To celebrate, we caught up with some current and former team members to find out what makes the game so special.

THE WORLD OF THE DIVISION 2

One of the things in The Division 2 that stands out to a lot of people is the game’s world, the city of Washington D.C. – recreated to a 1:1 scale, using Massive’s own Snowdrop engine – itself. “There’s such a sense of scale and attention to detail,” Lead Game Designer Fredrik Thylander says. “And not just the visual fidelity, but how much there is to find and see and experience in that city.”

“The hidden hunters, the underground faction that only come out at night, the events and living world of enemies and friendlies roaming around,” he says. “There’s lots of systemic looter shooters out there, but none with an immersive, detailed, alive world like The Division 2.”

Product Director Morten Ryberg agrees. “The game has a lot of things that are different from most other games,” he says. “But most notably is the attention to detail in the world. We treat it as a character both in terms of story and emotion.”

Daria Ilyina, Community Developer, also points to the world as one of the things that really makes the game stand out. “It completely wraps up the players in the virtual experience in front of them – from story and sound to random encounters and graffiti on the streets of D.C.,” she says.

SHOOTING AND LOOTING

Another thing that our developers think makes the game special is the variety of gameplay styles it supports. “It doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve played – there’s something for everyone,” Daria says. “That’s what truly makes the game so enjoyable for many different people.”

It doesn’t matter how many hours you’ve played – there’s something for everyone.

“It’s not easy to make a game where loot feels rewarding and at the same time give players the choice in terms of their playstyle,” Morten adds. “I believe this is achieved in The Division 2.”

The gameplay is one of the things that stands out to Fredrik from his time working on The Division 2. “I think I’m most proud of the gunplay and shooting,” he says. “At the end of the day, even without all the RPG systems, great locations, and gadgets, it’s still a solid shooter at its core. One with far, far too many unique guns and attachments, that all feel fun to mess about with, and with unique sounds, reloads and handling.”

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

One of the first things that will catch your eye when you enter Massive’s studio in Malmö is a giant statue of Agent Heather Ward, one of the characters from The Division 2. The statue was originally constructed for E3 2018 and stood right at the entrance to one of the Los Angeles Convention Center’s wings, as the game was revealed to the public during the conference.

“That’s one of my best memories from The Division 2,” Cristian Pana, Senior Producer for the project and now Managing Director for Ubisoft Bucharest, remembers fondly. “Arriving at the LACC and seeing that beautiful statue, and the two robotic arms carving the names of community members and beta testers into the plinth.”

“The Division 2 community is one of the most diverse fanbases I’ve ever worked with,” Daria says. “They are an incredible bunch of players, artists, cosplayers, storytellers, streamers and content makers from across the globe united by a common passion – they embody the true essence of our Division Agents.”

In 2023, The Division 2 is still growing, and the team is planning for the game’s fifth year. “There are so many details and ambitious additions that we will bring to millions of players,” Morten says with a smile. “We are looking forward to sharing those plans with our players and even more to see it all be realized over the next 12 months.”

“A lot of hard work lays in front of us, but it will all be worth it!”

More from Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

• The Division 2 launch week – A Massive road to launch
• The Unique Sound of The Division 2, Audio Director Simon’s story

Please note that this article contains spoilers for The Division 2 and Warlords of New York. You have been warned.

In Season 4, released in 2020, the players were forced to kill Faye Lau, a character that had been a part of the story since the very beginning of the franchise. As they stood over her still body – the once leader of the Division’s efforts who had betrayed all her friends and allies – many players asked the question – why?

And though Faye was gone, her story was not over. And in Title Update 15, the reasons behind Faye’s actions finally started to become clear. While two years have passed for us in the real world, only minutes have gone by in the game world. And for the writing team, it has hardly been any time at all.

“Faye has been with me all this time,” Lauren Stone, Narrative Director for The Division 2, says. “Since I was working with the whole Tom Clancy brand for the last two years, I was always looking at her story within the wider context of all our transmedia properties.”

When Lauren started on The Division back in 2016, Faye was the first character she wrote for. She loved writing for her, and Lauren instantly had a ton of ideas for directions Faye could go in.

