Ubisoft have been taking their time with the development of “Tom Clancy’s The Division”, and the game has already seen its fair share of delays. After it was revealed that the game was from a complete state in May this year, its release date was pushed back to 2015, although it’s not yet known exactly when it’s supposed to hit the market. The development of the game has apparently been an unusual process, as it started later than anticipated and the studio has been trying to work around their own internal delays.
A recent statement, allegedly coming from an anonymous source from Ubisoft, claims that another delay is possible, as the game is not really in a finished state at the moment, not even a very playable one. According to the quote, the game does work, and most of the important features have already been implemented, however it’s not very stable and still has a lot of polish to be done before it’s in a proper condition for a release.
There actually seem to be lots of technical issues with “The Division” behind the scenes, including unexpected crashes, bugs on the server, and latency problems. Still, progress is being made, and the game is wrapping up nicely.
The exact release date hasn’t been given yet, so it’s probably safe to assume that the game isn’t coming out in the early stages of 2015. If the 2015 release plans stick, it will likely hit the market sometime around the summer, or possibly even later. However, with the latest rumors, it’s starting to seem unlikely that Ubisoft will be able to meet even that release date.
After all, if the game is in a poor technical state, this will take some time to address. Fixing bugs in a massive software product like that is usually a convoluted and time-consuming process, requiring multiple stages of fixing issues and testing the fixes themselves for new issues.
Some fans have been noting another possibility for the release of “The Division” – that Ubisoft may just rush it in order to still meet the 2015 release date. This could have various implications for a game like “The Division”, which has a lot to lose in many of its strong features, especially in the graphics department. It would be a shame to see a game with such huge potential go to waste just because Ubisoft want to earn a quick buck from the hype they’ve managed to generate so far, but the studio likely knows what they’re doing, and they should have learned a lesson or two from some of their more recent releases, such as the latest “Assassin’s Creed” games.