The comparisons between the newly released Tom Clancy's The Division and 2014's Destiny are making it's rounds across the internet. Both are similar in structure while being different games almost entirely. One is an online coop role-playing first-person shooter while the other is an online coop role-playing third-person shooter. With similarities all over the place, it's time to find out just which game does it better because competitive behavior is all the rage these days.

Loot/Gear

Both games are heavily reliant on finding sweet, sweet loot. Every enemy, every chest has a chance to drop that upgrade to take your damage or damage resistance to the next level. While both games offer a wide variety of gear drops, Destiny's loot drops feel more rare when they do fall. The Gjallarhorn from Destiny's arsenal took some players months to obtain, and then some hardly any time at all. Most legendary gear felt like an achievement of sorts to obtain. Some gear is locked behind events such as Raids or special weekly events. And after Destiny's game-changing patch before The Taken King released, every item you had gave you a bonus of sorts including Ghosts and backpacks.

The Division didn't launch with raid gear but it is coming soon. Instead of finding Ghosts and capes, you find mods for your weapons and armor to increase their stats. The one really cool thing that The Division does better is providing an appearance system that changes just that: appearance. Destiny offers a different way to customize the look of your character through shaders. Shaders change the color scheme of your character to almost anything imaginable. If you want a bright glowing teal with white, you can do it.

After playing enough of The Division to get a good look most of their high end loot, I can say that The Division doesn't offer as a rewarding feel for getting drops. This may change in the coming weeks with more content, but the glaring difference between The Division's loot and Destiny's loot is that the legendary drops from Destiny feel legendary. By that I mean you can recognize loot by not only look but sound. When someone fires off a Suros in Destiny, it sounds a lot different than a typical sub-machine gun. Each legendary weapon has a specific look to it that is very unique is style, look and ability. Each legendary armor piece looks completely different from rare items you'll see.

The Division suffers a bit for being a "realistic" game. It's legendary gear looks all about the same outside of sometimes having a different color scheme. I upgraded from a superior AK-74 to a high end AK-74 and outside of having different stats, it looked about the same. The Division at least allows you to equip as many high ends as you want, which Destiny never did. But I can't say The Division doesn't loot and gear better than Destiny.

Winner: Destiny

World Design

The Division is going to have a tougher time in this category because it's held back by realism. You're stuck in one area: New York City. And not even all five boroughs. You're in a portion of Manhattan. That doesn't mean that The Division is completely shallow. In fact, The Division does Manhattan really well. There's a lot of scenery from a real world perspective and having visited myself, it's really accurate. I had a friend leave a safe house and locate me using the street and cross street. That's really cool.

There's a few areas of interest in The Division. Outside of just looking at sky scrappers, cabs and trash bags, the main missions let you explore deeper into Manhattan. One of the first missions you do takes you to Madison Square Garden and shows how much of a nightmare New York City has turned into. Outside of the main missions, there's not a lot of a uniqueness to the world even in the Dark Zone. You can go in a few buildings, but they feel copied and pasted from the other areas in the game. I don't know how many times I ran into the Grow Home board game on the shelf. Once you put in some times, you see how much of the content and scenario is copied from another area of the game. Yet, they managed to have some of the most detailed trash bags I've seen in game. Much love was given to those trash bags.

Destiny doesn't keep you pinned to one location and each map is properly big enough to transverse using a speeder--I mean, a Sparrow. There's several worlds to visit, each with their own unique theme and enemy. The Division's main campaign takes you deeper into the world. So does Destiny. And Destiny was a let down when it released. A lot of land mass was missing from their initial unveiling. However, there's still more world design and unique areas to visit even in vanilla Destiny. It helps with the nature of the game to see a completely different setting when you're grinding away for gear or materials.

One final nail in favor of Destiny is the world has actual players walking around outside of instanced zones. A huge bummer with The Division is that random players are tied to certain locations, making less of a case for an always connected world. Destiny's worlds actually feel more alive due to this and is the case shut for Destiny taking this award.

Winner: Destiny

Joining Others In-Game

Destiny and The Division are both pretty much the same for match-making. In Destiny, you go to your in-game friends list and can see all the active players to join. In The Division, you can see all your friends walking around the map and join them. Both games let you teleport to them while in party and makes for a terrific and nearly fluid experience.

Both games always have a strength above the other. Destiny's is what was mentioned above vaguely. You can see other players running around in the world and not in just certain areas. But The Division has a much cooler way of showing off where your friends are playing on the map. While Destiny's in more serviceable, it's too difficult to choose between the two because they both have a strong case.

Winner: Tied

PVP

I've put my dear sweet time into Destiny's PVP. I've ranked to the highest level on the Iron Banner a number of times. I've played several days worth of PVP. And I even got a collective whooping from other astounding players in The Trials of Osiris. But the modes are the all about the same. And the random loot monster seemed to always reward weaker players with better loot. Luck of the dice, I guess.

The Division brings back something I've been dying to have back in games for a long time as seen from this NeoGAF post from 2012. Hardcore PVP has a very nice risk and reward system. In The Division's Dark Zone area, you might get a quality drop and have a chance to lose it by some knucklehead killing you for fun. That sounds awful to some but if done correctly (which The Division does), it leads to an incredible experience. You have to trust (and be cautious) of every single player. Even players in your team.

Or you can just be like me and murder everyone you come in contact with because being wanted and surviving is a fun metagame.