“I actually proposed this whole love story between Faye and Nathan, Doctor Kandel’s assistant, in 2016. I wrote up a bunch of collectibles that would show the evolution of their relationship, like The English Patient, with him taking care of her after she lost her eye.”

“Sadly, we couldn’t do it because Melissa O’Neil, who voices Faye, was doing a show and was unavailable to record that particular story.”

FINDING FAYE’S VOICE

The actress Melissa O’Neil was instrumental in turning Faye into the iconic character she became, and when the team started to work on the Warlords of New York expansion for The Division 2, they knew they needed her back.

“We didn’t want to get a soundalike,” Lauren says. “Melissa was irreplaceable. If she was not available, we had to think of something else. Thankfully, she wanted to support us and The Rookie, the show she is working on, helped us so she could come back and voice Faye again in Warlords of New York.”

After working with Melissa in the recording booth, and seeing the impact she had on the character, Lauren felt it was necessary to give Faye the send-off she deserved. “The story of her and Nathan’s love did not fit within the plot of Warlords of New York and so, like many ideas and potential story threads, it was abandoned for a better idea that better served the story we were trying to tell in 2019.”

“We are so happy and honored that we got to work with Melissa for such a long time, and that she helped us bring a character that is so important for the Division franchise and story to life.”

LIVING ON THE SAME STREET

For Lauren, writing characters comes with a variety of emotions and connections. As a writer, you sometimes must write characters that are very different from yourself – which according to Lauren can be fun. “I think Aaron Keener and I are probably the most different, other than President Ellis,” she says. “Ellis is a [REDACTED], he is fun to write but we are very different people.”

But with Faye, something was different. There was a connection there. “There are characters that live on the same street as you” as she calls it. “Faye and I are very similar women,” she says. “We are both justice monsters, who will sacrifice ourselves to serve our community, we are both disabled – she lost an eye, I have three autoimmune diseases – and we are both Asian American women who are elder-millennials and grew up within that cultural context.”

“I am white passing, Japanese, Latina and indigenous woman from California and Faye is a Chinese American woman from New York. We are not the same, but we have a lot of common touchstones.”

We are both justice monsters, who will sacrifice ourselves to serve our community.

Lauren sees Faye as the kind of person that would do the right thing, regardless of how wrong it might seem. Faye looks at the bigger picture and is not afraid to adapt as she gains new information. “She gets fixated on solving a problem,” Lauren says of Faye, “but she does not get obsessive about the results. She follows where the evidence leads her, and adapts, instead of trying to only find evidence that supports her original hypothesis. Denying new information, and the inability to change our minds, is dangerous. Faye is willing to admit when she is wrong and change her course of action.”

CRAFTING A LIVING STORY

According to Lauren, when crafting a new story in the Division universe – be it in the games, for an audio drama or a novel – you must make sure to honor the stories that have already been told and build upon them. Lauren and the team work hard to make sure to create a foundation and pockets in the world where others can have the freedom to tell their stories, while still having everything grounded and tied together.

“My goal is for everything to be additive and stand on its own merit,” she says. “You do not have to read the book to understand the audio drama or play the game, but if you want to see how more people interact with this world you can do so by engaging in other mediums.”

“The Division is a deep and meaningful exploration of the best and worst of what humanity has to offer in a time of crisis. I want to create a catharsis – not a trauma generator. At the core of any Division property is community and teamwork.”

At the core of any Division property is community and teamwork.

Of course, The Division 2 is an online game in continuous development. The game changes and evolves over time, which is a challenge when telling a story, since it becomes a marathon, not a sprint. “You have to pace yourself and keep looking ahead,” Lauren says. “You have to move forward with intention and make better choices each time”.

“If we learn from our mistakes we can grow and build something meaningful together. That does not mean we ignore the mistakes or pretend they do not exist, but we cannot hold onto a minor failure or a battle we lost if we want to win the next one tomorrow.”

That sounds like something Faye might say.

It all starts with a concept. “I try to find something in the new content that we can tie an Apparel Event to, so when we do an update, it all feels coherent,” Art Producer Palle Hoffstein says. Sometimes it can be tricky and take a while to find that tie-in, but in the case of Title Update 15 and the Fairview Crew Apparel Event, it was clear from the start.

