Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland will evoke Division 1's Survival mode

Ubisoft held its "Division Day" live broadcast event, where new projects and additions to Tom Clancy's The Division franchise were announced. New to the stable is The Division Heartland, a new, free-to-play spin-off with a different structure.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 (and the original game) were shooter RPGs with a focus on leveling up and earning and refining loot on a large map based on an iconic urban center (such as Washington D.C. and New York City). Heartland is a smaller-scale, standalone title with a more compact setting: the American small town of Silver Creek. Players will play members of the titular Division - a secret organization of armed sleeper agents activated to protect American society in the wake of the global "Green Poison" pandemic - who are assigned to protect the town of Silver Creek. Heartland's story takes place in the same setting as the other games in the series, and will introduce new characters and wrinkles to the narrative fabric of the franchise. It'll show how towns like Silver Creek, away from American metropolises, received aid from the Division when the Green Poison hit.

Check out a cinematic trailer for the game below.

The game is a free-to-play "PVEVP" shooter, where players fight against both computer-controlled enemies and other players. It's inspired in part by the "Survival" mode from a DLC expansion to the original Division. Like the missions in that mode, players will be going on runs into and around Silver Creek, accomplishing missions while managing their survival supplies. In the day, players will explore the town and collect supplies to maintain and repair their base of operations, working with their team to stave off threats like contamination and dehydration. At night, the threats increase, up to and including rogue agents controlled by other players.

Members of the team at Red Storm Entertainment detailed more about the game's structure in a Deep Dive video.

Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland is in development for the PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Sign-ups for closed testing on PC are open on the official website.