Winner: Tom Clancy's The Division

Story

You'd think The Division could walk away easily with this one as Destiny has a very generic sci-fi story on the surface. Yet The Division doesn't do anything exciting with it's story. You don't even have a really good idea the time from the initial virus outbreak to your current story. Is it a week? A month? Years later? They don't even fill you in on some of the more basic operations of the game. I'd like to know why red barrels have made it's ugly appearance all over the place. And why are these looting bad guys shooting up supplies when they could be stealing it for their home base?

Joking aside, The Division has an awful story that's not interesting at all. I finished it without a care for an single character in the game. But at least The Division's lame story is in the game. Destiny went with the idea that people want to collect cards and then go read about them on an app or website. What were they thinking?

While Destiny's story in-game is generic and doesn't fulfill you're desire to care about why you're doing anything, the cards reveal that there's much more than meets the eye. A lot of speculation has floated around about who the Traveler is, who guardians actually are, down to who Xur actually is. Most can be read about on forums or Reddit, but since most of what we do know is generic, it's hard to give Destiny the win here. The Division and Destiny have bad stories.

Winner: Tied for having bad stories.

Mission Design

Both of these games are grindy. You'll be doing a lot of the same stuff a lot to maximize your level and gear. And in that grind, you have missions you need to complete from campaign missions to side missions. The Division and Destiny have very similar campaign layouts. You go to an instanced area. You fight waves of enemies. You may or may not encounter a boss depending on the mission. The biggest difference? Destiny's core campaign requires you to activate waves of enemies using a Ghost rather than automatically activating the wave.

The Ghost used to activate waves of enemies was a major complaint when the game launched. Nearly every mission required you to hold a button at a computer while a few waves of enemies came in. It wasn't transparent enough for a lot of gamers. Understandable too. The Division doesn't do much else other than remove the Ghost and gets you right into the fight. Some missions have a "Ghost" mechanic such as scanning an area before an ambush, but it's a lot more rare. As far as campaign designs, there's not a lot of difference in content. It's short wave survival. Destiny has platforming puzzles sometimes which changes it up. The Division doesn't have a single puzzle that I remember of doing. That's a mild difference but it's something.

Here's where Destiny outranks The Division. In Destiny, you have some side quests known as bounties. Bounties are daily rewards for completing various tasks. Some bounties are to hunt down a specific AI, gather certain materials, do community events, and more. You also have Strikes that are better than the core missions themselves with better rewards. The Strikes allow you to experience even more of the land mass and see (sometimes) unique looking bosses. The Division has zones with the exact same missions copied and pasted around the map. From your starter zone to your ending zone, you're doing the exact same missions. You'll rescue someone. You'll find a cell phone. You'll hold down a location. You'll hunt down some named elites. Over and over again.

The Division copies the worst parts of Ubisoft's games by adding a map full of icons to go after. And much like every Ubisoft game, they're all the same thing over and over again. It's one of my biggest complaints in my review. It's flat out boring to do the same side mission over 10 times in a different area. Because Destiny offers a change of pace with Strikes and quick playlists to get into another event, I'm giving the win to Destiny. If that's not reason enough, The Division doesn't even have community events to keep the monotony of exploring the same area slightly fresher. Most any massive multiplayer, pseudo or real, offers some type of event that knocks you out of formation.

Winner: Destiny

Launch Game Lasting Appeal and End Game Content

The Division just came out and I'm done until there's more content unless I want to take gear away from players in the Dark Zone. I have an inventory full of rare guns, armor, mods, and costumes. I don't think The Division has legs to keep people sitting there for months to a year unless the Dark Zone and daily repeat missions keep you going. That is until the content rolls out. Destiny suffered from repeat missions as well, but given the worlds and the loot, Destiny takes the cake. Given the gameplay style of The Division, I don't really know how long the raid content will keep me entertained unless they throw in some puzzles and unique looking bosses that require different play styles.

The Dark Zone is something I'm going to continue to visit from time to time as it's the best feature of this game. Maybe if the entire game was built around the Dark Zone, I'd have a lot more desire to jump on. But once you've been to busted up Manhattan for a week, completed the main game, and did a few of the dreadful side quests, there's not much game outside of the Dark Zone.

Destiny's harder content forced players to examine their weaknesses and strengths. Should you help your team with a sniper rifle or be a tank to lure the enemies away from your sniper? Just little strategies you were able to do in Destiny kept things interesting.

Winner: Destiny

Final Verdict

There's nothing really wrong with The Division. I think it's a really fun game. But when I kept comparing the two similar games, I found myself wishing this game did more than what it did. The Division and Destiny comparisons have been made on several sites and forums. It's inevitable since they're really unique shooters. But apples to apples, Destiny's core game had more content that kept you going than The Division in my opinion. It has more interesting design in terms of gear and worlds. It's side content is more fun. But if you can't stand sci-fi games or get sick playing first-person shooters, then The Division is probably going to be more your style.

But subjectively, Destiny is the clear winner here.

They both have their highs and lows, but overall I think the "main throughline" of the Division that leads you into the end-game grind is much better. This is probably because you're in a consulate, or in a power plant, or going through a quarantined school.. recognizable locations that feel lived in and functional, as opposed to Destiny's many sci-fi corridors of who-knows-what that don't seem to have much purpose apart from having the player run through them. The gear is equally underwhelming in both games with Destiny having the more interesting armor design, but the weapons were just as boring if not more so because you would expect something more extravagant from this ostensibly grandiose space opera than than your standard rifle, shotgun, etc. A lot of wasted potential on cool weapon effects and a varied arsenal. If they removed the gun models entirely and just left a reticle on the screen you honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Division and Destiny guns apart from the select few weapons they added particle effects to.

