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Survive the cold. Survive the hunger and the thirst. Survive the disease. Survive the night. Survive the hunt.
- Tom Clancy's The Division: Survival DLC Update - Expansion II Trailer

Survival is the second expansion for Tom Clancy's The Division, added into the game with Patch 1.5. The game mode offered both Player Vs Environment (PvE) and Player Vs Player Vs Environment (PvPvE) action depending on what a player queued for. It could be played solo and in a premade, or matchmade group for both queue types. Up to 24 agents could participate in a single round. Player also requires to be Level 30 and World Tier 1 to access Survival game mode.

Survival sees Division agents stranded in the middle of Manhattan, during a vicious snowstorm after their helicopter crashes while in route to retrieve experimental antivirals from the Dark Zone. Wounded, completely without supplies and suffering from a Sepsis infection, agents must brave the hostile freezing city in search of Food, Water, Medicine, Clothing, and Weapons to keep themselves healthy as they fight their way to the Dark Zone, retrieve the antivirals and call for extraction. Even extracting from the Dark Zone safely is not a guarantee, as someone is out there on the hunt

Mechanics[]

Safe Houses[]

This is where an agent’s journey in Survival will begin. Safe Houses provide a safe haven from not only the dangers of the environment, but from other players as well. PvP is turned off within Safe Houses. It is where agents will take care of all their crafting needs, so these spots will see frequent visits, even if it's only to warm up. Each Safe House has multiple entrances for both ease of access and to prevent potential griefing of players camping a single entrance. The entrances are brightly lit and denoted by an orange circle Safe house logo in front of each door to make them easily spotted during the heavy snowstorm.


Hideouts[]

Hideouts offer a brief respite from the cold while potentially containing valuable resources. PvP is not turned off in these areas and enemies often spawn and use these locations as hangouts. Be prepared for a fight at all times in these locations. Nevertheless, these areas serve a similar purpose to the Oil Barrels outside of simply being a lootable area. Upon entering, an agent’s Cold Meter will immediately begin to fill back up.

Hideouts come in a few different forms, from the subway, department stores, and apartment buildings. The warm glow of working electrical lights signal the entrance to a safe haven from the cold for agents caught in the blizzard.


Disease[]

Wounded Agent

Wounded Agent

From the get-go the player is injured and has begun to develop Sepsis, a life-threatening infection.

The infection acts as the soft-cap time limit for the duration of that round of Survival. Every agent within the round starts with the same Life Expectancy. Once this timer reaches zero, the player dies, and cannot be revived by anyone.

Don’t fret as this timer can be temporarily halted by using Medicine or Painkillers. Medicine is the more effective and coveted resource here, stopping the timer for a full 5 minutes. Painkillers are slightly more plentiful while keeping the timer stopped after use for 2 minutes. Both of these resources can be found by looting red medical bags typically found at Landmarks, Medical Aid Stations, and Ambulances found throughout the city.

However, each use of both painkillers and medicine after the first use is less and less effective, eventually becoming effective for only a fraction of their original use time.


Cold[]

Survivial Heat

An agent heating up by a fire barrel. Fire barrels are spread around the map.

Also referred to as “Temperature," it is a self-explanatory condition. The player is freezing and at risk of dying of Hypothermia if the situation is not rectified soon. The environmental temperature continues to decrease as the game goes on, making it progressively harder to keep warm as the game goes on. The indicator in the upper right of the screen will allow an agent to monitor their Temperature status.

During the early game, warm clothing will be hard to come by, making the freezing city of Manhattan extremely dangerous to even explore. This is remedied by Oil Barrels, Burning Wreckage, Safe Houses and Hideouts which can be found at scattered points across the entire map. Agents can start a fire in Oil Barrels which will fill their Cold Meter and prevent it from falling further as long as they remain in the radius of the fire. However, once an agent leaves the comfort of the flame, they will return to being cold immediately. Be careful sitting around too long, as a burning barrel is like a signal fire to any threatening players. Warm up, plan quickly, and move out.

One of the first objectives of agents in Survival is to find warm clothing. Vanity items (those used to change the players appearance) have received a beneficial stat exclusive to this game mode called “Cold Resist”. These items can be found in boxes, loot crates, luggage, as NPC drops, and even looted off other dead agents. Clothing can also be crafted by using Fabric of various rarities found throughout the map. Just like gear, these clothing items now have different rarity values. Higher rarity equates to higher Cold Resist.



Hunger[]

Looting

Three Division agents searching for food in a store

In Survival, the Hunger status is directly linked to Health Regeneration. If hungry, the HP bar will not regen on its own past the current segment (3 total). This can leave the player hopelessly stuck with less than full HP unless food is eaten, or a Medkit is used to completely heal. An agent will not die from hunger, but it will greatly impact their ability to survive since Medkits are a rare find among the already limited loot within the city.

Hunger can be satiated by eating Energy Bars or Canned Food. Like all items, food can be used in combat and will even allow an agent’s HP to regenerate in the midst of battle as long as they aren’t being damaged. Food items can be found in refrigerators, ice chests, and backpacks throughout the city.