TELLING A STORY

“Fairview Crew came together very quickly because the new content is set in an atomic power plant, a very specific environment that we haven’t had in the game before,” Palle tells us. To him, the best events tell a story through their gear, answering the question “why would somebody be dressed that way?”. And in a power plant, there were a lot of stories to tell about the people dressing up in the clothes offered in the new event.

“Who is keeping the plant running, six months after society collapsed? Who is there? Do they live there now?” Palle asked himself and his team. “They would have gear that was part of their old job, but by now their stuff is going to be taped up, the visors are going to be cracked, they might be mixing and matching stuff that’s probably not even keeping them safe anymore!”

“And while some people still know how to run the power plant, others have completely fallen apart. But for all of them, the gear is their connection to a world that is gone – that is why they are holding on to these pieces of clothing.”

FINDING THE COOL

After the concept has been finalized, Palle shares it with the Creative Director and the Narrative Director. If they like it, he then goes to the Concept Artists so everyone can get an idea of what the gear will look like visually.

“I will take that high level idea and start turning it into something concrete,” Senior Concept Artist Topi Pajunen, who worked on the Fairview Crew Apparel Event, says. “I do research, mood boards and sketches before handing it to Palle to discuss what they look like, what kind of feel does this gear convey?”

“But also, how would it work in-game? Does it function with our characters? Does it look cool?”

This coolness factor means that, despite the research, a piece of clothing does not need to be completely realistic and practical. It just needs to be iconic for the theme, archetypes of something you would straight away connect with the subject matter.

And while creating the final concept art, the artists keep building on the connection to the world of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – in the case of Fairview Crew, it was branding. “Pentco is a fictional company that our players have already seen in the Division games,” Palle says, “so we decided that this power plant would be a part of this established corporation that has a logo, that has brand colors. In real work clothing, you would see logos everywhere, so we used that to ground the gear into the ‘reality’ of the game world.”

FROM 2D TO 3D

Once the concepts are signed off on, it is time to get the gear into the game. Some of the 3D assets are created in-house at Massive, but much of it is handled primarily at Ubisoft Shanghai, following the regular 3D process pipeline before ending up inside Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

“There’s a high polygon version, we review it, it goes to low poly, we review it, it goes to skinning and rigging, we review it, it goes into the game, we look at it,” Palle tells us. “All through that process we stop and iterate as needed, because something that works great as a concept does not always come to life in the way you would like when you see it in 3D.”

The way Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’s character work, with five pieces of clothing and six pieces of gear that all need to be shown on the character, there is a lot of complexity involved and tweaks must be continuously made before Palle and his team are happy with the result.

And, as Topi points out to us, the team must be aware that players, in the end, want to mix and match gear to get the look they want for their character. During an event, the new pieces are meant to fit together as coherent outfits, but if you want to wear a Hawaii shirt from the Heat Wave Apparel Event that ran in 2019 with a new gasmask from the Fairview Crew Apparel Event in 2022, you should be able to.

“We have so many pieces in the game, not everything works with everything,” Palle elaborates. “If you are going to wear something we made two years ago with something we made now, we cannot guarantee that they look amazing together. That is not our priority when putting together new outfits. And we build them quite differently now than we did in the past.”

THE SHIFTING TECHNOLOGY OF VANITY

“It was more rigid when we started,” Palle says. “The biggest thing we added in Year 1 was probably the ability to have hoodies up, which everyone was asking for, which I was asking for, that we just could not do originally. We needed gameplay support and I had to nag people for a long time.”

“The other big thing was the ability to hide the chest piece.”

That might not sound like a big thing on paper, but a lot of thought and work went into hiding that piece. When Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 launched, the real focus was on the game’s regular gear that was designed to have a visible progression as you moved from level 1 to level 30. The equipment would get bigger and more technologically complex, and in the end, you would be decked out in heavy, impressive and elaborate gear.

“The problem was the players did not like that,” Palle says. “They liked being powerful, they did not like the look of being encumbered with a lot of gear. So, we started producing things that looked more streamlined, and then we started hiding the chest piece on some shirt pieces.”