I honestly don't think there is a clear winner here. I sincerely hope whoever does the next game of this type looks at both titles and learns as much as they can from it, taking all the good and trimming off all the bad. At the end of the day I I'm still having way more fun in the Division than I was in Destiny at about this part of that game and I absolutely love all things sci-fi - but hey thats just me.

Division has puffy coats, therefore it is the objectively better game.

I just hit 30 in The Division earlier today. What I've played as of yet lines up exactly with your descriptions. Even vanilla Destiny stands out as one of my favorite gaming experiences, whereas The Division has been something I've enjoyed playing through, but nothing that I've viewed as spectacular in any way. I'm hoping to put more time into the Dark Zone now that I'm max level as what I've played of it has been super tense, interesting and fun, and that seems to be the best that the game has to offer.

The aim of the initial launches I would say were pretty different I would say. Unlike what the Giant Bomb crew always said, vanilla Destiny was way, way more WoW than Diablo. I love WoW and because of that was probably less irritated by many of the design decisions in Destiny that were grindy and WoW like that many people found unappetizing. The Division is Diablo to the core. Constant number upgrades without much in the way of specifically designed loot. I'm hoping the max level gear has a substantial effect on the ways the gameplay works in the game, but from what I've seen that's definitely not going to be the case. The gameplay in Destiny is substantially more interesting to me than in The Division. Due to being tied to some level of realism the abilities and skills are much less interesting to me than anything in Destiny. I also love the mobility all of the classes have in Destiny that just doesn't exist in The Division. I suspect that I'll be done with The Division by the end of the week until the new updates show up, whereas I'll be back to Destiny for the next Iron Banner and the announcement of new content coming in April for Destiny is extremely exciting to me. Overall The Division is quite fun for what it is, but I just can't see myself spending hundreds of hours with it like I have with Destiny or even Diablo 3.

All of that being said I do really hope that the Incursions end up being super exciting and that these two games push each other to be much more interesting and fun as they evolve over time. The Dark Zone has the potential to be some of the most interesting content I've seen in any game in a long time, and I hope they continue to enhance the ideas there to be even more interesting and fun.

Destiny for sure. While the Division has some interesting ideas, it needed more technical polish. Destiny might have had a drought of content for a bit at launch, but playing it up to 20 and a bit after was a very enjoyable experience, and I can't say the same about leveling in The Division.

I also think Division's story is worse, and the complete lack of anything changing from hour 3 or hour 30, as per Jeff's review. Destiny at least changed up enemies, tactics, environments and a lot of other things. The Division is just dudes shooting you, except sometimes they try to come from behind you...riveting...

Also for as neat as it is out of the gate, The Division's "cosmetic" stuff is downright trash. They really needed to do a little bit of creative styling instead of sticking to so much realism, but that could be said about the entire game.

I haven't played Destiny, though regardless of that fact it's hard to argue against The Division's mundate pool of loot. I wish there was cosmetic item drops as well; something that has a little more flavour beyond your usual assortment of winter coats and beanies. The sort of thing that would catch the eye of envious agents throughout Manhattan :P They could have sets based off of the characters and factions of the game as an example. I'm sure there will be more cosmetics stuff, but it'll all likely be DLC...

And for as kak as The Division's story is, I do at least think they done a fantastic job in creating a fully realised world. Like, the world itself has a staggering amount of detail for one thing, but all of the echos and audio logs and such are really interesting to listen to. None of it amounts to anything in the actual narrative, but it helped establish a sense of place. I always especially liked tracking down the audio logs that centred around the different enemy factions. And the voice acting, for the most part, is superb for all of that stuff, too.

Yeah I don't really see the debate here, Destiny doesn't have any puffy coats at all. Clearly the inferior product.

On paper I should like Destiny more. First person sci-fi space shit. I enjoy The Division more for some reason. Random complaint about The Division. I got all these sweet weapon skins, but then I got all these sweet named weapons that don't allow you to apply said skins. Weapon skins take up inventory space. I don't want to to just get rid of them (even if they are useless at this point in my progression).

I hope by the end of the year they just say "fuck it" and let me find (buy?) some goofy cosmetic items. I want to look ridiculous while I pump 60 bullets into a dude wearing a hoodie and jeans!

I like The Division more though...

I hate that this is a thing! Bloody psychopaths at Ubisoft they are for making something that's purely cosmetic take up space amidst a limited inventory alongside all of my alternate gear, weapons, mods and such.

At least they're kind enough that all the beanies and North Face jackets you collect don't take up inventory, but yah skins taking up inventory slots is kinda nuts, as is the fact that you need to buy multiple copies of the same skin to apply them to more than one weapon.

Incidentally, hot fashion tip: just recently noticed, after like 100hrs of gametime, that you can take off the jacket and run around in just your undershirt and armor.

I am enjoying the Division way more than I ever did Destiny. Pretty much everything about Destiny was a disappointment to me

Yep, also more of a scifi fan (nothing against real-world based stuff with light scifi elements but I find it hard to beat something fantastical or walking far enough into the future to say something interesting with hard scifi) who has been raised on the emergence of FPS (as a mainly PC kid) but I fall strongly on the side of the Division. I think it's a combination of it being heavier on the RPG elements (as in this is undoubtedly an RPG onto which a real-time cover based shooter has been attached to resolve the combat vs rolling dice and adjusting the numbers via gear) and Midtown Manhattan being lovingly realised as this massive space of post-apocalyptic horror. Yes, it's "just" that area recreated with some selective editing of side-streets and details and most of the indoor space not accessible but that's also an incredibly achievement and looks so good. It's a space I want to just walk around and document with a camera - to see what has happened and experience time and weather changing around me. I never got that in Destiny (I also did not finish Destiny so I didn't see everything).

