knew that surely we must have a team here that knows what we’re doing on that front,” stated Red Storm Producer Tony Sturtzel. “They were right and our weapons team was available.”

“I, personally, have been doing it for about six years now,” Lead Weapons Designer JD Cragg assured gamers. “One of the guys on my team has been doing it for almost nine. This is pretty much all I do – authentic military weapons, vehicles and that sort of thing.”

“One of the huge benefits that we have is our connections with local military,” Sturtzel added. “We’ve had manufacturers come in and literally disassemble the entire weapon all the way down to the nuts and bolts, and our guys are taking hi-res photos of those things. We probably have unparalleled access to these types of things because of our authenticity department and their focus on relationships. We’re not ever gonna let the cat out of the bag on some of the relationships we have!”

The team even promises players “Tom Clancy’s The Division” will have the “most accurate weapons of any video game” – right down to the sounds the weapons make.

Red Storm will also be working on gameplay. “We know that that we can build absolutely the most authentic piece of equipment, right down to the millimeter,” Sturtzel said. “And the guys who are coming in from the gameplay side maybe want to push the envelope a bit, which is a great jumping off point to push the collaboration, because we have to get together regularly and talk about it from both sides.”

Though having three different teams in various locations could be a challenge, Sturtzel assured fans it’s not. “I can’t really say enough about how excited I am to be a part of this collaboration. We’ve so far dealt with nothing but the most professional, talented group of people that I’ve ever worked with. I’m really excited to continue building on that as we go forward in the project.”

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