It's been a few years since I played The Division, and the last time I re-visited this game, I spent a stint with it in order to unlock the Platinum trophy.
Having already completed the Last Stand DLC pack prior to this, it was a game I knew I'd only be able to play in limited spells.
Just to re-iterate what I wrote about The Division in my Platinum Difficulty review, I don't think The Division is a bad game, it's just one of those games that's better consumed in smaller doses. It's fairly average, and where the Last Stand DLC did give some much needed variety to the game with some PvP emphasis, the Underground goes back to the PvE formula that drives the main game, and the copy and paste execution of the Underground just feels like the ultimate form of content padding.
Upon purchase, the Underground opens up as a new section of the Base of Operations. Based on the concept of the New York Subway system, you're tasked with going deep within to clear enemies in a horde-mode style of gameplay where you need to make your way through various levels completing objectives and clearing waves of enemies as you go. You set these missions up yourself, with each mission built up of "phases", which are just individual segments with a specific objective designated to each one, and these can be linked together for up to 3 phases in any one mission.
The overall goal is to complete these missions and obtain experience points, upgraded loot and grab collectibles along the way. It's fairly unspectacular and has practically no novelty value - This is effectively just fighting your way through hordes of enemies, pushing through to completing fairly arbitrary objectives, which is exactly what you spend your entire time doing in the main game. Same enemies, same environments and the same loot. Infact, none of the loot I picked up was better than what I already had, which didn't really matter anyway because there isn't much of a challenge for higher levels, so better loot would have made this even more of a mundane exercise than it was already.
You can tackle these missions solo, or as part of a wider group of up to 4 players. It's at least a bit more interesting in a group, and you're going to be putting the hours in, so my recommendation would be to play with others wherever you can.
The package contains just 5 trophies, and the recommendation to play in a group does extend as far as completing a 3 phase operation with 3 other players for 1 of these trophies, but the quest to full completion runs through 2 main trophies;
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| The Beast Below - Reach Underground Rank 40. Gone Spelunking - Retrieve all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries the Underground. |
"The Beast Below" Trophy, awarded for Reaching Underground Rank 40, is ultimately the end goal of this package, and you'll be completing missions in order to accumulate enough experience to reach the highest level.
A total of 341,200 EXP is required for Rank 40, and this is accumulated in 3 primary ways. Completing phases is where the majority of experience points are handed out here, and the payout of experience points per mission will depend on a variety of factors. These include the difficulty level chosen, the number of phases included within the mission and any modifiers applied during the set-up process. Modifiers are referred to as "directives" and apply certain restrictions/conditions to the player that add certain elements of challenge to the mission, for example, removal of the mini-map or a shock charge that disables the player upon firing too many bullets at once.
A 3 phase mission on challenging difficulty with the maximum amount of directives applied, will net somewhere within the region of 7,000 to 8,000 experience points per run, but it is important to note you don't have immediate access to the full range of options from the outset, and you'll need to gradually rank up in order to unlock the ability to set-up your own missions on higher difficulties with all directives available to choose from. You will be able to assist other players missions who have these options available, but you won't always be able to rely on this, so levelling progression may be staggered depending on these circumstances.
I ended up playing through 86 phases to reach Rank 40, and when you calculate a rough estimate of around 15-20 minutes per phase, this equates to around 21 hours of game time. There does need to be further consideration for failed phases, but this usually occurred when players left the game, and were seldom down to the difficulty of the mode, which is incredibly easy with a maxed out soldier with powerful gear. The phase needs to be finished for the experience points to count, so these would go down as lost time.
The other 2 primary methods for earning experience points are for killing individual enemies and you'll be granted experience points for every enemy killed within the mission to the tune of around 30-40 EXP per enemy. You'll also earn the experience points for any enemies your teammates kill, which is a massive relief. The final method for obtaining experience points is for picking up collectibles;
The "Gone Spelunking" Trophy, awarded for Retrieving all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries in the Undergound, will award the player 300 EXP for every collectible gathered, which means 24,000 experience points are up for grabs through completing this task.
It is vitally important to realise that you need to ensure you're conscious to grabbing these collectibles as you go along completing missions. There are 80 in total, and I only needed to complete 86 phases to reach Rank 40, so this would become an unnecessary post-rank 40 task if you failed to tandem these trophies together.
Each phase contains 1 collectible to obtain somewhere. These are randomly generated, and will always be a unique collectible you have yet to obtain, so the you won't need to worry about duplication. Their spawn rate is guaranteed up to a certain point, so if you feel like you've missed one, make sure you expand the map and look back over where you've just come from. They can be well hidden, but it'll definitely be there somewhere, and will become missable once you advance into the next phase.
Once I'd collected all 55 Audio Logs, I had 3 Photographs to go, but this is where the collectibles cease to be guaranteed. For whatever reason, once you have the maximum number of collectibles for either the Audio Logs or Photographs, the remaining collectibles become completely random in their spawn rate, and I started playing through phases without finding any of the collectibles I still needed. This is apparently deliberate through design, and this is why I had to play an additional 6 phases. That isn't that many, and I only needed 3 Photographs once I'd hit 55 Audio Logs, but it's quirky and throws you off. An additional 6 phases isn't terrible, but spawn rate is completely random so I can't promise you wouldn't experience something completely different.
The Division isn't a good enough game to get away with releasing uninspiring DLC packs that are purely built to prolong the games life cycle, and this was eventually a bit of a struggle. Working towards Rank 40 along with grabbing collectibles as you move is a fairly natural route to full completion, and you'll get the other trophies along the way.
It clocks in somewhere between a 25-30 hour experience as per the calculation above, but this includes a fair chunk of waiting in-between mission set-ups and failed attempts. I didn't really enjoy it. It felt pointless and unnecessary, with enemies, environments and mission objectives you'll have seen and done before.
It oddly reminded me of the Mad Moxxi Underdome Riot DLC from Borderlands 1, which you can draw alot of parralels from. Fend off waves of the same pointless enemies, work towards unrewarding objectives and pick up redundant loot because you already have the best loot the game has to offer. That was boring, and so is this, and completion was a welcome relief.
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