I have the habit of revisiting past trailers and gameplays to remember what it was like to see them and compare what the product they delivered to us was like. It is usually a fun experience and allows me to draw some conclusions. And I say “usually” because there are some games whose review does more harm than good.
I have rewatched two of the most controversial gameplays in Ubisoft‘s history: the reveal of The Division during E3 2013 and the preview of the demo at E3 2014. More than a decade has passed since then and today I still maintain that the downgrade, the main complaint of most people, is the unfulfilled promise or the betrayal that hurts me the least. I don’t even care compared to other aspects.
The Division: what you ask for vs what you get
I think that The Division from 2016 is a great game that is as wasted as it is undervalued and has one of the best settings I have seen in the history of video games, but absolutely no one can deny in 2026 that Ubisoft promised above its possibilities. And also from the console generation.
The downgrade issue has never bothered me, much less after the launch, because there are dozens of other things that didn’t make it into the game and that, if you ask me, were much more attractive than the graphics section. For me, one of the best aspects of these gameplays was the HUD design, which was integrated with the character and world in the style of 2008’s Dead Space.
The entire menu was integrated into the SHD watch as a hologram and the map was literally displayed at your feet. You may think that this design could cause problems when it comes to managing equipment and viewing the entire map, but just fast forward to the confrontation at the Brooklyn police station to see that Ubisoft already thought of that: the character selects “Skills” and the holographic menu expands to show both skills and talents without abandoning the integrated style. ISAC’s interactions with the world (dead bodies, contaminated areas…) are also great and some were maintained, but not even close to what is seen in the gameplay. Not even in The Division 2.
The skills section is another aspect that causes a lot of pain in my little SHD Agent heart. Many skills were shown that either never made it to the final game or did so in The Division 2. The first row showed throwing knives and a booby-trapped grenade, since real stealth existed in this version. In the final game, if you are detected by an enemy, the rest track you instantly without the need for whoever detects you to raise the alarm.
Nothing unusual when it comes to rows two, three and four, but the fifth row does have something that never made it to the final game and only the most curious veterans ended up understanding over time: melee animations, from stealth executions to disarming the enemy. It is the icon that shows two figures fighting. And if you go down to the seventh row, you can see the repair drone The Division 2.
Continuing with the skills, the gameplay of the demo shows a very cool one that many players have asked for for years: the blinding drone, which ended up reaching The Division 2 like the Blinding Dragonfly. However, this initial version is much better because it is a drone that flies over an area and blinds all enemies in its radius for a few seconds. The Dragonfly selects targets and blinds them once.
But perhaps more interesting is the option to help your colleagues using a drone. If you look, “Chris [AFK] [Tablet]” is the drone that flies and supports the team during combat at the police station. This may seem like a very crazy and futuristic thing for 2013, but I remind you that that same year Battlefield 4 was released with its iconic Commander Mode available within the game and on a tablet.
Another detail that you may not know and that made sense later is the scene at minute 5:58, where the character sees a dog for a second in the Narcotics Division. We know that Massive also experimented with NPC companions, but it hasn’t been until The Division 2 and 2026 that has implemented them in the franchise during Mutiny or Mutiny, a season marked by the defections of the True Children. Several RPGs also feature pets that collect gold and other items for you.
Downgrade continues to be the unfulfilled promise of The Division most widespread and repeated among players, but I think that in the long run (especially considering how good the game still looks) it is the least painful compared to everything that Ubisoft and Massive left out during the remainder of development and that we never saw again, not even in the sequel.
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