Together with hats and jackets, a shirt has some of the most interesting real estate where people communicate through clothing, both overtly and subtly. It is a good place for logos and slogans, and helps players define who their character is. It gave the team a lot more places to play and tell stories.

In the Fairview Crew Apparel Event, the team is adding a new type of item that has not been in the game before – purely cosmetic backpacks meant to fit in with the rest of the outfits in the event. They have no gameplay advantages, but because the players can choose to change the look of their regular gear while keeping their stats using Appearance Slots – colloquially called a “transmog” system in games – these new backpacks open a lot of options for both players and developers.

“What’s cool is that The Division 2 is a third person game, you see your character over the shoulder, so the backpack takes up a big amount of screen space,” Palle says. “It is very front and center. The new functionality takes the canvas of the screen and opens up a big area that was not available to us before to do some storytelling and play around a little bit. “

“Before they needed to be fully plausible, they had to look like real gear. But with the new cosmetic gear, we have more room to play with colors and materials. This is going to be fun!”

It sounds like a simple process but opening up this space did take some gameplay programming and design to work. To Topi it was worth that extra effort. “We can now work in full 360 degrees around a character,” he says with a smile. “It is very exciting to me. The visual area of games is where I live. I love it. There are so many things you can imagine what characters can put in a backpack, so many different materials they can be made out of.”

THE FUTURE OF AGENT FASHION

Moving forward, the team wants to do two Apparel Events per season and for them to counterbalance each other. If one has a more militaristic theme, they want the second one to not have that. “We might have underestimated the importance of self-expression in the community when we launched,” Palle says, “but that is something we can address now. And it is fun to work on!”

The next one is meant to tap into contemporary clothing, but still with the same “six months later” vibe that Fairview Crew has.

“It is something we tackled a little bit in the past, but I do not think we really pulled it off,” Palle says. “We are better positioned to do that now. We have people here that are more into clothing and fashion. I am really looking forward to that event and to see what the community does with it.”

The team of course has more ideas and plans for what they are going to do for future Apparel Events, hoping to do even more with the vanity system they started with the backpacks and using it for more pieces.

“We want to give players more options,” Palle summarizes their philosophy. “And we always want to give them even more opportunities to communicate who they are in our game world.”

“Before I decided to pursue a career in gaming, I was working for insurance and oil and gas companies,” she tells us. “Long story short, after 2014 I realized it was not me for me anymore, and since I had a passion for community and gaming, I applied for my first Community Management job.”

Her previous experience in IT analytics and customer & partner relationship helped Daria to quickly adjust to a brand-new working environment and gave her new ways to use her skills and expertise. “Despite the popular belief that the community discipline is just a way of breaking into the gaming industry,” she says, “I knew that this is what I was truly passionate about.”

Which titles did you work on before?
Lost Ark, Warface, Conqueror’s Blade, Prison Architect, a bunch of FTP mobile games and some other titles that are yet to be announced.

What excited you about The Division 2?
The continuation of the story and The Division 2 endgame trailer that featured the Black Tusk and their robot dogs!

What are your first impressions of the Division community?
Three words come to mind: passionate, demanding, and artistic. Even though it can be tough sometimes, there are always those who continue to inspire us with their ideas, creations, critique, and constructive feedback. It’s the community who I work hard for every day.

I have been a part of The Division community myself since the first game came out, and till this day it never ceases to amaze me how creative the community is.

What is it like to work in a Community team?
Amazing and inspiring! The Community Management discipline attracts creative individuals from all kinds of backgrounds – from content creators and copywriting specialists to Social Media Managers and live streaming gurus. It is a perfect opportunity to share the experience and learn from each other.

But primarily, it is a collaborative process. ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’, as the saying goes. Of course, we are working together to achieve a common goal, but it is also very important not to forget about helping each other to attain our full potential.

Also, the memes.

What will be your first steps as Community Developer?
Too late for the first steps, I’m afraid. With the ongoing PTS and TU15 release preparations I feel like I have already run a marathon!

Jokes aside, my primary goals as a Community Developer are not only limited to facilitating the communication between players and developers and ensuring that KPIs are met timely, but also creating safe spaces for the most vulnerable community members and building meaningful relationships with gamers through friendliness, transparency, and information awareness.

