What if you combined the best parts of Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon with a Right At Your Door-type premise?

That’s basically what you’re going to get in Tom Clancy’s The Division, the franchise’s upcoming massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. Designed by Ubisoft as a third-person shooter, the game isn’t scheduled to be released until sometime next year. But here’s why you should be excited about it now.

Operation Dark Winter & Directive 51

Already, The Division looks like a radical departure from previous Clancy titles. Instead of taking out terrorists, you’ll be tasked with fending off a full-scale disease outbreak that’s swept the country. However, like the previous games, the developers drew upon some real-world events to build the premise.
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The game was based in part on Operation Dark Winter, the code name for a catastrophic bio-terrorist attack simulation the U.S. Government conducted in 2001. By simulating a smallpox attack in Oklahoma City, the project intended to evaluate the inadequacies of the nation’s emergency response system in the event that a large-scale biological weapon would hit the populace.

Six years after the operation, President Bush signed ” Directive 51,” which allowed the executive branch to “execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a catastrophic emergency.” According to the directive, such an emergency would mean “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population.”

In The Division, players will find themselves in New York City on the eve of just such a catastrophe. Basic services begin to fail, and the urban center begins to spiral into chaos. As a last-ditch effort to maintain order, a classified unit of tactical agents is activated to put an end to the bedlam.

The agents’ mission is to piece the city back together, but will be forced to combat not only the effects of the released biological attack, but also the rising threat of those who unleashed it.

In Tom Clancy's The Division, you'll be able to join other players in real-time gameplay using a tablet-exclusive character that will give you a bird's eye view of the battlefield.

Fully Immersive Gameplay

The game appears to offer some ambitious gameplay scenarios. There will be PvP options, as well as a player trading system, and a fully adaptive environment that can be accessed from multiple platforms. Scheduled to be released on Windows, PS4 and Xbox One, the game will also be accessible on smartphones or tablets, according to Ubisoft. You’ll be able to join other players in real-time gameplay using a tablet-exclusive character that will give you a bird’s eye view of the battlefield.

To learn more about the game and catch a few glimpses, check out the homepage here.