Tom Clancy’s the Division: or How Ubisoft Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Licking Boots

In 2013, the world lost a beloved author, Tom Clancy. You may not agree with his glorification of the US military, or worship of the military industrial complex and its shiny new toys, but the man is responsible for some acclaimed books, films, and, of course, video games.

Ubisoft have been the publishers of Tom Clancy games for a while now, working with the author up until the time of his death. The Division was one of the first Tom Clancy games that was released without much of his input.

Once revealed, the game was infamously hyped up in its marketing. Its first E3 demo wowed audiences with its graphics, mechanics, and its rendition of a mid-stage-apocalypse New York City. But as the game released in 2016, there was widespread disappointment and an almost universal reception of “meh”.

Those mind blowing graphics were downgraded. The game, which once promised players a near one-to-one scale map of New York, now only offered up a portion of Midtown Manhattan and a tutorial level set in Brooklyn. Bugs. Balance issues. Boredom. Despite selling well, the game seemed as though Ubisoft had once again created something technically impressive, but neither engaging nor fun.

Massive Entertainment, 2016

After years of fine tuning, paid and free content drops, and map expansions into Central Park and the Upper West Side, the Division appears to have found its way again. New global events and end game challenges have extended peoples interest and even enticed new players. I should know, because I’m one of them.

The game itself focuses on the player’s role as an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division, or SHD, a secret government sleeper agency tasked with holding America together in the event of a collapse of law and order during a catastrophe. All agents assume regular lives with regular jobs and regular families, until they are called upon.

Why are they sent to New York en mass? An engineered strain of smallpox has been unleased on the population by terrorists, and everyone is overwhelmed: the police; healthcare workers; the Department of Sanitation; the National Guard; even the Ghostbusters and the Avengers! Roving bands of criminals and assorted maniacs take what they want and kill who they want, and only you and the rest of the Division can stop them!

Players are told throughout the game that they are the heroes of this story – saving New York and bringing some level of civilisation back to the anarchy in the streets. You help set up field hospitals, recover food and other vital supplies from airdrops, and rescue hostages and VIPs in order to better understand the virus.

Massive Entertainment, 2016

Not only are you implied to be the Good Guys™ through quests, objectives, and the overall narrative, but NPCs will let you know you’re doing “God’s work” and thank you in the street as you walk by. You can even pass out food and water to people who are flagged as sick. This doesn’t have any affect in game, as far as I know, but it provides a little humanity in the bleak, snow covered blocks of NYC.

But what if the player isn’t the hero here?

Ask yourself these questions: who are we retrieving the airdropped supplies from? The people who found them before we did.

What criminals are we after? Average citizens who have not seen a policeman or National Guardsman in weeks, and have taken the survival of them and their families into their own hands.

What do we do with them? We shoot them.

Does this sound like a hero to you? I hope not, because these are actions of agents in a totalitarian, fascist state. A country where the government has decided that you are a criminal because you are trying to survive a disaster.

Massive Entertainment, 2016

Let’s take a step back into reality, and examine what exactly the Division is based on – a piece of US government legislation called Executive Directive 51. This document, brought into law by George ‘Dubya’ Bush in 2007, ensures the continuation of the federal government in the event of a national catastrophe. 

But Directive 51 has been the subject of criticism for some time, as it is broadly worded, vague, and heavily classified. For example, the president can declare the catastrophe and begin the process of continuity of government, but it is not clear who declares the crisis over.

Further, this legislation is potentially unconstitutional, as it grants the Executive branch of the government (the president) total power over the Legislature (congress and senate) and the Judiciary (the Supreme Court) after the catastrophe is declared. In US law, these three branches are meant to be equal and separate, no matter the situation.

Massive Entertainment, 2018

There is also the related Patriot Act, which has overseen the expansion of militarised police forces throughout the United States and the erosion of civil liberties by the US surveillance state, such as gifting the NSA the power to spy on American citizens’ communications without a warrant in the name of counter-terror operations.

It is within this complicated national security debate that the Division exists. The SHD is under the direct control of the President and has been granted jurisdiction over New York City in order to restore order by any means necessary. Essentially, this is the President’s private paramilitary being given carte blanche to do whatever it wants.

Sure, the player is given the opportunity to help people, but these people fear you too. Directly you raise a weapon these NPCs will scatter, anticipating the player will start shooting. And why would they not believe that to be the case? Because players spend a majority of their time violently encountering an enemy faction simply referred to as “Rioters” – people who loot and scavenge for supplies just to get by for another day or two. In fairness, often times the Rioters attack the player first, but at the same time there is no option for non-lethal takedowns, arrests, or achieving a peaceful resolution. There are only firefights and executions, with no real attempts at ensuring due process. The idea that violence is the most efficient solution to societal issues is a running theme in fascist ideology – from the Nazis to Franco to our current crop of white supremacists.

Massive Entertainment, 2018

The US government also appears to have contracted a private security firm before activating the Division to pacify New York called the Last Man Battalion. Unfortunately, once the money ran out they became a hostile entity to all government agents and began acting like a territorial gang of thugs. The use of a private military contractor on US soil is not as fantastical as you might think – after Katrina, private security firms were hired to patrol New Orleans by the Department of Homeland Security, with at least one contractor reporting that they opened fire on unarmed civilians whilst there. The increasing use of private security firms in law enforcement around the world may have also had an influence here, but there is also a notable quote from Mussolini, who once said that Fascism is “the marriage between the state and corporate power”.

“But Matt”, I can’t hear you asking, “the Division 2 is coming out soon and you’re fighting the fascists!” You may be right, as these wannabe successors don’t look like a nice bunch, but the sequel may just be goose-stepping down the same path. Set 7 months after the first game, the Division 2 puts Washington DC at the centre point of a new American Civil War, and sees players working to restore the old order of government. They will work with the isolated communities spread out in the new DC swamp to reinstate the previous government, but this implies that these communities, who have watched the SHD execute their friends and families for looting the wrong store at the wrong time with total impunity, want those people back in power. How is the old order any better than what could come next, or even what they have now?

I suppose much of this comes out of the fact that these are Tom Clancy games, which can quite fairly been seen as near fascist fantasies; worshipping the military industrial complex and the US military, despite its numerous flaws and failings. But at the same time, Ubisoft is the company that created Assassin’s Creed, and Watch_Dogs, both series that deal with rebellion and upsetting the status quo. Without outwardly offering any criticism or self-awareness, this is a truly schizophrenic position to be in.