What is your first impression of Massive?
They are exceptional people here! I am glad to have joined the company at such an exciting time.

The Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 Public Test Server for Title Update 15 just closed and the update will be officially released for all platforms soon. For more information and news, follow The Division 2 on Twitter.

More from Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

• How we Crafted an Authentic Washington D.C. for The Division 2
• The Unique Sound of The Division 2, Audio Director Simon’s story

In September, we reached a studio milestone: 50% expats from 50 different nationalities! We are proud to have such a diverse and inclusive Massive family, and the milestone called for celebration and some new pins on our employee map.

Getting ready for Eden

The countdown is on: in April 2020 we are moving to our new office building Eden, located in the dynamic and diverse area of Möllan! The past year, we’ve shared pictures and videos to invite you all to see what’s actually going on at the construction site, and we can’t wait to show you the finished result in 2020!

Introducing the Griffin

In February, we introduced our new Anniversary Griffins to celebrate our amazing colleagues and friends for working 5-, 10-, and 20 years at Massive! Designed by some of our Massive colleagues, the Griffins now stand proud on many desks in our studio – and there are more to come in 2020!

Inspiring women and non-binary people to code

At its core, Pink Programming aims to inspire women and non-binary people to learn to code. But for us at Massive, it’s not only an opportunity to inspire women and non-binary people to find their love for coding, but also for us to be inspired by their curiosity and interest!

2019 saw no less than two Pink Programming Sundays at our studio, and we are always proud to open our doors for these workshops!

Releasing Tom Clancy’s The Division 2

We couldn’t make this list without the biggest highlight of the year – the release of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 in March!
It had everything: a big red button, Tommy the Teddy Bear keychains, cake, and bubbles.
Developed on our top-class engine Snowdrop and distributed on Uplay (to name one), it was an amazing time for our studio to come together to celebrate.

And The epic release party that followed

Talking about highlights, The Division 2’s release party was truly a night to remember.

The venue was an old hangar turned urban art gallery, decorated to look like one of the settlements in The Division 2. Complete with vegetable patches, food trucks, containers, and water tanks, it was like stepping into the game itself!

Walking with Massive Pride

For the second year in a row, friends and colleagues from Massive walked with pride in the Malmö Pride Parade in July as a statement about our belief in equal value, rights, and opportunities for everyone! It was a day filled with love, glitter, and dancing – a true celebration of everything we stand for.

Getting spooky at Halloween

One of the most fun and innovative days at Massive is our annual Halloween Costume Contest, and this year we really knocked it out of the park. A human-sized Tetris, Women in Black, and Cards against Humanity (or, as they wanted to be called, Finance against Humanity) was some of this year’s contestants.

Working for a better city environment

In January, we announced our participation in Malmö Works – a company initiative with the aim to promote carless travels to and from work for a greener Malmö. In May, we hosted our very first Bike Day with workshops on how to repair your bike, lectures about Swedish biking rules, and the opportunity to “pimp your bike”! All with the aim to inspire our friends and colleagues to travel to and from work more sustainably. And even though we are already doing great in this area, we strive to do even better in the future.

Spending time with our Massive family

No year would be complete without all our amazing parties, fikas, and gatherings. This year, the Massive family came together for events like E3, salsa lessons at the summer party, Future Session, and – of course – kanelbullens dag (cinnamon bun day), to name a few!

In one of Malmö’s industrial areas, an old hangar stands tall among the other buildings, and inside, a settlement from The Division 2 has been recreated, complete with containers, water tanks, barrels, and even vegetable patches.

The hangar itself is an urban art gallery, and its walls are covered in massive art works.

Around the venue, several food trucks are parked. They serve everything from pulled pork burgers and Korean street food to handmade pizza and churros.

After inspiring and celebratory speeches from David Polfeldt, MD, and Cristian Pana, The Division 2’s Producer, a talented dance crew takes the stage with a The Division inspired show, followed by an incredible drum performance on the floor.

In the later hours of the evening, DJ John De Sohn enters the stage, and the whole hangar turns into a massive dance floor, complete with pyrotechnics, strobe lights, and some truly amazing dancing.