They're both games where you shoot (and it can feel good doing so) and the numbers go up (and it feel meaningful that you're choosing which of them to focus on going up). But I've played a lot of games that do either one of those before. Something about the large coherent space crafted in the Division feels special, like this is what we're going to get more of. Like when you get a new GTA game and explore every inch of the space as you spend time there "playing the game" but it's not all about the mechanics of progression, a lot of it is just about the space you're in. Getting lost there, getting to the point where you know it all so well you can't get lost any more. The Division seems to do that but for a space taken out of a world like the Last of Us (shortly after the intro period, well before the main game's era).

Agreed on skins being a stupid thing to add to the limited inventory system (when they made an unlimited section for the other cosmetics). I think they should really just make unlimited all mod types and give them their own infinite pool. Rather than wasting my stash just in case I need to swap out my mods for a different type or need to respec my weapon or a new weapon and so need to move from all stability to all accuracy + something else mods. And the really stupid thing is the default storage system is something you can overcome. I've got random ilevel30 purples weapons I'm not intending to use in my stash because they've got the mods filled in and only take 1 slot in my stash. But if I was to not put the weapon in there then it would take 5 slots for all the mods it can contain. Same with the backpack. Don't carry lose mods, carry weapons and gear with several mod slots. That's a terrible system, they should change it.

I haven't played The Division - I guess the aesthetic just doesn't speak to me - but I'm super glad Destiny has a direct competitor now. These games will hopefully push each other to improve as they're competing for the same market segment.

One thing I think Destiny ought to take from The Division is that shooter fans can handle RPG stuff. Destiny seems designed under the assumption that mass appeal requires softer RPG mechanics, but The Division says fuck that, here's an avalanche of dps values and proc rates and skill trees and shit!

@takayamasama: The AI is downright awful which I commented on in my review. The hardest mode is "Challenging" in which the AI units are even more spongy and hit so hard you can die in a shot or two. It's nothing like the challenge modes in almost every other game.

At this point I love & hate Destiny in equal measure. I'm just sick at looking at the same enemies repainted and blown up and I've never liked the guns they look so cool yet fill the same boring roles, but the gunplay and gameplay loop is so addictive. In the Division I really like its mundane look messing around with all the attchments and 50 different hats I like much more than Destiny wired neon rave sci-fi look. The Division longevity will rely on post release content which will matter much more because it has no PVP to fall back on.

The strongest asset on the Division's side is their alliance system, or whatever its called. I haven't played the game yet, but from what I've seen, it seems every time you form an alliance with strangers you're walking thin razor's edge. There's always gonna be a feeble impromptu status quo that can easily tumble against any one side, because you have nothing to lose by making it to the finish line alone.

That seems like a really interesting mechanic. If everything went well, and you split the prize at the end, it's because everyone was either a decent person or too afraid to fuck up and lose it all.

It's a "meta" that is fresher than anything Destiny offers (i.e. "shoot things, win things"), but of course, Destiny's world and loot are much more appealing, as you point out. It's really a shame that the Division is a grindy mess. Nonetheless, I would be much more inclined to give The Division a try with friends, while I'm more than satisfied getting my share of second-hand "what's up with Destiny" info via the news and potentially watching friends play.

What I really don't know is how tactical one game is versus the other, and that would probably weigh in my opinion of each.

The problem is that none of what you just mentioned is really present at all in the actual game. There's pretty much no tension whatsoever in the Dark Zone because there's no reason to bother attacking other players. Everyone in the dark zone is just running a loop, killing the same enemies over and over and barely interacting at all. The Dark Zone economy is also completely broken to the point where large portions of the DZ map serve no practical purpose and the currency you earn is basically worthless to the majority of players.

The whole "tension filled trek into dangerous territory forming uneasy alliances and fearing betrayal at any moment" sounds amazing, but it doesn't exist in the current state of The Division. With some tweaks that dream could still become a reality, but what exists in the game now is decidedly not that.

@dryvby: With that said, this is where I to poke some holes in the PVP section of the OP's blog. The description given about the Division's PVP fits what people hoped it would be and what the developer's stated goals for the Dark Zone were, but it doesn't even remotely match what is actually going on in the game. The PVP is not hardcore at all, the risk and reward system related to going rogue is completely broken, you don't need to be cautious about people attacking you because it hardly ever happens, and you can't attack your own squad mates. I have to question whether you've played any Dark Zone beyond the wild west of the level 1-14 bracket, because everything you said is the exact opposite of what the Dark Zone is in its current state.

@dryvby: The enemies in the Division are actually pretty dynamic. They take cover and flank you pretty well most of the time. You have your heavies, melee rushers, standard grunts and elites. If anything the enemy AI is on par with every other game out there. I certainly don't remember the bad guys in Destiny being all that intelligent and since you can't even take cover in that game it was simply a swarm of NPC's rushing you while a few stragglers juked out from behind pillars once in a while. While the act of shooting and aiming is a lot more satisfying, strafing out from behind doorways and pillars definitely feels a lot more awkward in first person.

The Division isn't grindy at all, least not until you get to the end game, to where grinding for better gear is precisely what you're there for anyway. In fact The Division is probably one of the least grindy RPGs of any kind out there. You level up really quick (maybe a little too quick if I'm being honest) and if you ignore the dark zone (because of how you don't level up your regular level while in there) then you could hit max rank within a matter of days.