Thirst[]

Food

In Survival, Food is used for Health Regeneration and Water for detecting items

The Thirst status is linked directly to an agent’s awareness of their environment and aids in locating any lootable containers in the world. In Survival, the mini-map is disabled, and replaced with a simple compass, leaving players to rely on the ISAC Systems highlighting of containers in orange to provide them indication that something valuable is nearby.

Thirst is decreased by drinking Water, or Soda. Controlling this status causes an agent's detection range to become much stronger for a limited amount of time and enables ISAC to pinpoint lootable containers through obstacles or buildings. Like Hunger, players will not die from being Thirsty, but managing it will lead to the discovery of many other valuable resources like medicine, clothing, crafting materials, and more.



Crafting[]

Crafting

Crafting is a vital part of Survival

Agents do not start with any skills. Skills must be crafted using the crafting tables located in Survival Hideouts (which act like Safe Houses in the base game). Agents will come across various resources such as Tools Tools, Electronics icon Electronics, Weapon Parts icon Weapon Parts, Cloth Fabric, and Division Tech icon Division Tech. Each of these resources come in the various shades of rarity already present in the game (Worn, Standard, Specialized, Superior, High-End) and are used to craft many important items needed to survive. Some craftable items may even require survival resources to create. For example, the Support Station and First Aid SHD Tech skills require 1 Medkit each to craft, among other resources.

The variety of craftable items include:

  • Medkits
  • Weapons
  • Armor
  • Warm Clothing
  • SHD Tech
  • Flare Guns
  • Virus Filters
Tc-the-division-agent-starting-extraction-flare-gun

An Agent starting extraction

The Flare Gun and Virus Filter are the special items here. The Flare Gun is required to call in an extraction within the Dark Zone once an agent has retrieved their antivirals.

Virus Filters are the required item to progress within the game mode. An agent must upgrade their Virus Filter to a certain level before they are even able to enter the Dark Zone. There are also highly contaminated areas found throughout Manhattan which may contain valuable items. These special areas are not a requirement to enter, but those with an upgraded Virus Filter might find themselves in an advantageous position by being able to explore them.


Landmarks[]

Designated areas where powerful foes may be found. They are denoted on an agent’s overall map by a purple fist icon. If an agent is prepared enough, taking on one of these points may lead to gaining an upgrade to their own arsenal in the form of weapon and armor drops from the NPCs present. Be cautious, however, as there is nothing preventing enemy players from interfering as a third-party.


Dark Zone[]

DZ image

Dark Zone

Once in the Dark Zone, an alert will be sent to all other players within the match indicating that someone has entered the Dark Zone. This usually means it's time to kick it into high gear if the player is still not prepared to enter. Agents will need to fight their way to the experimental antivirals somewhere randomly on the map and use their crafted Flare Gun to call for extraction. Each agent has their own separate location to retrieve their antivirals from, even among party members.

The Dark Zone shares similarity with its usual existence outside of Survival, with a few caveats. Many of the enemies found in Survival’s Dark Zone are of the highest difficulty level. These enemies always drop High-End caches. These crates give gear depending on the type, such as Weapon, Skill or Gear caches. This is where the reward from the game mode comes in. Agents will want to fill up their very limited Dark Zone inventory space with caches relevant to the type of item they are after before calling for extraction.

Upon an extraction being called, agents must survive for 3 minutes as the helicopter approaches and lands. Standing between an agent and victory is not only potentially other agents, but also Hunters.

Hunters are powerful, elite level enemies that are regarded as the hardest enemies in the game. Their AI is tailored to act like players, using skills and cover much like other player-controlled agents to deadly effect and with one sole purpose: to kill Division agents. The many glowing Division Watches on their gear are both trophies and a warning of danger.

The amount of Hunters that spawn depends on the size of the group calling for extraction. For example, if only 1 agent is present at the time of the call, only one Hunter will spawn. If there are 8 present in the vicinity, 8 Hunters will spawn and so forth. Agents can not extract until the Hunters have been killed and if new agents arrive to an extraction, even after all Hunters have been eliminated, more Hunters will spawn equal to the number of new arrivals and must be killed.

The extraction helicopter is a first-come-first-served vehicle. Meaning that an agent’s extraction helicopter can potentially be “hijacked” by another agent or team by getting into the chopper before the agent who originally called it in. If this happens, the agent will need to craft a brand new Flare Gun, or attempt to hijack someone else’s extraction, but they must also fight the Hunters all over again too.


Gameplay Differences[]

Each player starts out the game with Standard gear, a Standard pistol, a medkit, and torn hazmat suits as clothing. Players do not start with a primary weapon. The goal of the Survival mode is to craft a virus filter mask to enter the Dark Zone, find the "cure" to Green Poison, craft a Flare Gun, and then extract, all while trying to get better equipment and clothing, and before succumbing to disease, the cold, or the numerous enemies scattered throughout the map.

Players, when choosing Survival from the Terminal, have the option of choosing a PvP or PvE match, along with choosing to solo-queue or matchmake to play with others on a team. The differences between the modes is that, in PvP, player combat is enabled, and the player may damage and kill other players (with no penalty, as the Rogue system doesn't exist in this mode, even inside the Dark Zone). PvE disables combat between players, but it still is a race to get extracted first.

