Shock Horror! The Division Beat Delayed Again
In a move that is sure to surprise nobody the long awaited ‘greatest thing ever’ Ubisoft’s The Division Beta for Xbox One has been delayed yet again. The Xbox One exclusive Beta has been pushed back until “early 2016” as reported on the official blog – “We know many of you have been patiently awaiting the arrival of The Division Beta, and we appreciate your patience as the team remains committed to delivering an open-world action-RPG experience that exceeds your expectations on March 8, 2016. With that in mind, we’re changing some of our beta plans to reach that goal, and your participation plays an important part.” If you have preordered the game Ubisoft are going to offer you an exclusive Alpha test running between December 9 – 12 and there maybe wider invites to those on the now delayed Beta test if they require additional testers.
This most recent delay is the latest in a long line of delays and cancellations that are really starting to make me question what state the game is actually in. When Ubisoft showed it off for the first time at E3 2013 like many others i was both blown away by the scale and breathtaking visuals but also slightly concerned that Ubisoft had bitten off more than they could chew. Unfortunately that appears to be confirmed. Not only has there been multiple delays there has been studio changes, direction and writing changes and not to mention the rather giant clanger Ubisoft dropped when it was leaked that the visuals shown off so far may not be possible in the final game. The same thing was aimed at Watch Dogs which looked way better in the development footage than in the final game.
I really hope Ubisoft can get The Division over the line in a state fitting of that initial reveal footage & maybe now they have Rainbow Six out of the door they can throw all their immense resources at it. I’d be happy to wait until late next year for a smooth polished experience of a game that still looks mind blowing in both scale, ambition and presentation but i’m starting to worry more every day.
