The Division Update 1.6 Detailed Ahead of Today’s Launch

Beginning at 12:30am PT/3:30am ET today, The Division will be undergoing four hours of maintenance. Once it’s complete, Ubisoft will release Update 1.6, which brings an expanded Dark Zone map with three new areas unlocked, new Contamination events that take place in an underground location in the Dark Zone, new exotic weapons and landmarks, Dark Zone leaderboards, and the new Legendary mode.

Additionally, today sees the release of the Last Stand DLC on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Included in the Season Pass (and likely $14.99 USD on its own), Last Stand gives you the Stolen Signal incursion and Last Stand game mode.

Here’s an overview of the expansion’s content:

Last Stand Game Mode

• SHD tech data relays loaded with operational information were left behind in the Dark Zone when the JTF was forced to withdraw. Rogues have targeted these data relays and are attempting to access what is inside. Engage in 8 versus 8 PvP combat and secure the data before the Rogues can.
• Fight to control three key tactical locations on one of 4 Dark Zone maps.
• In order to capture a tactical location, the team will need to control three objectives inside the location. Once the tactical location is secured, the team will begin scoring points.
• First team to reach the max score wins.
• To help propel their team to victory, players can activate powerful fortifications and SHD tech tactical boosts.

Stolen Signal Incursion

• Stolen Signal takes place in a civilian TV Broadcast center taken over by the infamous Rikers gang.
• Players will venture into three different wings and face unique combat scenarios. Each encounter is meant to push players to play tactically and make the best use of their builds.
• All wings bring their own challenges and rewards; completing all of them will unlock the final boss fight and the strongest opposition yet.

11.5GB on PS4 and 9GB on Xbox One/PC, here’s some of the highlights from The Division Update 1.6. You can view the full list of patch notes over here.

Game Changes

Dark Zone Map Expansion

• Explore three new areas to the north of the Dark Zone. Engage powerful enemies and discover the dangers hiding around every corner.

Dark Zone Leaderboards

• Earn rewards in the Dark Zone by participating in weekly and monthly activities tracked via the new Dark Zone leaderboards.
• See how you stack up against other players in the Dark Zone on leaderboard activities that reset and change every week and month. All the tracked weekly and monthly activities count towards your total score. The higher your score, the better rewards you will earn when the leaderboards reset!

Dark Zone Contamination Events

• The pockets of virus contamination in the subways below the Dark Zone are festering and becoming even more deadly. Cleaners have been attracted to the rising contamination. Players must manage their health as the virus eats away at their filter while battling against powerful Cleaners. Clear each Dark Zone subway of Cleaners to earn extra rewards.

Legendary Difficulty

• Pit yourself against elite LMB forces equipped with superior gear and advanced tactics.
• Legendary difficulty strips missions of all narrative and focuses purely on combat scenarios.
• Each Legendary mission has a single checkpoint, about halfway through.
• Legendary difficulty is only available in World Tier 5.
• Available missions: Napalm Production Site, WarrenGate Power Plant, Times Square Power Relay.

More Options for Character Customization

• Explore all new ways of customizing your agent, with weapon skins, backpack skins, new clothing sets and emotes!
• Visit the Premium Vendor in The Terminal to unlock premium vanity content; stocks update weekly so check back regularly!

Combat

• Increased the time to revive a downed teammate from 3s to 5s.
• Bleed no longer blocks sprint. Instead it reduces movement speed by 20%. Additional applications refresh the timer.
• Medkits can now be used at full health and cleanse the character of all applied status effects.
• Hipfire stability has been significantly reduced when moving.
• Increased Hip-fire penalties: Weapon spread is now wider while stability and recoil are also more impacted.
• Player camera will now be impacted by hipfire, reducing their field of view the longer they keep firing.
• There is now a short cooldown between each combat roll.
• Body shot damage has been slightly increased in PvP (this change does not apply to PvE, headshot damage is unchanged).
• Implemented visual feedback when an enemy player uses a Medkit.
• The PvP damage multiplier has been set at 0.42. This applies to both Last Stand and the Dark Zone.

Dark Zone

• Players can now fast travel between Dark Zone checkpoints.
• Players will no longer lose Dark Zone experience and funds when killed in the Dark Zone if they are not Rogue.
• Supply drops will now reward Dark Zone experience as well.
• Koreatown is no longer classified as a Landmark.

Armor & Resistances

• Armor has been removed as a Major bonus from items and is replaced with Health.
• Base Health has been added to the game. Depending on the World Tier you are in, you will automatically receive a given amount of Base Health for free.
• Added a new bonus called “Resist All” which adds resistance to all types of status effects.
• Older items (pre 1.6) with Health bonus will see this bonus replaced with a Resist All one.
• Resist All is capped at 60%.
• Resistances to status effects will now reduce the effect instead of having a chance to resist it. This means that a 10% bleed resist will lower the bleed damage and duration by 10% instead of having a 10% chance to ignore it.
• When applied repeatedly in a short time, the player will naturally build up resistance to this status effect. In other words, status effects will now have diminishing returns when applied repeatedly to a player.
• If the player manages to build up 100% resistance to a status effect, they will resist it entirely.

