The Division 2 Rise Up Season Is Now Live
The Division 2’s new season, Rise Up, is out today and it’s a substantial update with a new endgame challenge system, a new gear tier, Black Tusk finally getting their due attention in Retaliation, a new modifier system, and a pile of new gear and weapons.
The headline addition is Escalation, a new way to replay missions designed for endgame agents who have hit Level 40 and cleared the main campaign. Five missions rotate weekly on Tuesdays, each with 10 tiers of increasing difficulty. The lowest tier is always free to attempt, while higher tiers cost Escalation Tokens that you earn by completing runs and lose if you fail. There are no checkpoints, no second chances. You complete the mission in one go or you lose your tokens and start over. Each tier has its own set of Mutators that change how enemies behave, including one that regenerates enemy armor when you deal damage, one that charges and releases an EMP when an enemy takes damage, and one that makes enemies immune to crowd control when heavily damaged. Escalation is the primary source of the new Prototype Gear tier, so if you’re chasing those items, this is where you’ll be spending most of your time.
Prototype Gear sits above High-End, Named, and Gear Set items in quality. The previous attribute maximum becomes the new floor, with the new ceiling reaching up to 1.5x higher. Every Prototype item comes with an Augment, a special effect drawn from a shared pool that can be upgraded through use and rerolled. Augments include things like a chance to become temporarily immune to damage, a chance to deal bullet damage twice, and skill cooldown reduction on bullet hits. You can also upgrade existing High-End, Named, or Gear Set items to Prototype quality using Prototype Cores, though the item needs to be Level 40 and at maximum Expertise level first. Once an item becomes Prototype it can no longer be optimized or recalibrated, so choose carefully. Prototype Gear is normalized in Raids, Incursion, and PvP with Augments disabled in those modes.
Retaliation gets a significant update this season with a new focus on Black Tusk, which is something the community has been asking for. Black Tusk now has their own Agitation Meter, and for the first time they can take over Control Points in the open world if a Retaliation is lost. Black Tusk Kill Squads are the new threat to watch for, with the Elite variant called BTSU Team 9 being particularly dangerous. Defeating Kill Squads gives you a chance at blueprints for rare Exotics including Climax exclusives, Capacitor, and Vindicator. Completing a full Retaliation gives you a shot at Raid and Dark Zone Exotic blueprints. Retaliation also gets quality of life improvements including Agitation Overclock, which lets you stack up to three Retaliations back to back instead of just one, an updated timer that now tracks in-game playtime instead of real world time, and matchmaking support.
The new modifier system is built around Recombinant, a Global Modifier with three modules covering Offense, Defense, and Utility. Three Active Modifiers are available this season, each tied to one of the modules and upgradeable through use: Blackout Pulse is an EMP that disrupts and shocks enemies, Cloud Armor restores ally armor in range, and Optimize/Overload reduces skill cooldowns and eventually Overcharges your skills. Thirty-four Passive Modifiers are also available, equippable in sequence with each one influencing the next. Enemies can also push back with their own countermeasures including one that reduces your module stacks on hit and one that reverses the effects of your strongest module while you’re inside its field.
On the gear and weapons side, the new Exotic AR Agitator rewards keeping it holstered and then swapping to it, granting a burst of rate of fire and weapon damage with increased threat generation. The new Exotic Mask Investor gives you bonuses based on the color of non-Core Attributes on the item. The Core Strength Gear Set is built around cross-core synergy, giving you a percentage of other Core Attribute bonuses for each Core you have equipped. The Royal Works Brand Set rewards weapon swapping and cover play. Two new Named Weapons, Interchange and Trader, also lean into the weapon swap theme with the Perfect Back and Forth talent.
First-time completions of the Climax mission on any difficulty will guarantee the Whiplash Exotic Pistol, a holster-and-swap weapon that reloads your Primary and Secondary weapons and grants a significant damage and rate of fire boost when swapped to while primed.
Two new Classified Assignments are coming this season as well. Library of Congress Retrieval is available now, with The Capitol Globe Anomaly following later in the season. Both offer exploration and story focused experiences with collectibles, echoes, audio logs, and named item rewards.
The Season Pass is available now for 1000 Premium Credits ($9.99) with a Premium+ option at $29.99. The free track includes the Agitator Exotic Weapon, the Investor Exotic Mask, two Named Weapons, two Named Gear pieces, and a Brand Set among other rewards.
Rise Up is live now.
