The Division 2 nearly took place in New Orleans

While The Division 2 is set to move the post-apocalyptic action from New York to Washington D.C., Ubisoft nearly took the action to several other cities. In an interview at Gamescom 2018, Manny Diaz, level designer for the game, said the decision is not one the team took lightly, exploring several other locations across the United States. One of those locations took the game as far across North America as Seattle, Washington. Slightly closer to the action, however, was New Orleans, due to it’s “interesting culture and amazing visuals.” In the end, however, Ubisoft went for Washington DC, as we saw in the initial reveal of the game, which took place at E3 earlier this summer. Diaz says that the team “kept coming back” to the US capital, partly due to the fact that it has “a lot of environmental appeal,” but also because “it felt important.” Diaz likens Washington to New York, a cultural and financial capital, drawing a parallel between the two cities in terms of their significance to the idea of America.