Operation Dark Hours is a Raid that takes 8 agents to the Washington National Airport to destroy Black Tusk assets and take back the airport. It is the first ever Raid to be released in the history of The Division.
Description
When the Dollar Flu reached Washington, thousands of desperate civilians flocked to the airport looking for a way out of the city. They had no idea that they were rushing into one of the most dangerous hot-zones in the world, and not even CERA's best efforts could salvage the unfolding tragedy. The airport was coated in DC-62 and abandoned for months - until the Black Tusk arrived.
Objectives
Assault the airport
- Reach the tarmac
- Reach the terminal
- Destroy signal source
- Defeat Max "Boomer" Bailey
- Secure the area
Identify cargo delivery
- Reach the hangar
- Access network
- Investigate the plane
- Defeat Ben "Dizzy" Carter
- Defeat Carl "Ricochet" Dawson
- Defeat Oliver "Weasel" Gordon
Neutralize remaining Black Tusk assets
- Defeat Lucy & Buddy
- Reach the DDP-52 Razorback
- Destroy the DDP-52 Razorback
Gameplay/Plot
Mission Start/Differences in gameplay
The mission starts with Division agents being transported to the sewer entrance to the airport. Players will notice there are slight modifications to gameplay. For one, the radar on the players HUD will be disabled. It will not come back online throughout the mission. Another change is, while players may continue to revive players as normal, if a player dies, players are limited on reviving them based on the revive tokens the players have. Each player gets one revive token at the beginning of the mission, as well as getting a new token after each phase is successfully completed. They also replenish for the team if there is a wipe. Players can never have more than one token at a time. This mechanic takes precedence over abilities, so using the revive hive will still use the players token.
The bosses in this mission all have similar mechanics in terms of showing who is being targeted by a boss. The player who is targeted will see a red eye icon underneath their weapon reticle, while everyone can tell who is being targeted by looking at the roster located on the right side of the players HUD. Underneath the name will be the same red eye icon as well as the name of the boss targeting them.
If at anytime, for any reason, players must abandon the mission, the bosses act as checkpoints. As long as at least the first boss is killed, players can talk to the NPC from the landing zone before the sewer gate to transport to the furthest boss killed on the players run. These checkpoints reset weekly as the usual reset time, after which players must go through the whole mission again.
Once the player resurfaces on the tarmac, players must secure it by eliminating waves of enemies.
Terminal Building
After securing the Tarmac, the agents move into the airport building itself, where they encounter the first boss of the raid, Boomer. There are 4 shield generators around the area. Any NPC inside the range of these generators will be invulnerable. The only way to destroy them is to use the two stationary turrets. The generators respawn every so often, at which point reactivates its shielding. The boss has a deflector shield active on him at all times, except after having his energy pack on his back being shot out by the stationary turrets. He then staggers, and this acts as a cue for the players to damage him. This only lasts about 5 seconds, so players are advised to aim for the head. After the period of vulnerability is over, his deflector shield returns, and players repeat this process until he is dead. If the boss gets close to a stationary turret, or the player being targeted by the boss is on a turret, the boss can destroy the turret. If both turrets are destroyed, the mission is failed and the players wipe via a "Objective Failed" screen.
Hangar
After Boomer is eliminated, players move in to secure the hangar. Here, there is a plane separating the two sides of the hangar with computer panels on each side. One player on each side of the plane must hit the same panel as the player across from them at roughly the same time to start the fight. Once this is done, toxic gas releases from the canisters on the plane. Depending on the side of the plane the player is on, one of two debuffs are applied and grow stronger as the player stays in the gas. One side will be engulfed in purple gas, which slowly reduces the amount of damage dealt by the player, while the other side will be engulfed in orange gas, which reduces the amount of protection players get from their armor. Both of these effects stack until the counter below them hits 20, at which point the gas will start applying the poison Status Effect, causing agents to lose health directly. Each side is tasked with eliminating a heavy archetype boss; one side gets Ben "Dizzy" Carter, while the other gets Carl "Ricochet" Dawson. The key to this fight is to communicate when it is an appropriate time to switch gases by repeating the same procedure as the one used to start the fight. If done correctly, the sides receive the opposite gas type, and clears the current debuff after a short time. Once one boss is killed, the plane lifts up, allowing teams to rejoin. A third boss also spawns when either boss is defeated, Oliver "Weasel" Gordon, another heavy archetype. After the plane lifts, the gases remain on the last side they were on when the plane is lifted. The debuff mechanic remains in place until the end of the fight, meaning players must switch sides if he/she wishes to remove their debuff.
