Tom Clancy’s The Division – New Video Compares 2013, 2014 & 2015 Builds

YouTube’s member ‘frost Danger’ has released a video, comparing the 2013, 2014 and 2015 builds of Tom Clancy’s The Division. Below you can view the changes that have been made in these builds for Massive Entertainment’s upcoming title. Do note that there are TOD differences between them. Do also note that the 2015 version seems to have been captured by a livestream and not by a direct feed video. Enjoy!

91 thoughts on “Tom Clancy’s The Division – New Video Compares 2013, 2014 & 2015 Builds”

    1. “We can neither confirm nor deny “visual downgrades” compared to builds displayed earlier during the Development Cycle. What we can say, is that things change throughout the development process, & everything you see before Launch is not representative of the Game’s final state.”*

      I won’t be surprised when either that, or something with extremely similar wording TO that is released next year once Division launches & people start firing cannon balls at them because it looks worse than it did when it was first displayed THREE YEARS earlier (2013).

      *Optional: Something about Post-Launch support possibly augmenting graphical fidelity, or, even better – Something vague about a High-Resolution Texture Pack coming in later. *Wink wink*

      1. I work in the IT industry (not games though) and find it strange that the trend has become to make the ‘vertical slice’ look better than the final product. In my line of work, the ‘vertical slice’ is extremely basic compared to the final product, so not sure how game developers manage to get it the other way around.

        1. I’ve actually had this on my mind for a while, so I’m going to ramble for a bit;

          It’s a combination of both Developers & Consumers, in my opinion –

          It used to be, CGI Trailers were touched up, & people knew this, period. Go back to say, Battlefield 3’s Reveal Trailer, it showed Gameplay, but everyone knew it was touched up, people expected it to be. Even back then we got the whole “The Live Stage Demo doesn’t look that good – Well, A, it’s Pre-Alpha, & B, it’s running on an X360.” Screenshots etc, were always touched up, people knew it, people expected it.

          – The most important & by extension biggest difference between then & now, is that the BF3 Reveal Trailer’s Graphics were actually similar to the ones present in the Final PC Release (specifically, since the PC version looked considerably better than the Console version, of course, so they were focusing on showcasing PC footage far more than any other Platform), whereas while The Division will undoubtedly get a minor visuals boost between now & Launch, much like with Watch_Dogs, it will simply NEVER look anywhere close to how it did at E3 2013, period.

          Then Watch_Dogs had its Trailers & Live Stage Demo’s, with actual, real fog, proper, decent lighting, etc. which set certain expectations. After a while, it starts to look a bit worse though, then some more, & some more, & finally it launches, looking like a joke. Suddenly, everyone’s examining every particle, every special effect, everything, disregarding all previously established expectations in favour of whisper-sensitive trigger fingers, including the important FACT that CGI Trailers have ALWAYS BEEN, & WILL ALWAYS BE touched up. Now, with that in mind, however;

          With something like The Division (& even Watch_Dogs back in the day), where they showcased Gameplay running Live, On-Stage, I think the Developers either started off with a vision of what the Final Product was going to look like & tried to stick to it, only to realize too late that the more size & content they added to their Open-World Games, the worse these “Next-Gen” Console’s Frames-Per-Second got (in which case this is just a hilariously & ridiculously embarrassing case of REALLY, REALLY bad foresight/oversight, which somehow I can’t bring myself to believe, AT ALL – especially considering how it’s not an issue isolated exclusively to Ubisoft);

          Or they purposefully oversold their product in order to boost interest in New-Gen Consoles, once they realized exactly how badly crippled their Open-World Games were going to be on these “Next-Gen” Systems. Which, all things considered, honestly seems like the far more logical conclusion, in my opinion. After all, I’m pretty sure we could compare E3 2015 Division footage to the PS3 version of GTA V & find it to be pretty much equal in (read: lack of) quality, which wouldn’t exactly convince too many people to go out & buy a 400$-500$ Console System, would it.