@ll_exile_ll: There's a patch coming today or tomorrow to address Phoenix Credits / Rogue.

The article you linked says nothing about what it is actually in the patch, just that it exists.

@ll_exile_ll: They do a weekly stream they mentioned improving drop rates, encouraging more people to go rogue and general QOL improvements no archive couldn't link.

Yep, people seem to love to complain about AI as if no one else could actually cite seeing what it is doing and so debunk their assertion it doesn't exist (reminded of thread advertising a YouTube video claiming the Last of Us has no AI vs Max Payne and then showing a few bugs as if it was proof and no one would point out that playing that game makes it pretty clear how the AI works, especially as you poke around the unaware/aware behaviours doing stealth stuff) - the Division maybe has less focus on stealth and looking at movement patterns before engaging (vs tLoU) but it certainly has similar occasional issue with the AI straight up breaking. That only really happens in games where there is visible and variable AI to actually notice working (which is enough programming complexity for it occasionally to totally break - not giving the team a pass on this, it should get fixed; but games without good AI also don't have such comical failures because there's not enough there to go wrong like this).

The Division isn't the best AI I've ever seen but they've got a decent mix of behaviours and traversal for the large open areas mixed in with the different classes and how they implement various behaviours. Even the rushers will not actually always rush you and so have both searching and retreating states you can see them engage in. They're highly disposed to rushing even into what are clearly killzones they should be able to spot but that's part of what makes them a challenge in groups (which harder difficulty players are pointing as a major sticking point) so it makes sense for the game, if not for the "what if this is an actual human-like mob which has any survival skills" perspective.

@snail: I hardly ever used tactics outside of the Dark Zone and challenging difficulty. The tactics we used were changing up different specs to boost our characters to slice through enemies faster. That's about it.

@ll_exile_ll: I've played every area of the Dark Zone. By hardcore PVP I mean strictly on being able to drop loot. That's the only aspect of "hardcore" that I meant. I haven't ran into a lot of PVPing players but I certainly have been rogue the majority of the time I'm there. I think that's the thrills I've had.

@humanity: I find the AI horrible. They move and flank but they do it in a way that looks like a scripted event. They're the least intelligent AI units I've encountered in a long time. At least for a "shooter".

Here's a couple of examples. I've had the AI go from being behind perfectly good cover to climb above it and stand wide open and start shooting. Seems pretty brain-dead to me. Another example is more random. I've ran into spots where I was away from the controller, came back with wave of enemies that had spawned near me. They were running around me, some of them standing aimed right at me and not firing. Some where hiding behind cover. I'll try and record some footage of all of the horrible AI I run into for argument's sake.

But compared to Destiny to keep this on topic, Destiny's AI will run behind cover to recharge shields. On the harder difficulties, it's hard to manage them (unless you've played forever like I have) due to their constant hiding when they're in danger. The Division feels like a moving shooting gallery.

@dryvby: At this point in the group I have been playing with, we don't even use any strategy or crowd control in Challenge missions anymore. Everyone's DPS and health is so high we just burst everything down as quickly as possible. The only real tactic now is targeting rushing enemies first.

The Division's premise jives with me way better than Destiny's does. Everyone compares every mechanical aspect of each game with each other but that's all fluff, its not the reason I would play either. I don't care about how the loot compares, I don't care which one's shooting is better (they both have their share of bullet spongy enemies), what I do care about is the role playing aspect, who am I in this game and why?

The scenario seemed grand in Destiny but rung hollow once I played it, the opening part was completely nonsensical, and the more I kept playing the more preposterous it became in my mind.. The Division's more grounded set up grabbed me immediately, I may be a bit of a sucker for Clancy-verse anyway, though I haven't played through any Tom Clancy game ever, played many though.

The Division has a really great atmosphere too. I don't know where @takayamasama gets the idea it needs more technical polish but The Division is a fine technical achievement. Perhaps if the matchmaking was more generalized, where you could see agents wandering around the PvE world too, that would be better, but otherwise, it dang good.

@jinoru: You can like the game all fine and well but to call it a "technical achievement" is just downright wrong. It graphically has some bad load in, slogs on FPS during heavy firefights in heavy now, and you can fall through the world many times (which is the most annoying thing in the world solo against named mobs)

That and the fact there is no kind of player pass through, and people literally had to wait hours to play the damn game because only one person at a time could use the stupid laptop, or wait to open a loot/restock container, is just damn silly. It is far from a technical achievement, and not even the most technically stable open world game Ubisoft has made.

What are you at in stats? I'm at 140DPS and 60k health. I was doing ok but my matched team kept quitting so I haven't been able to complete it.

Also, everyone, thanks for reading and commenting. I like that this hasn't turned hostile. I wrote this liking both games and I was hoping it came across that I didn't hate The Division. :)

I think the story and especially world design are much better in The Division. Those are reasons I didn't love Destiny (or lack of those aspects in Destiny), but really enjoy The Division. As for loot and gear, when it comes to their original releases, I think The Division is also better. From what I remember, almost every gun was the same, just more powerful, while in The Division, I feel that there is a few more selections. For me, I find myself wanting to play The Division a lot more than Destiny, especially considering how long it takes to go through them solo. I'll be satisfied even when I quit The Division; I wasn't satisfied with Destiny. If you are talking about their current state, then it's a little unfair, and shows that The Division has a lot more going for it on release (so what does that mean for its future)? Sure though, Destiny might be better in aspects now, but I personally don't want to go back to it.