Enemies in this game mode range from standard level 28 enemies in the outer edges of the map, and progresses to level 30 enemies of varying strength and factions inside the Dark Zone.

The map in Survival contains many new icons, including Hideout locations, Helicopter crashes and Landmarks (which contain some of the better gear in Survival), locations of downed or unconscious players, and Fire Barrels, which will let players stay warm and regenerate their lost body heat, which is displayed on the upper right corner of the players HUD.

Loot in this mode is NOT shared, even among party members. This means that each drop appears to every player, but only one person may pick it up. Once the item is picked up, it no longer is available to any other player. This includes crafting materials from containers, as well as items and gear pickups. The only items that can be picked up by multiple players is when the agent is in a group, inside a hideout with lootables, like painkillers and fabrics, which will duplicate to give each player one of them.

In Survival, Medkits are much more rare than in the base game, and thus are much more valuable. Also, in Survival mode, medkits have the ability to revive oneself from a downed state, as well as the standard ability to be used while alive to restore health. Players can also revive other downed players using a medkit, as well.

If the player stays in a downed state for too long, they do not die immediately. Instead, they get rendered "Unconscious" and stay in the same position on the map. Unconscious players have 5 minutes until they die and cannot be revived. The map in game shows locations of Unconscious players. Players then have the option of reviving the unconscious player, at the cost of a Medkit, or to loot and kill the player, ending that player's Survival session (in PvP mode). In case the player is downed by a Hunter, the Hunter will proceed to close the distance and, if they succeed, will execute the player and immediately kill them, ending the players run in Survival.

Once inside the Dark Zone, players will need to fight their way to the cure for Green Poison located somewhere in the Dark Zone, and build a Flare Gun to call in extraction. Once extraction is called in, the player must survive 3 minutes as the helicopter comes to pick the player up. However, standing between the players and extraction are a new type of enemy, the Hunter. Hunters are strong, elite level enemies that act like other players, using skills and cover much like other players. The amount of Hunters that spawn depends on the size of the group calling the extraction, i.e. 1 player spawns 1 hunter, 2 players spawn 2 hunters, and so on. The players can not extract until the hunters are killed. It should be noted that if new players arrive to an extraction, even after all hunters have been eliminated, more hunters (equal to the number of new players arriving) will appear and delay the extraction until it is killed.

Once the player extracts, the player "wins" and is extracted back to the Base of Operations. There are only four seats in the helicopter, so up to four players can extract at once. It should be noted that the helicopter is first-come-first-served, so other players may "hijack" the extraction by getting in the helicopter before the player, and leaving the original player who called in the extraction stranded, and needing to craft another flare gun and calling in another extract and needing to face Hunters again.

Once the player extracts or dies, the Survival score screen appears, rating the player based on several factors, like surviving, NPCs killed, etc. Players are then awarded bonus caches for reaching certain score thresholds. There is a score multiplier on PvP games of Survival to reward the additional risk the player takes by being in PvP. If the player survived and won by extracting, any caches the player picks up in the Dark Zone is kept and transferred to the inventory of the player in the Base. Any equipment or items from Survival, except the caches, are NOT kept after the Survival game finishes.


Rewards[]

The rewards gained from Survival vary based on whether or not the player extracted, and the score the player receives when the session ends. A rank is assigned to the player after each Survival session. As previously stated, playing in the PvP mode adds an additional multiplier to the players final score, regardless if the player actually had contact with other players. Level 0 gives no rewards, while level 5 gives 4 caches, in addition to the rewards the player gains from extracting, along with XP for the players' character. Levels 1-4 give out caches and XP, with higher levels giving more rewards. Further information regarding scoring and rewards can be found in this article.


Caches[]

Caches can be found in the Dark Zone by fallen enemies, Landmarks, and loot containers. There are different type of Caches, and they drop different gear depending on their type.

  • Weapons Cache
  • Gear Cache
  • Mods Cache
  • Survival Cache

Weapons, Gear, and Mods cache are common in the Dark Zone, while Survival Caches can only be obtained from Named Enemies at Landmarks and, very rarely, from slain Hunters.


Gallery[]


Videos[]


Trivia[]

  • The map used in Survival mode is the same map lathe playert as the Manhattan map used Patch 1.5, meaning certain areas that may have been added after said patch aren't in Survival mode. Examples are West Side Pier and the rooftop shortcut between DZ02-DZ03 (The original rooftop shortcut was a simple, straight path across the buildings that lead to the next street, the current lathe playert is the same, but with an extra path leading to the alleyway nearby).
  • Players can find deceased Division agents scattered throughout the Dark Zone. Some in the streets, others near extraction zones with axes still embedded in them from a lost fight with the hunters. All of them have their right hands cut off and their watches removed, taken as trophies by the hunters that have killed them.
  • Depending on who and where the player is fighting them, Elite enemies have flashlight attachments rather than the usual laser pointer attachment.
    • This flashlight attachment is exclusive to Survival, and not available or seen in the main game.


Appearances[]

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