          As to the inevitable Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theory of whether or not Microsoft & Sony put them up to it – I highly doubt it, this was likely a choice they made themselves once they realized exactly how limiting these so-called “Next-Gen” Consoles were really going to be. Like I said – the E3 2015 Division Graphics could probably be compared to the PS3 version of GTA V, & that’s REALLY NOT a good thing, even for Console Peasants who supposedly “don’t care how good a Game looks.” – Everyone has some sort of expectations for something after paying 400$+ & another 60$+ for something, period.

          Can’t speak much as to the rest of the IT Industry as a whole, but I believe similar situations/expectations of “over-promising” have occurred with GPUs as well, yeah. As for why? Not really sure. I find myself falling back to the near-cliche “people are just crazy” response more & more lately.

          Footnote: There was actually a case of downgrading previous to Watch_Dogs, which people largely skipped over at the time because…. I don’t know. E3 2010 – Ubisoft displays 6 minutes of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Footage, showcasing some damn good Graphics for its time, but then the Game suddenly disappears from the Press entirely, & they go mute on it. It goes through a lot of delays & drama (they actually tried claiming they never even announced a PC version for it, bla bla bla bla bla – irrelevant stuff, but anyway); In the end. when it FINALLY launches (June 27 2012), it looks considerably worse to how it did before, & nobody says a word. I suppose by that time, people had probably completely forgotten how it looked in 2010, they figured the previously displayed footage was just completely pre-rendered, or they simply didn’t care, since it was a mediocre Game through & through. I really don’t know. Either way, it’s quite interesting to compare those reactions (read: lack of) to the reactions we’d get today if they’d showcased that Footage in 2013 & launched Future Soldier this year with its downgraded visuals.

          1. Great response, but it’s simple really. Show off a game at E3 that technically exists as a vertical slice only and watch the pre-order money roll in.
            Gaming has become more about marketing than anything else these days, and the scramble for pre-order money and season pass sales comes first. When the game is finally released and it looks nothing like the E3 demo, they blame the usual “console parity visuals” or “we will release subsequent patches to update the visuals we never got around to because we were programming mini-games in”.
            One thing I find comforting (atleast on PC) is that you can no longer be screwed out of your money when you pre-order by getting a Steam refund. I would have immediately gotten a refund on Watch_Dogs if the option was available when it launched. Hopefully these kinds of downgrades won’t happen anymore in the digital-future where you can simply get your cash back immediately and not be stuck with a buggy, ugly, unfinished game.

          2. It really speaks volumes when you can’t even trust a company like CDPR Pre-Launch anymore. At least the Witcher 3 is still a great game, unlike how most everything else just “looks good” & ends up being “just sh*t.”

            Steam Refunds will be useful IMO, but I’m not sure it’ll be the Magical Solution to solve all our problems with Pre-Launch Bullsh*tting, largely because it seems that some companies just don’t care about how many people bother to refund their Game, compared to how many people just buy it, period.

            Like, back to Battlefield – BF3 was massively refunded (mainly at retail stores, granted) for being utter sh*t on Launch – they piled on the bullsh*t right until Launch about how the Beta wasn’t representative of the Final Product, bla bla bla. EA didn’t bat an eyelid, still proudly bragging about their Sales Numbers. Two years later, BF4 was in an even worse state at Launch; again, massive refunds; again, EA bragged about massive Sales Numbers, & even went as far as to downplay the reported issues to Investors as “exaggerated nerdraging”. Now granted they did delay Hardline for a bit, but the stuff they’re pumping out is still just flat out overpriced mediocrities – take a look at Battlefront – it is literally the size of an Expansion Pack, & they’re selling it as a full-price Game.

            Ubisoft is even worse in this regard, ramming through everything on their previously established “Internal Launch Schedules” regardless of how bad something is, because…. f*ck knows. Maybe they figured change is too expensive, maybe they’re just too close-minded/stupid to care. Steam Refunds might convince them to lie less Pre-Launch, but they’ll still pump out broken Games on their pre-established Schedules without hesitation IMO.