Also, I don't care for the comparisons, because quality and quantity are quite different. They're only compared because they are loot based, have online, and are on consoles. I love sci-fi, but Destiny didn't do it for me. I thought it was solid in its shooting, though unoriginal feeling, and thought it sounded great, and looked great technically. The things I dislike about The Division is that, yes, the side missions are super repetitive, but at least it has fun gameplay, so I don't mind it that much. I do find myself running through it now though, but I suspect I'll want to explore a bit, and take it slower once I'm finished. I also dislike that changing the stats on your equipment is a risk reward thing, so you have a good chance of wasting money because the things you want is randomized. And the other thing that bothers me is that it's always online. I don't much care for that. There are other minor things, like repeating dialogue here and there, but it's hardly worth mentioning to me.

Overall, I think The Division is a great game, while Destiny was just okay. That all said, I am looking at it from a solo experience, not as someone that goes on to play with friends online.

@humanity said:

No jacket is the new puffy jacket.

Now if I could just get those pants off...

This is the weirdest, most subjective list of criterias I can imagine. Like, most of the winner for those categories flip if you play both games long enough. A few exemples

Loot/gear in the division vs destiny? Here's the ugly truth about destiny loot: it's garbage. It doesn't matter. There is very little variety in non exotic loot, most of the perks are worthless flaming crap and everyone is just hunting for specific 3 guns at any given time. As for the exotics, sure they're interesting but about 1/4 of them are actually viable. Others are useless gimmicky stuff you maybe use once out of obligation.

So while Destiny only has a handful of useful guns and very little room in its systems to generate interesting loot The Division is packed with interesting loot. Sure, it's lacking the hand crafted nature of Destiny's exotics but it makes up for it with great variety and a smart Diablo-esque reroll system. Every piece of gear you get in The Division can be put towards improving one of your builds. Want to be a better support for your team? Improve your support station and smart cover skills with specialized armor. Want to be a DPS monster? Get an SMG and pump that crit rate to 50-60% and that crit damage to +130%. The possibilities and the way they could build on that system are super exciting while Destiny is pretty much stuck with 5 viable guns and worthless armor at any given time because of its stricter FPS design.

PvP? PvP in the Division is straight up broken right now. There is no incentive to go rogue while you risk to lose so much XP it's not even worth considering. Especially when you realize rogues are so rare, you get swarmed by the entire server the moment you become one making it nye impossible to survive a manhunt. Destiny on the other hand has the best arena PvP experience in recent memory. I had countless hours of fun going through trials with a squad even when the rest of the content ran completely dry

@jinoru: Yep, from a technical standpoint, this game is staggering (PS4: played through the open beta; main game & beta played on PC with i5-2500K oc & a GTX760 2GB that has been asking to be upgraded [and at some point this year those nice new GPUs will arrive and I'll pick Polaris or Pascal]).

Rather than make people pick their textures from a list of quality settings, the game audits and then managed the VRAM to, from the look of it, make a really great trade-off between loads (at least on an SSD, PS4 and fast-travel was a lot less enjoyable - but there is really only a few hidden load zones that seems to be more for networking as that's the DZ entry points, social zones, and home base). Yes, that does mean you get streaming in stuff (I've only got 2GB of VRAM; not sure how great it is at getting high res textures everywhere for higher end GPUs) and some low detail pop in places but it's much better than having to permanently give up on high-quality textures (especially stuff like detailed normal maps etc critical to modern lighting engines). But it allows this incredibly large space with so much interior structure in so many of the buildings and prop detail with lots of unique assets, and all building on a completely dynamic lighting and weather condition engine to power it and prevent almost anything being pre-baked. If you don't like a light, shoot it. This is, to my eyes (as a coder with some experience with 3D engines but not someone actively working on such a scale) as impressive as what was managed when GTA V was squeezed into the last generation of consoles, only here the cost is not a constant 20fps slump and dropping even lower.

The anti-aliasing is a revelation. There's no other way to describe it. Using a temporal anti-aliasing process which is a post-processing filter but achieving these results (even enough to offer a slider to apply a sharpening filter for those who want it - I'll take softer and less aliasing myself so I turned it down) is the first time I've seen a AAA release manage that. We've seen Ubi experimenting with this stuff for a while but the ghosting and other issues (before we even look at competing temporal solutions like the joke that is stuff like the offering in Just Cause 3) has always been a trade-off. It's never been something you'd take if you could rather pick a forward-rendered scene with traditional 8-16xMSAA (and SSAA for the semi-transparent textures). Until now. The Division is the benchmark, in my estimation, for this. As we look towards VR and pushing image quality at or beyond 1080p, anti-aliasing is incredibly important. This game looks staggering (and these aren't even what the game looks like when you crank it up, this is with a GPU barely holding on to the "fast enough to be current" tier pushing for 60fps rather than accepting 30) for a post-process anti-aliased game.

We've seen detailed worlds, good looking game that only really compromise with delayed texture loads when it only can stream in so much so quickly (and it really helps when you've got running pace as the fastest the camera needs to move while going through the live streaming process). We've seen this pretty seamless drop-in/out multiplayer that the game (inconsistently - some sessions don't do it as they seem to require a load to push you into someone else's personal shard rather than the shared social and DZ shards) has. We've seen detailed cities (although none quite to this standard in my estimation). We've even see some passable post-AA solutions and equivalent real-time illumination (including for large particle systems) techniques. Nothing here is not incremental. But technically, as someone who has done rendering work in the past, the Division is incredibly impressive. That anti-aliasing is THE reference point for doing it right (everyone is currently working on temporal AA - this was the benchmark to show the goal is possible).

