Ubisoft announces new free-to-play game, The Division Heartland

Ubisoft has announced a new, free-to-play game set in The Division universe: Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland. Heartland is in development at Ubisoft’s Red Storm studio, the publisher said Thursday, and is expected out in 2021 or 2022.

Details on the new game are slim; Ubisoft called Heartland a “standalone game that doesn’t require previous experience with the series,” but said the game “will provide an all new perspective on the universe in a new setting.” It’s coming to consoles, Windows PC, and the cloud, Ubisoft said.

An exact release window wasn’t given — just from 2021 to 2022 — but Ubisoft did provide a link for players to access an early test run of the game. No word on when Heartland’s testing will begin.

Ubisoft’s last Division game, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, was released in March 2019. The game, developed by Massive Entertainment (with support from Red Storm), is set in Washington, D.C. after the viral outbreak that kicked off 2016’s Tom Clancy’s The Division in New York. Players are agents of the fictitious Strategic Homeland Division, trying to keep things under control amidst a devastating pandemic. Given the Heartland name, we can safely assume that the newest game will be set in the rural American Midwest.

As for gameplay, Ubisoft hasn’t said what format Heartland will take. It’s possible Ubisoft could follow in the footsteps of Epic Games and Electronic Arts in creating a battle royale game like Fortnite or Apex Legends. Something akin to Riot Games’ Valorant, which is a five-on-five game, is possible, too.

Ubisoft also announced that a new Division game will come to mobile, with more information on that available “at a later date.”

:story: Polygon