            Brings to mind those big Pharmaceutical/Car Manufacturing/Other Companies which get presented with a study that their product is faulty, so they end up weighing the costs/Quarterly losses of a full-scale recall/delay vs. settling a bunch of lawsuits – the lawsuits come out cheaper & more convenient, so we get screwed.

            But yeah, it’s all about the Short-Term Sales (right now), the Industry has created this idea that we should treat Games like Movies – the only thing that really matters is the “Box Office” Numbers; in this case, the Day 0, Day 1, Week 1 Sales. Everything after that becomes irrelevant, to be never mentioned nor spoken of except to brag about how many Millions of copies have been sold, so they do everything in their power to inflate the short-term number as much as possible, in the long-term it kills the IP, but it doesn’t matter, since they’ll have moved on to leech off something else by then.

        2. Probably because a vertical slice is a part of a marketing campaign. They wanted to show something that will make you pre-order a game (and season pass, lol).

  1. Lmao, PC gamers will probably claim consoles downgraded this game.
    Truth is PC gamers have no games this year meanwhile the Xbox one is getting…
    – Halo 5 Guardians
    – Rise of the Tomb Raider
    – Forza 6
    – Gears Ultimate Edition and many more games too come

    #XboxWon
    #XboxISTheBestBox
    #Facts

      1. Halo 5 will keep us busy for months if not years and so will Forza 6 and we are getting Tomb Raider first.
        #StillWaiting
        #XboxWon

        1. Elite Dangerous and new content
          Guild wars 2 expansions
          Arma 3 plus new content
          Pillars of Eternity with new content
          Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
          Anno 2205
          Ashes of the Singularity
          Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void
          No Man’s Sky

          Need any more games and content for the PC?

          1. Elite Dangerous – on Xbox One
            Guild Wars 2 – Boring MMORPG
            Arma 3 – LMAO a military sim?
            MGS 5 – Xbox one also
            And everything else is boring dried up crap.

          2. Listen child, your “Exclusives” came to PC, most are coming to PC and they’re and will be superior on PC as usual. Enjoy your 900p sub 30fps troll.

          3. Lol, I don’t seem to remember recalling Scalebound, Quantum Break, Crackdown, Halo 5, Forza 6, Sunset Overdrive, Halo MCC Collection, Forza Horizon 2, Gears 4, and all those Rare Games coming to PC.
            #StayDelusional

          4. I don’t recall Ryse Son of Rome, Deadrising 3, Killer Instinct, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition coming to PC, but they have and will.

            Hope you’re enjoying a broken Halo MCC.

          5. It seems I pissed off a lot of PC gamers but the truth still stands, Xbox One has better games. ????????

          6. Agreed bro , also don’t forget to mention that with the power of Cloud soon we will outperform those “high end pcs” which cost like 5K $$$$

          7. All of those sold 80% more on Xbox one.
            #PCGamerNoBuy
            #XboxWon

          8. Playing elite dangerous with a gamepad on a basic 1080p display? Wow so much peasantry there

        2. I know you’re trolling, but still, saying that you’re content with getting 2 pretty average sequels and that it will keep you busy for years is pretty sad.

          May aswell buy a graphics card and spend the time you do posting lame comments online on actually playing good games and having fun.

          1. Lol are you saying all those games are average sequels. Lmao you just baffled me with your stupidity.
            #KeepCrying

        3. Halo and Forza are getting pretty stale. Forza 5 was s**te. Never really liked Halo anyway. Gears UE I’ll play on PC with better graphics. Tomb Raider I’ll happily wait a short while to play on PC with better frame rate, res and graphics options. Did so with the last one.

          I have an Xbox One but since FH2 and Titanfall haven’t used it that much. Looking forward to Quantum Break though.

    1. I don’t understand how games not released in a year is proof of anything, let alone a bad thing. The way I see it, games released every year suggest lack of innovation and rehashing the same old game with new paint job. Take time to create, revise innovate, then release a final product.