Concourse
Once Oliver is defeated, players advance deeper into the airport, running into NPCs along the way. Inside the concourse, the players encounter 2 Warhounds, Buddy and Lucy. In this fight, there is a white square on the health bars on the players HUD that give a range. If that range is dropped below at any time, the Warhound immediately starts regenerating health at a rapid rate. The Warhounds may also "overcharge", which also allows it to regenerate quickly. Players must use the correct laptop associated with the boss in question to stop the overcharge. The bosses also have green circles around them, which, if both bosses are within range, will regenerate both at a modest rate. The key to this fight is to keep both bosses separated while keeping their health within range of each other. If the overcharge succeeds, the health regenerates about half a health bar in 3 seconds or less, so cancel the overcharge as soon as possible.
Tarmac/Final Boss
The final boss in this mission is the DDP-52 Razorback. This weapons platform can release large swaths of drones that can function like any other drone used by any Black Tusk NPC. In order to expose the weakpoints of the Razorback, players must coordinate the activation of each of the 4 power sources for the Razorback. If all of the points are not activated relatively close to each other, a grenade gets launched at each point, causing bleeding as well. If successful, a vent in the middle of both the front and back side opens, exposing a weakpoint. Destroy these, and toss a grenade into the now open vent to cause the Razorback to expose it's core. The two weakpoints exposed on its backside need to be destroyed, which then exposed it's battery. This is the way to damage the bosses' health directly. At 75% health, the battery automatically shields itself, and the process restarts.
While players are attempting to destroy the Razorbacks weakpoints (that is, anytime after syncing all 4 batteries), drones spawn in. Most are similar to the assault drones that players can use. Some are shock drones, and will shock players if not destroyed in time. A healer is recommended, as NPCs are also spawning in at this time.
Whether or not players destroy all weakpoints successfully, after the weakpoints close themselves off, grenades are launched across the map. Players need to dodge these, as these grenades will most likely either one-shot a player down, or come dangerously close to doing so. On top of this, a heavy NPC will spawn in, and head for one (or more, depending on how weak the boss is) of the missile launchers located behind each of the batteries, near the corners of the map. Players need to kill these NPCs before they launch the missiles, as these are a wipe mechanic, and allowing this to occur will cause a wipe. Players can tell a heavy is on a missile launcher from the warning siren that will go off if a heavy is trying to activate it. The best way of dealing with the heavies is to target the head, as the heavies are defenseless while they are trying to launch the missiles.
After the mission
After agents successfully complete the mission, they are given the option to stay and explore the airport with no enemies, or transport back to The White House.
Weekly rewards are available for successfully completing the raid each week after reset.
World's First Challenge
Massive Entertainment issued a challenge as part of the release of Dark Hours on May 16th, 2019. The first team to complete the raid would become immortalized in-game in the form of having their names and characters put in a frame inside The White House.
The team of MarcoStyles, eeL.gniM, widdz, Nick - Tew, SleepYO-, TheSc4le, SOLIDFPS, and Ranger_84 were the first to complete the Raid. Their names and likenesses will be displayed in the White House ON PC ONLY (see below for explanation).
The State of the Game dated 22/5/19 tweaked the rules of the "World's First" completion. Since consoles were at a disadvantage against PC in terms of difficulty (including reticle bloom being more difficult to control as opposed to PC) and hardware (PC builds could load in much faster after wipes), the rules of "World's First" were separated by console. Therefore, while the PC version will have the above named group displayed, PS4 and Xbox One users will see the teams that completed the raid first on their respective consoles.
PS4 winners were the team of xxMr-_-BaTzXx, Jaqev, AZPRIMEMINISTER, HaNdSoMeLaNcEr, H2K-PREDATOR5, Inkist-, BloodShy, and Tico79.
Xbox One winners were the team of Bellicosi, Ruthless Raptor, Ruthless Wllzye, Qolll, The MafiaX don, BeltedCactus, Lowkey Shoplift, and Adjustix.
Matchmaking Controversy
Shortly before Dark Hours went live, a post on The Division 2 forums from Chris, a community manager, stated that, due to the philosophy of the Raid being difficult content that would require more communication and teamwork, as well as not being as reliant on DPS as other content, Massive made the decision to not include matchmaking on the Raid[1], at least not initially. The Special Report tied to Dark Hours, which was streamed one hour before the raid went live, did state that the team were looking into alternatives, and these would be coming sometime in the future.
The decision to not include matchmaking caused an uproar in the community, as most players felt that they were lied to about matchmaking being available in all activities, as this was stated on official material released by Ubisoft/Massive. Chris did state that technical limits and gameplay purposes could make matchmaking impossible or non-ideal. Another qualm with this decision also include the idea that Massive was pandering to streamers/YouTubers who were, theoretically speaking, the most realistic frontrunners for world first, as the raid was released at 12:00 EDT on a Thursday, which meant it was impossible for a majority of the playerbase to compete for first except for people who stream/play the game for a living, or people without responsibilities when the raid was released.
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