The Division 2 Title Update 3 will bring massive loot changes to the Dark Zone

Big changes are coming to the Dark Zone with The Division 2’s Title Update 3, and it should lead to a more active PvP experience with better rewards.

Although Title Update 3 has been delayed for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Ubisoft spent a good portion this week highlighting the changes and tweaks that it will bring. Chief among them are some major changes to the Dark Zone, where PvE meets PvP in The Division 2.

The Dark Zone is a unique space in The Division 2, offering a unique mix of action. The Dark Zone features landmark locations with bosses that tend to drop high rated gear. But in the Dark Zone (especially the Occupied Dark Zone), other players can kill you and steal that gear if you don’t extract it. This latter caveat is supposed to encourage players to engage in PvP, something that doesn’t really interest players who prefer fighting NPCs.

Right now, the Dark Zone is in a weird place. It feels empty and boring, and it’s an incredibly passive experience. For PvE players simply looking to get loot, you probably think it’s perfect. But if you’re going into the Dark Zone in search of player blood, it’s a lackluster experience. So Ubisoft is making a number of changes in Title Update 3 to encourage more active player-versus-player gameplay. This includes changes to landmarks, loot and the overall balance of Dark Zones.

For starters, both the Normalized Dark Zone (gear score balancing) and Occupied Dark Zone will drop less clean loot and more contaminated loot. For those unfamiliar, clean loot is gear that you can equip right away without having to extract it first. I was honestly surprised at just how much clean loot dropped in the Dark Zone at the launch of the game, but it sounds like Ubisoft will be changing that to encourage engagement in the loot extraction loot.

Named bosses will also be guaranteed to drop contaminated loot, with higher level landmark bosses having the ability to drop multiple items. Ubisoft is also adding a one-minute cooldown on landmarks which should encourage players to actively move around the map rather than farming a single area.

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In order to offset more contaminated loot drops, Ubisoft is expanding the number of items you can carry to six items per bag. Character perks were also changed with the Tier 1 Perk increasing the size to eight and the Dark Zone Perk increasing it to 10 in total.

Of course, none of these changes address a general lack of interest in the Dark Zone by players who don’t enjoy PvP. That is why Ubisoft will now offer a huge incentive that is likely to upset many PvE players. Gear Score 515 items will only drop in the Dark Zone. Following fan backlash to the new, Ubisoft quickly sought to temper frustration by promising the “highest gear score” items will drop in the raid as well.

Finally, in order to really prevent empty Dark Zones, they are making multiple changes to the overall structure to “guarantee” that each Dark Zone has 12 players in the instance. To achieve this, they are reducing the amount of Dark Zone brackets to two: those below level 30, and those in the Endgame.

As someone who enjoys the Dark Zone, I absolutely love these changes. I wasn’t a fan of the 12-player instances to begin with because I knew they would feel empty, and that’s exactly what has happened. Of course, I also understand how those who prefer traditional PvE would feel slighted that Gear Score 515 items will only drop in the Dark Zone for the time being. Thankfully, the raid will still provide an opportunity to score the best items. Hopefully, these changes make a difference because right now the Dark Zone is in a bad place.

Ubisoft recently announced that The Division 2 Title Update 3, which features the Operation Dark Hours 8-player raid, has been delayed and will now release in May.