      FO4 mods to consoles only after massive success on PC. Only after, according to press conference, dev is finally allowed to after years of asking…

      All you can brag about is that consoles is where the money is. Has nothing to do with quality, or quantity. Budwiser is the biggest beer company, still taste like piss…

      1. Console exclusives are the best games to look forward to each year and your here damage controlling their success. How many new IPs has the Xbox one shown this year, answer: a lot.
        #KeepCryin

          1. Kinda like how PC gamers go to console sites and talk off topic.
            #Hypocrite

          2. Nope I refuted all your points. Your admitting defeat.
            #XboxWon

          3. To summarise then, you’ve copied dump people, come to a PC gaming site, made yourself look dumber and achieved nothing. Well done, you must be so proud.

          4. I see you have come back. Well there is nothing here for you, I have refuted everything you have said and made YOU look dumber in the process. Congrats.
            #FlipFlopper
            #Rekt

        1. “Console exclusives are the best games to look forward to each year”

          Subjective.

          Nice opinion. I’m glad you have one and are entitled to it.

          The only issue I see is your insistence on peddling it as fact. As Sean stated, this is a PC Gaming site. I don’t know why you would desire to comment except to insist in the tribal mentality of console vs PC. It is you who insist on this divide.

          What IS a fact.

          PC make money for devs.

          Consoles make more money for devs.

          Devs have to manage assets, optimize, and downgrade to fit games onto the STATIC requirements of consoles for many years. As new tech becomes available, much of what is possible is still bound to old/current console capabilities.

          Fact.

          Now, I’m glad there is money flying around to everyone. Great. What would be nice though, if devs were to cater to every platform equally as needed. You console kids get your games, a few exclusives, 2 weeks early access (hurray!!!), and we get the games at higher resolution, more graphical features, closer to bull-shot/E3 demos.

          “your here damage controlling their success”

          Ehh. Really? Damage control? I stated I prefer quality over quantity. Obviously, you are super excited about the large amounts of games you will be playing this year. Good for you. Have fun, I truely hope you do find joy in your gaming experience. All I want is some quality games. That’s it. You are espousing value to something I don’t find value in. Games need no yearly launch schedule for me.

          “Kinda like how PC gamers go to console sites and talk off topic.”

          I never do. I could care less. I come here for PC updates, to share in the excitement of this hobby. I really hate seeing all the sh*t talking on devs and PC-Console wars.

          Also, trying to absolve your idiocy by the example that other people do the same thing to console sites… grow up. Be responsible for your own actions. Just admit you are an a**hat.

          Interesting tangent: Are the XBOX exclusives given value because of how exclusive they are, or because of the actual franchise/story/quality?

          This is precisely how you know if you have been had by marketing schemes and consumerism. It’s like the status symbol of sorts. Because you have it, and others don’t, you buy into the thought you are somehow superior/favored. As if XBOX has your back, you are family, united under the banner of… green X.

          All the while, you are in a parasitic relationship, where you have willingly given up your monetary funds for digital software that is valued because it’s exclusive nature, not based on it’s quality. **I don’t want to suggest any game you listed is not “good”, that is entirely in the eye of the beholder…**

          I simply mention this in relation to the fact that you have come to a PC gaming site to brag about XBOX exclusives that in all reality you have yet to even play (true value cannot be assessed yet) and
          peddling your superiority because of said exclusivity (you pay to boost your ego, at least, what I gather from this interaction)… It’s madness. It’s sad you don’t see it…

        2. Dude I own Xbox 1fps and a ps 4fps and they both f**kin suck. My P.C is and always will be a million times better no matter what childish comebacks you have in your nappy. Get over it, both consoles are dust gatherers to me and my biggest mistake as I expected way better. I’m happy to wait for much superior versions on P.C as are many.. They are merely media streamers and fail at that too!!

          1. XBOX is for netflix, hulu, and Minecraft with my son… That’s about it.

    2. Dat trolling tho. Hashtags for the Hashtag god. Too fat dude.

      Gonna indulge as well. I don’t pay monthly fees for nothing like console Plebs.