A big thank you to everyone who made The Division 2 happen, and to our community – without you, we could never have done it!

• Read more about the road to launch!

In October 2017, Karolina Lundin started working as an International Product Manager for The Division 2. We meet in the kitchen for a coffee to talk about her journey to Massive, but also what it means to work in a AAA studio’s Brand team.

“It can be difficult to define everything that we do, but our ultimate mission is to make Massive’s games shine,” she explains as she pours herself a cup of coffee.

She goes on to explain that the Brand team looks at the entirety of the game, first to strategize how to show it to the world; and second to make strong communications around it. It’s about creating awareness for the project and then continuously work to keep the sentiment about it positive.

For Karolina, the road to the game industry wasn’t always clear cut. Her first industry experience was through a summer job in the Massive reception – and during that summer, she fell in love with the studio.

“I can still remember the first time I entered the studio, and how I was immediately fascinated by the studio’s positive vibes. It was just so friendly and international, and I was thinking to myself ‘am I still in Malmö?’. I had heard of Massive before, but never really understood how … massive it was!” she says laughing.

I had heard of Massive before, but never really understood how … massive it was!

After the summer at Massive, Karolina moved to London to study Marketing and Communication for three years. When she returned to Malmö she had no doubts: she was going to apply for a job at Massive.

“That feeling of being in the studio – I just couldn’t let it go. And I was thrilled when I was invited to an interview for the position and then offered the job!”

In her daily work, Karolina has to get into the nitty-gritty details of the game, and one of the things she appreciates the most about her colleagues in the studio is the passion that goes into everything.

AN Extremely creative environment

In a sense, the Brand team is like a connection point, working closely with almost every aspect of both production and business.

“And that is one of my favorite aspects of the work we do. I think it’s super exciting to get those insights into production, I learn something new every day. At the same time we need to keep top of mind what’s changing in the market and how we should adapt to such a fast-paced industry. There is no day like the other. Talking to journalists, planning events, working on scripts for trailers, writing creative briefs … it’s an extremely creative environment,” she says, and continues:

“Everyone here is 100 % committed to their work, and it really shows in everything we do – if you look at The Division for example, just the level of detail is astounding. Working with so many talented and passionate people makes everything so much fun.”

A lot of the work that the Brand team does goes on behind the scenes, and it’s not until the game is out in the limelight that their work is visible to the public. For The Division 2, this happened during E3 2018 – an event that Karolina holds extra dear to her heart for that exact reason.

“That’s when everything became real in a way for me. I hadn’t been able to explain to my family and friends what I was doing before that, but after E3, I could physically point to the screen and say ‘that presentation and trailer you see there? We helped create that!’. That was something I felt – and still feel! – extremely proud of.”

• Interested in joining the Massive Brand team? Check out our open positions!
• Want to know more about working in the Brand team? See what Transmedia Manager Jacob Kroon is up to!
• Check out our E3 2018 recap.

We met the “Children Art Support” team and their parents to talk about self-portraits, the challenges of children’s drawings, and being credited below your child in a AAA game title.

There is children’s laughter coming from one of the meeting rooms on the second floor of Ubisoft Massive’s studio.

Entering the room, a group of kids and their parents are making themselves comfortable in the sofa and in the arm chairs. Today, they all meet for the first time to see what they have been working on for The Division 2. The children, that is – not the parents (even though they have also had a hand on the production).

The children have all been part of the production of The Division 2 as artists for the game’s environment by doing drawings.

“Since there are a lot of children in the settlements of the world of The Division 2, we felt it made sense to incorporate kids’ drawings to show their presence in those environments. We started out doing them ourselves in the team, but it was difficult to make them look and feel real,” explains Johan Oldbring, Associate Producer, as his 4-year old son Filip climbs onto his lap.

“It’s harder than you think to draw like a child,” says Joakim Månsson, Expert Texture Artist. “We tried drawing with the ‘wrong’ hand to make it look child-like, but it never really looked like the real deal. So, we decided to go directly to the actual source instead.”

Running wild with pen and paper

The idea of bringing in their own kids to draw for the game’s environment had been discussed already during the production of The Division. Now, the idea fit perfectly for the team, and they went home and let their kids run wild with pen and paper.