@pyrodactyl:

It's absolutely subjective, which I stated at the end too. The experience I've had in PVP has been great after a week with The Division. But I'm also the guy killing other players just because. I 100% agree that there's no real reason to do so other than seeing how long you can last on the server in manhunt mode. So from my subjective view, the PVP has been great because I can take loot from players and get gear parts (I've broken most everything I've looted from them).

And I absolutely love Crucible. A lot. I have a clan I roll with when we play called the Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles. I've put in near 5d worth of PVP in Destiny. This was hard to really give to the Division, but I love what I've seen thus far.

Thanks for commenting.

Division - better game world, Story

Destiny - better Shooting, Strikes, Raids, Dancing, and Enemy types. Also the game world felt more alive and less empty.

As much as Destiny rubbed me the wrong way in the long run, the division didn't even have enough for me to want to buy the full game. The shooting and the strikes just made Destiny a much funner game to play, while the division just felt lifeless.

For whatever reason I am enjoying the Division way more than I enjoyed Destiny.

Man, I liked both of those games and I'm really conflicted at this point. I think when I include The Taken King into my thoughts on Destiny I think I had more overall fun but then it occurs to me that I had to buy vanilla Destiny and The Taken King to get to that point and I start to have value questions pop up in my mind. Admittedly that's somewhat of a side issue to the question of "which game did it better?" but I wouldn't want to completely side it either. Also it suggests we'll be revisiting this question down the line after we've seen what Ubisoft adds to the Division.

I do think they're fundamentally different games that are united by a loot incentive system and really that's the primary system where I feel there are meaningful discussions to be had in comparing the two. I think Destiny holds the edge easily if for no other reason than when you get a notable piece of loot you really feel like you can show it off. Benefit of a sci-fi/fantasy setting.

I applaud the pretty decent analysis (although I think the point about mission design is debatable depending on what you focus on).

@takayamasama: I have run into literally none of those issues in the 10-15 hours I've played.

@jinoru: Then I envy you. The 20+ hours I played before trading it in were more or less a headache after hour 5.

I like what the game is trying for, and am excited for a sequel, but this first game didn't do it for me. I'm ok with this though, because it's Ubisoft, they usually have great ideas in the first installment of their games, but lack other stuff, then come around and make an amazing 2nd version of their game.

Then destroy the franchise with the 3rd one...

The Division – Patch Notes 1.0.2

"Players killed in the Dark Zone will lose less Dark Zone Funds and Experience (Rogue and non-Rogue)

Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for surviving Rogue status have been improved

Dark Zone Funds and Experience rewards for killing Rogue agents have been improved

Phoenix Credits drop have been increased on lvl 31 and 32 enemies in the Dark Zone"

They are removing this due to server stability issues

Well, lets see on the one hand Destiny is an ozzing pus spewing hole of smelly rot. And, on the other jand The Division while not perfect is enjoyable.

Winner: The Division ....by virtue of not being a smelly, rotting, pus spewing sore on the ass of gaming.

One could say the "Green Poison" is really Destiny and that the people playing The Division are trying to save humanity from Destiny.

@pyrodactyl:I posted the full patch notes a few hours ago in a separate post. It's updates with those changes as well.

@dryvby: With over 2,000 hours into Destiny I was kinda interested to see how my opinions stacked up to your assessment. So here goes.

Loot: (The Division) While I love how loot works in both game, and the grind to collect all of the Exotic weapons in Destiny was always fun, Bungie has far too sparse updates to both their Exotic and Legendary inventories able to be both bought and obtained. They also have historically been both far too slow and far too drastic with weapon adjustments in their sandbox. While The Division shows great promise with constantly rotating vendor gear and extremely quick turn around on updates. With a more Diablo style gear it is also more frequent that you obtain that useful piece of gear that surpasses what you are currently using in that slot, which granted will never give you a Gjallarhorn or Hawkmoon moment, but is very satisfying nonetheless.

World Design: (Destiny) The Division's New York fits itself pretty well, but it doesn't really stand a chance in a category were one developer is held to a real word city and another can create anything they want. And Destiny's World Design, while smaller than they claimed and many hoped, is still pretty darn good.

Player Interaction: (Destiny) While both have strength's a weaknesses, and both function adequately within their own game, I think Destiny has the edge in this category. While many have railed against it's lack of automated matchmaking for Nightfall's and Raids, something which it seems is and will be in The Division with Challenge Mode and Incursions, the actual grouping seems much more fluid in Destiny, at least in my personal experience. Many times when joining friends in The Division I'm kicked back into my own world after a 2 minute loading screen only to need to try and load into their game again. Another huge feature missing right now in The Division is the ability to see who is grouped with whom. That makes it much harder to tell which of my friends are grouped with each other especially when around 10 of us play together pretty frequently. I shouldn't have to use Party Chat to make that determination, I should be able to quickly see that in game.

PVP: (Destiny) While the Dark Zone has a ton of potential, it is nowhere near the amount of fun it was in the Beta even still. A lot of that has to do with reputation losses going rogue and such that may or may not soon be addressed enough to correct the problems with it currently tomorrow. Until then it is a mode with tons of potential that doesn't quite live up to it yet. Then comes Destiny PvP which, at least for me, wasn't much better than your traditional COD PvP. That is until they launched Trials of Osiris. Because of several rascals on the Destiny forum and here I got into Destiny PvP in a huge way after that and it's been hard to look back. Trials is the most PvP fun I've had in a video game in recent memory. But, if Destiny doesn't soon address a lot of the things they broke in December and have yet to fix, and don't launch a new "Season" of Trials, I could easily see my mind being changed on this subject, especially if The Division fixes the current issues with The Dark Zone.