Character Talents

• On the move reduced to 15%.
• Battle Buddy reduced to 30%.
• Critical Save reduced to 20%.
• Adrenaline will no longer apply Overheal. Instead it replaces the instant heal of Medkits with a heal over time that can also apply while taking damage.

Loot

• Phoenix Credits cap has been increased from 2000 to 5000.
• The scavenger box in the Base of Operations will now properly scale with world tier.
• Weekly Assignment Caches will now guarantee an Exotic item.
• Exotic items sold at Vendors have had their prices slightly increased.
• Gear Set items have been lowered to be equivalent to High End prices.

High-End Named items become Exotic:

• This quality comes with a new item color.
• Exotic weapons have been removed from the Advanced Weaponry Vendor.
• Updates sources for Exotics: Some sources have been moved around. We also added more sources with chances to drop any Exotic.
• Exotics Caches have been added to the game. These guarantee an Exotic item when opened.

Crafting

• Recalibrations are now unlimited. This means that once a stat is picked for recalibration, it can be recalibrated as many times at the player has currency to pay for it. The cost will increase at first but eventually cap and no longer increase.

Open World

• Civilians will now always drop Target Intel when helped.
• Collectibles will now reward players with more XP when picked up at level 30.

Survival

• Crafting High End pistols will no longer cost Division Tech
• Updated Survival Cache content: it no longer has a specific drop that weights towards weapons introduced in Survival and has a more generic drop instead. Exotic items have a small chance to drop as a bonus.
• Reviving players from downed state will now cost a Medkit.
• When matchmaking in Solo PvP Survival, players will end up in a guaranteed Solo instance where grouping is not possible.
• Players can no longer “loot and kill” other downed players in PvE Survival.
• Supplies available around the different spawn hideouts have been rebalanced.

Underground

• Killing NPCs will now grant Underground XP instead of normal XP. This means that players will no longer earn normal XP when playing Underground.
• Underground Caches now guarantee two items instead of one. Exotic items have a small chance to drop as a bonus.

Incursions

• Increased the Weekly Rewards on all Challenging and Heroic Incursions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where sometimes consumables would not be consumed when used in Survival mode or normal gameplay.
• Fixed a bug where the game would return an incorrect out of playable map area error in DZ06.
• Fixed a bug where the UI would incorrectly reflect the protection bonus from Hunter’s Faith. gear set talent when two or more players had the 4-piece bonus active while in close proximity.
• Fixed a bug where players could accidentally use consumables while browsing the emote wheel.
• Fixed a bug where the Pulse Master skill would not always trigger the early warning for hostile characters.
• Fixed several instances of Ballistic Shield becoming unusable.
• Fixed a bug where Recovery Link would not trigger correctly.
• Fixed a bug where players would be unable to do anything for a few seconds after using a skill.
• Fixed a bug where the UI QuickNav function would not work properly.
• Fixed a bug where crafting material quality would not scale properly with world tier.
• Fixed a bug on PlayStation 4 where players would be stuck in infinite loading.
• Fixed a bug where weapon talents would not activate if the character attribute values were equal, but not higher than the requirements.
• Fixed several instances of delay when using First Aid.
• Fixed a bug where Vigorous talent would not work properly.
• Fixed a bug where players would be able to use consumables infinitely.
• Fixed a bug where the Competent weapon talent would not work for certain skills.
• Fixed a bug where the Coolheaded weapon talent would reduce consumable duration.
• Fixed a bug where the NPC audio would not work after ending a Survival game mode session.
• Fixed a bug where a Favorited item could be accidentally marked as junk.
• Fixed a bug where NPCs would often get perfect aim.
• Fixed a bug where mods could be unequipped randomly when relogging into the game.
• Fixed a bug with Mobile Cover where talents Adept, Competent and Capable would stay active until either the cover was destroyed or the player changed cover.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the player would lose input functionality after closing the stash.
• Fixed a bug where the Signature skill cooldown would not update on the party’s UI if used outside of party range.
• Fixed a bug with the Chromatic aberration graphical setting.
• Fixed a bug where crafted level 34 extended magazines would roll with lower stats than intended.
• Fixed a bug where the Nimble talent could revive the player from a downed/dead state.
• Fixed a bug where enemies would be stuck behind a door during a mission in the Garment District.
• Fixed a bug where Brycce Thompson would randomly repeat some of his lines even after the player completes the related mission.
• Fixed several instances of FPS drops and freezes.

If you’ve yet to play The Division, today also sees the release of a free trial on all platforms, allowing you to access the full main game until you reach level 8 or play for six hours. All progress made in the free trial will be transferred over if you decide to buy The Division.

Do you plan on playing The Division today?

[Source: The Division (1), (2)]