      #900p

      1. funny thing is Fallout 4 is coming out the same day as Rise of the Tomb Raider. there is no way they are gonna sell enough units to please Square Enix at all because they weren’t happy with their first game at first at least.

        1. not only that, even without fallout, tombraider won’t sell that much on xbone to please square, they (square) just alienated thier fans on other platforms and that will impact their sales on ps4/pc too.

    3. youre doing it wrong. are we comparing games or platforms? i dont care what games your peasant box gets, its still a crap platform made for the lowest common denominator audience

      1. So sad you won’t be getting those amazing exclusive I’ll be playing Halo 5 Guardians with my friends on my couch while you will be playing…..nothing Lol.

        1. We will get halo 5 sometime after xbox as we got dead rising 3 ryse and wwill also get(already announnced yesterday) Gears of war ultimate edition http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-17-gears-of-war-ultimate-edition-is-coming-to-pc Killer instincthttp://www.destructoid.com/killer-instinct-is-coming-to-the-pc-phil-spencer-has-announced-294226.phtml sea of thieves http://www.seaofthieves.com/

          About halo https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/610997210260488192

          And you know what? All these games will look and run much better on our GLORIOUS POWERFUL PC’S compared to your stupid little box. My GIGABYTE GTX 970 G1 GAMING 2500K 3,3GHZ 12 GB RAM will run then at 4k DSR!! resolution that only a high end pc can do and they will look 10000 times better than your little toy

        2. dude you want me to show you my backlog? im currently on letter M and this list is from games BEFORE 2014
          as for the games i have on my backlog from 2014+? theyre about 120 already :/
          so no, im not suffering by a lack of games to play lol wth? and thats without even considering i hardly ever buy AAA games. last one i bought was probably dark souls 2 on release so yea

    4. Halo 5? HOLY SH*T! – Oh wait, it’s not a Bungie Halo, it’s a 343 Halo…. Nevermind. Enjoy yet another drama-filled borefest with a ridiculously corny resurrection for Cortana because 343 can’t write for sh*t.
      Rise of the Tomb Raider? HOLY SH*T! – Oh wait, it’s already “confirmed” as a Timed-Exclusive…. Nevermind.
      – Forza 6? HOLY SH*T! – OH WAIT, I’ve got….. Need for Speed, Project CARS, Test Drive Unlimited, Ferrari, GRID, er….. I’m forgetting something. Do I actually wish for Forza on PC? Sure, but in the meantime, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy as well.
      – Gears of War Ultimate Edition – HOLY SH*T! – EXCEPT – OH NO! We’ve already had a horrible Gears of War Port on PC, & if that wasn’t bad enough (hilariously enough, even), Gears Ultimate has already been announced for PC! 😮

      P.S. Thanks for Field Testing the Halo Master Chief Collection for us, filthy Peasant. We PC Gamers are truly unworthy of such disgraceful programming the likes of which somehow (hilariously) made it to release on something as important as a Halo Collection. Really comes to show how much Microsoft actually respects its own Gamers….. Oh, wait. It doesn’t.

      #Pwnd.
      #Fact.

    5. We hav all multiplatform games. Tomb raider is a timed exculve. Gears of war ultimate edition already announced for pc and Major Nelson hinted for Master chief collection on pc and halo 5 on his twitter. Show xbox left only with halo 5 and forza (with a strong possibility that halo 5 will be timed).

    6. LOL re**rd..
      Rise of the Tomb Raider: will also go on PC
      Gears of War UE: PC too..
      Halo 5? Your deep sh*t FPS exclusivity?.. Oh.. Sorry my friend but also PC..

      Forza.. Well no announcment for the moment.. But who cares? We already have “Project Cars”.. Plus Forza will probably go out on PC in one year.

      At least stupidity doesn’t kill you are lucky.. Now go back to your room kid.

  2. We all know how it goes now, a vertical slice of the game looks so good because the real game can never been like that since it’s open world, not a small bit of the game with max detail and effects. TW3 VGX video was exactly this, same with Watch Dogs, same with Farcry 3.