Mission Design: (Destiny) It's hard to give a winning grade to either game in a category they are both terrible, but I guess the bounty system is slightly better than nothing. Nightfall's are slightly better designed, with modifiers, than their equivalent in The Division's Challenge modes. Both needs huge improvements in this area going forward for their standard game. Note: I am keeping this separate from larger, lets call it mid game content, because if included now, POE, Court of Oryx, and other content would far outshine the nothing that is in The Division currently.

End Game and Lasting Appeal: (Destiny) While The Dark Zone is fun and may be much more enjoyable in the future, and Incursions could be amazing, Destiny's Raids are some of the best content in gaming. Trials of Osiris is also one of the most satisfying competitive multiplayer mode out there. Then you have all of the other content that has been considered End Game in Destiny's life like Prision of Elders and to an extent Iron Banner. There is just so much more to do in Destiny for an end game player. And I don't see that changing.

Missing but should be added Gameplay: (Destiny) The minute to minute gunplay is so much more satisfying in Destiny than when playing The Division. Abilities feel so much better, on every class, and guns just feel better, near perfect for an FPS. The Division on the other hand feel pretty clunky, especially for a third person shooter. Most other third person shooters feel much more succinct in their shooting mechanics like the Mass Effect series, Army of Two games, Naughty Dog games, MGSV, Gears of War, etc.

Missing but should be added Customer Support: (The Division) Bungie has always been alright when it comes to updating their sandbox. The game isn't even recognizable from where it was at launch to where it has come. But looking at recent history they put out a patch in December that basically broke the Crucible. They then took a 6 week vacation, probably deserved, but left nobody to man the game. They come back and to this day we still haven't seen fixes for most of the issues they created back in early December, 3 months ago. What is worse, they haven't even acknowledged many of the issues outside of asking Reddit for what people think is wrong with the game, and not responding. Look to Massive, we have had a lot of communication about the bugs, and issues that are harming the game. Two weeks, two patches that seem to address those issues. I know this is kind of early to make a call like this, but I expect The Division to have much better Customer Support than Destiny ever has.

After all of this I would have to agree that Destiny is my clear winner as well. But this doesn't change the fact that I haven't touched Destiny in over two weeks. A game I averaged at least 5-10 hours a week for around 18 months before that with. I cannot put The Division down right now, and I think that also speaks volumes for how good The Division is in it's own right. Will I go back to Destiny when content launches, probably, as long as content that launches is significant and they address the issues present for the past few months. But I have been pleasantly surprised with how much I've enjoyed The Division and am so glad to have the option to play either when the mood calls for it. This comparison like your, is in no way a dig at The Division, because both are great games, and I will continue to enjoy them both.

I think if you look at the launch of both games, The Division has the upper hand on Destiny.

However, at this point choosing between all the content of destiny vs all the content of the division, Destiny is a better game.

Such a direct comparison content-wise seems wholly unfair, considering that Destiny has been out for over a year now (nearing upon two years even), whereas The Division hasn't even reached a single month yet.

@yummylee: i agree, it's an unfair comparison. But if i had to give purchase advice to someone who wants to buy either one of these, i would direct them to Destiny at this point. Even if the Division gets some cool DLC, i just think that the loot / environments are never going to get as interesting as Destiny.

While i do like the Dark zone aspect of the Division, after the novelty weared off and i realized that the loot is underwhelming and going rogue is not worthwhile, it kinda lost it's grab on me.

I haven't actually played the division but based on watching streams and playing destiny I actually like the division's world better. Something about how well they got new york down really appealed to me, whereas Destiny was just more sci fi stuff. Really well done sci fi stuff, but nothing that I haven't seen before (or that they haven't done to some extent in halo games)

@onemanarmyy: the other unfair thing about this comparison is that you can get taken king for as low as 20 dollars on sale now, whereas you're still stuck paying 60 dollars (or close to 60 if you go to your greenmangamings or get prime discount or w/e). It will be interesting to see how good the content they add to the division is though.

@hestilllives19: Great assessment! I went back in the Dark Zone last night and if I would have wrote this after just a few more days of doing it, I'd agree that Destiny's PVP is the winner. Once you've survived several manhunts and (like others have pointed out) seen that no one is carrying anything worthwhile, it's pointless other than being a jerk. I like being a jerk sometimes but the PVP has run thin.

Destiny wins out for me personally because Bungie is great at world building, and has had time to fix some of their issues with expansions. The story for both games are rather terrible, but in Destiny at least the story has paid off in the epic Atheon and Oryx raid fights. The problem for me in the Division is that boss encounters are all pretty underwhelming bullet-sponge fights with adds, with the size of health/armor bars being one of the only noticeable changes between fights.

Plus nothing in the Division gives me the highs of being a Titan chucking hammers of PURE EXPLOSIVE FIRE or being a literal space-wizard and smiting dudes with lightning.

That being said, roaming around a very pretty New York City with the dynamic lighting and weather system is neat, and there is something to be said about how the Division might feel more interesting to some people being a near-future scenario in a real place. The Dark Zone has great potential, and hopefully will be better balanced and have more diverse objectives added in the future. Destiny PvP has unfortunately been rather uninteresting despite Bungie's attempted balance changes and the added PvP modes, whereas the Dark Zone actually has unique tension and dynamic gameplay moments you just won't get in Destiny.

I burned out on Destiny after about close to a hundred hours. I don't think I'm even going to break 40 hours with the Division, and that's across both the PC and Xbox One where I play with two separate groups of friends. There just isn't enough content in the Division to make them comparable right now.