‘The Division 2’ Deletes ‘Diablo 4’ Seasonal Character Idea After Player Revolt

Back when Diablo 4 came out I got a lot of flak from Diablo vets for saying I wished eternal realm characters could participate in seasons in some capacity, rather than being left behind. “That’s not how it works!” everyone said. And while I have come around on that now, introducing that concept to a game that didn’t have it for years is a problem. Enter The Division 2.

A month ago, Ubisoft announced that future seasons of The Division 2 would switch to a seasonal character model, meaning you start fresh, level up, gear up, participate in season-specific activities. In the history of The Division 1 and 2 there has never been anything like this, and it did not sound great. Now, it’s being walked back.

Ubisoft absorbed the immediate pushback and tried to write a long FAQ addressing concerns, which included explanations like:

“The main idea behind Seasons 2.0 is to break away from the current repetitive seasonal model by transforming the entire experience. With your main characters, we need to consider various progressions and power levels, making it nearly impossible to create a well-balanced experience that is enjoyable for all. Starting all players at level 1 ensures that we have a clear understanding of where they are in their progression journey when faced with specific challenges. To put it simply, in order to craft challenges with precision, we need a fresh start.”

They said progression will be sped up, and your main character will also be able to join in the last two weeks in a given season to farm things. You do also do not have to complete the entire campaign again. My favorite question they pose to themselves in the FAQ is “What is the point of keeping your main character if you can’t use them for 90% of future content coming to the game?” The answer to that was that both types of characters will have “meaningful roles” with main characters still given ultimate priority. Okay.

But after a month, no one was biting, and now the idea has been scrapped altogether. They did an “apology/game delay” style text image on Twitter to relay this:

“We hear you and we want to assure you we have carefully considered your feedback after the announcement of season 2.0. After thorough examination and discussions with the team, we have decided to re-evaluate Season 2.0 with particular attention to Seasonal Characters with the goal of progressing without them. This change will not impact the previously announced Year 6 plans, but it will require us to asses the changes necessary to the new Seasonal Experience, which will be integrated with Year 6 Season 2 this fall. Once we have the finer details, we will return with more information, a livestream and a PTS.”

This will no doubt delay plans as the original reason for doing this was that they said the game was becoming impossible to balance and it was difficult to keep progression alive but…they’re going to try to do it, somehow.

It’s pretty clear what the problem is here and you just can’t change an established system like this on a dime. Division 2 players have likely been using their same slate of characters since 2019 when the game was released, through thick and thin, through substantive seasons and sparse ones. This is far different than Diablo which had eons of the seasonal character system in place for Diablo 3, so no one was shocked when it was still in place for Diablo 4 with few changes (my brief protest aside). Even if the explanation from The Division was that main characters would still be able to make some progress, it’s pretty easy to understand why players rebelled against the idea. But I am certainly wondering how exactly this alters plans.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.