    They should stop doing this, shows us raw pre-alpha or don’t show it at all. Remember when CDPR showed us TW2 alpha and Crytek shows us Crysis alpha, they were vastly better on launch.

    1. That still doesn’t work unfortunately. Developers still have publishers, people who have invested money (or will invest money) in the project. A vertical slice is usually created by Devs to prove they can achieve creating the game they set out to make (and work as a quality control template). You can’t really attract investors when you have literally nothing to show…

      Even if Developers didn’t need to have vertical slices for media and marketing purposes, they would still have to make them for publishers and funding purposes.

      The only game i can think of that is free from having to do this is Star Citizen, as they have no publisher, and nobody that they need a vertical slice for, so they can just work on alpha code instead.

    2. >show amazing looking first footage
      >peasants will take notice and pre-order
      >they get the game
      >play on a 32 inch TV from a mile away
      >”looks good”

      Most gamers dont look at these trailers and videos, especially like people browsing this site.

    1. “For there’s one thing we do know… There cannot be any hope for tomorrow.”
      Good job dude, good job.

    2. thanks i thought this is gonna be a bash video for getting views but they definitely downgraded it.

  3. What a goddam disgrace. Fu**ing consoles, those dumb boxes should stick to platformers, as it was always intended.

    1. the dramatic thing is that not only the graphic quality suffers from this, the entire game has a lower quality coz of damn consoles

      1. Sure, leave graphics aside, we still have to put up with horrid UIs, dumb AI (see Crysis -> Crysis 2), loading screens every 5 minutes, QTEs, simplified dialogues and choices (mostly in ARPGs), etc, etc.

        Consoles are meant to play platformers, sports games and maybe racing games, although if you have a wheel there’s no need for a dumb box.

  4. The amount of downgradation i don’t even. It’s like another game from another generation.

    What the hell ? They really showed this on E3 2015 ? People clapped for this ?

    1. The Witcher 3 looks the same, blurry and bad on the XBox one, as if the PS4 version wasn’t bad enough. Didn’t you know that consoles don’t draw distance shadows any more, they’ve given up to and made them sub 25fps for a more cinematic experience. I suspect they’re giving up on frame-rate as well, it’s all about gameplay you know!

  5. I would love to watch them failing. I mean… not selling a single copy and the media on internet saying stuff and something like “a clear message from the consumers to the industry”
    NOT EVEN 1 FREAKING COPY
    Of course that never gonna happens

    1. I dont understand why people are even slightly excited for this crap and ubisoft confirmed it has Microtransaction too
      I doubt it will sell as much as Destiny tho but there are still a lot of idiot peasants out there

      1. well i WAS excited back when it was announced because
        1) it was before 2014, Ubi’s meltdown
        2) it was an online game with modern setting

        now however i am not. next in line is Wildlands for downgrade.

        1. Ubisoft went to sh*t way before 2014, when they cut an entire middle chapter of AC2 to sell it as DLC and forced the always online DRM…

  6. downgrade? all they been showing is xbox one footage at E3, you expect it to look that good? lol

  7. I actually prefer that Tomb Raider gets out on xbox first, so the peasants can test the game for us, the Glorious PC Master Race, then when the testing is over we can play how it’s meant to play. I mean they did a nice job on Grand Theft Auto V afterall. 😀

  8. I’m not sure how anyone can tell the difference with that Youtube compression on full blast.

  9. I’m more interested for Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands then this game, at least I can play solo which is one of the reasons Im avoid Division, but Obviously is Ubisoft so I we never know how it ends when game will be release.

  10. The fake chatter seems systemic of their entire work flow. Not faulting the 3rd party devs… I prefer gameplay and a narrator explaining features to canned “multiplayer chatter”

  11. For the sake of consoles we need to downgrade you know.
    Next coming is Fallout 4 (another downgrade).
    Consoles rules the world of gaming.Keep buying consoles and keep playing donwgraded games.

  12. It’s sad, of course, but not unexpected. Although the downgrade is bigger than I thought it would be. It’s almost like a different game.

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