“We didn’t give them any instructions – we just let them draw whatever they wanted. It’s very authentic in that sense!” says Johan Oldbring.

We didn’t give them any instructions – we just let them draw whatever they wanted. It’s very authentic in that sense!

The kids all feel excited about being part of the project and the “Child Art Support” team, and they all approached the task differently.

Cadel Miley (7 years old), Filip Oldbring (4 years old) knew both straight away what they wanted to draw (dinosaurs and colorful shapes, respectively). Juno Miley (9 years old) and Cloee Podlesnigg (8 years old) focused on cats and dogs, and Emelie Ekstrand (8 years old) drew a fish – and the solar system!

“It was so much fun doing these drawings for the game. I love games and my dream is to work in the industry just like dad,” says 8-year-old Charlie Jarnestad. His sister Alva Jarnestad, 11, nods in agreement.

“I just felt excited to be part of this. I drew myself, so now I’m really in the game which is amazing!”

“It’s truly a legacy”

To show their kids exactly what their art looks like in the game, the parents bring up the editor view of the game. In this view, you can only see the environment, no characters or game play. They jump straight into one of the settlements.

“Wow! Is this what the game looks like?” asks Charlie as the camera flies through the buildings to find the drawings.

They soon find one of 6-year-old Joel Ekstrand’s colorful drawings on the ground, mixed with some of Joakim’s art. Then they come across Alva’s self-portrait on a wall, and she immediately gets up to point it out on the screen.

“It’s so cool to see it in the game!” she exclaims with a big smile on her face.

Both the children and their parents have had fun during this experience. And their work has been noted: all the children are credited in the game – and some of them even before their parents!

“It’s truly a legacy, to have this kind of experience at their age,” says Gerard Miley, Associate Art Director.

Johan Oldbring agrees:

“My son is now a more acclaimed artist than I am – and he’s only four!”

Christmas lights, car plates, and stickers on traffic-signs: when crafting authentic worlds in games, it’s important to have a good eye for the small details. One person who knows the importance of the fine details is Massive’s Benedikt Podlesnigg, who works as an Art Director on Tom Clancy’s The Division 2.

In his and his team’s quest to bring Washington D.C. to life in the sequel to The Division, they embarked on a number of research trips to the capital to not only see it with their own eyes, but also feel it.

“Going on these research trips gives you a really nice view of what it’s like ‘behind the scenes’ that is impossible to get otherwise,” Benedikt explains. “It’s one thing watching movies or looking at images – mostly they give you a nice view of the pretty facades, but if you see it from another angle, it can be completely different.”

One of the trips Benedikt and the team made was during Christmas time. In the The Division, Christmas decorations play a big part of both the setting and the narrative, and to build on the legacy of the first game, it was vital to recreate the remnants of Christmas in Washington D.C..

Christmas trees and car plates

“We were actually surprised to see so few decorations up! The Christmas tree at the National Mall and in the city center were of course huge, and there were some Christmas markets – but these are things you only see when you go there in person. One thing I realized after this visit is that it would have been so easy to go overboard with the Christmas decorations in the game. Instead, I let all these real life impressions carry over to my imagination, and I can then draw on what it really looks like and shape it into our own world of The Division 2,” says Benedikt.

Another neat detail that was added to the game as a result one of these trips involves car plates. As Benedikt and his team met with people who work in Washington D.C., they found that a majority of the people in the city commute by car from nearby states.

“When you play the game, you will notice that the plates on the cars originates from many different cities and states outside of Washington D.C., which is a direct result of us being there and seeing it with our own eyes. It’s a really nice feature that helps create the authenticity we are after.”

In case of emergency on THE 4th of July

But it wasn’t only the pure visual aspects of the city that played key parts in crafting Washington D.C.; Benedikt and his team also researched the city’s security measures in case of emergency. Not only did they meet with the capital’s emergency services to understand what they would do in a case of emergency, but they also visited D.C. during one of the most heavily guarded holidays in the U.S.

“Being in Washington during 4^th of July gave us great insights to security in the city. The sheer size of the celebration leads to many closed off areas, and we thought it good to research these areas as they would probably also be closed off during an event such as the one in The Division,” explains Benedikt. “We also visited the Pentagon … but I can’t talk about that,” he adds laughing.

What Benedikt could tell us about the visit to the Pentagon was that at the end of the day, he and his team were invited to a cabin outside the city where some members of the Special Forces were hosting a barbeque.

“They were really nice and relaxed, and we had a great time with them. And that’s all I’ll say about that!”

• Order Tom Clancy’s The Division 2  here.
• The Unique sound of The Division 2 – read Audio Director Simon’s story here.
• Road, museums, and ducks: Creating the open world of The Division – read the interview with Karen and Sonja, two of our Environment artists.
• How tattoos help build the world of The Division 2 – read the article here.

We sat down to talk with Karen Stanley and Sonja Christoph – two of the Environment Artists on the team – about their work on the game, the challenges of summer, and how to add humor through the environment.

Karen Stanley and Sonja Christoph are both part of the team working with the open world elements of The Division 2 – including the exploration areas and the other hidden spaces that you might find between missions, as well as also side missions, Control Points, resource nodes and Living World Activity locations.

“We build roads, bridges, and construction sites, but also buildings and interiors … in some ways it’s almost like we’re civil engineers and interior designers,” says Karen as we sit down to talk about their work on The Division 2.

For Karen, working at Massive is a dream come true. She first applied five years ago, fresh out of university, but fate brought her to another studio. When work on The Division 2 started, Massive got back to her offering a job.

Sonja has a background in the US film industry, and she was drawn to Massive’s philosophy to push the limits to create the best gaming experience possible.

“When I played The Division for the first time I was impressed by the attention to detail, sense of atmosphere and mood. It felt finely tuned, like the cinematography I had grown accustomed to in the film industry. I wanted to get the chance to fully explore the worlds we create instead of just showing a glimpse of them,” says Sonja.

A colorful Washington, D.C.

Working on The Division 2 has provided several new challenges for the Environment Artists. Both Karen and Sonja agree that one of the biggest differences has been the change from winter to summer.

“In the first game, the roads were all covered in snow, which means that we now with the summer setting have to work much more with the roads since they are actually visible in the game,” explains Karen.

Sonja adds:

“Another important aspect of the game that has been affected by the change of seasons is the colors. With summer comes more colors, and it has really been a balancing act to not make it too saturated. More colors also means that we have to think about people with color blindness. Red on green is for example a no-go, which is a challenge with all the greenery. But we have someone in our team who is colorblind who can tell us right away when something isn’t working, which is great.”

One thing that has made life easier for those working on the project has been the improved Snowdrop engine, which according to both Karen and Sonja has made their work on The Division 2 “so much more fun”.

“Creating a 1:1 version of Washington, D.C. has been a nice and smooth experience,” says Karen, and continues:

“We have the base in reality, and then Level Designers create the space to play, and we contextualize it in the world. It obviously requires quite a lot of research done by our amazing research team – not just when it comes to the environment but also the motivations of the people in the game in these specific spaces.”

Adding humor to the game

Every area of the game has its own theme set by Art Direction, and the Environment Artists are then assigned different areas work with.

“Understanding the art direction for each area really allows us to push it with our own inspiration and even personalize it. We all try to add some jokes here and there, and if you look closely, you can almost see who has worked on which area. We all have our unique propping styles,” says Sonja.

“One fun thing we came up with in the team was to put ducks everywhere,” says Karen laughing. “You can see them in the beta build and it became this huge thing among the fans, it’s so much fun! I think they even created a website for duck-spotting in the game.”

Both Karen and Sonja notes that it’s a fine line between forcing these props and jokes into the game and actually making it fun and believable. However, they both agree that adding some humor to the game is vital.

“You got to remember that there are still people inhabiting this world. They are rebuilding this broken city, and I truly believe that they would at least try to have some fun while doing it,” says Sonja.

“It’s amazing to see it all come together. To create and present Washington, D.C. in this different setting and then see what people do with it – it’s a feeling like no other,” says Karen.

“It feels a bit like you’re building a home for people, and then they move in with their own furniture and decorations and they start using the different rooms in ways you didn’t expect them to. That’s what I love the most about what we do,” concludes Sonja.