When Ubisoft revealed their future plans for The Division franchise on May 6, the studio mentioned two upcoming games: The Division Heartland, and an unnamed Division game for mobile. Since then, information has surfaced about another title which not only takes place in the Division universe, but also includes characters and elements from Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. The alleged new game is a competitive shooter titled The Division BattleCat.
While Ubisoft is not expected to discuss BattleCat at their June 12 Ubisoft Forward event, a lot of information about the game has already been leaked. Keep in mind that the details below have not been confirmed by the studio, and a great deal of them may change by the time BattleCat actually launches.
Game modes
BattleCat is a competitive multiplayer first-person shooter that will most likely run on Ubisoft’s proprietary Snowdrop engine. Players will embody different operators from the Division, Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon franchises, and use a combination of team tactics, character abilities, and overwhelming firepower to secure victory. Only two game modes are known at the moment: Escort and Ringleader.
Escort is a classic push-style mode players will be familiar with from Overwatch, Paladins, and a score of other competitive shooters. In Escort, one team is tasked with accompanying a moving objective point across a map while the other team tries to stop them.
Ringleader is a more frenetic game mode focused on a combination of kills and positioning. In Ringleader, players must collect the dog tags of defeated enemies, and the player holding the most tags is designated as the Leader. If they survive for a set amount of time, their points are “banked,” raising their team’s chances of winning. Players have to continuously adapt to the situation, alternating between aggressive and protective tactics.
Characters and abilities
BattleCat players will get their pick from a large roster of operators from the Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon: Break Point, and The Division franchises. Each group of characters has their passive and active abilities, reinforcing specific playstyles.
The Outcasts are a class from The Division focused on support and healing. Their Bloodthirsty passive lets them heal themselves and nearby allies when dealing damage with ranged weapons. They also recover from crowd control effects faster and can deploy additional abilities to delay a teammate’s death or outright prevent it.
The Cleaners are also a Division class, but a much more offensive one. Their loadouts and abilities are about area-of-effect damage. They use flamethrowers and flame-spewing turrets and drones and can carry extra grenades.
From Ghost Recon, we get the Wolves: the default tank class. They have additional armor, innate resistance to flashbangs, and access to deployable shields and barriers with which to protect themselves or their allies. Their ultimate ability is a mobile area-of-effect shield, creatively named Ultimate Shield.
The final known BattleCat class is the Echelon, who hail from the Splinter Cell franchise. Naturally, they are all about subterfuge and stealth. Echelon operators do not show up on the enemy minimap and can use their abilities to flank, disorient, and take out opponents.
Platforms
The leaks state that The Division BattleCat will be a PC and console title, which implies PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X will be supported. It’s worth noting that the leaked gameplay images are not particularly detailed, which, coupled with Ubisoft’s promise of a mobile Division title coming after Heartland, could suggest that BattleCat is in fact a mobile game. Until a confirmation comes down from Ubisoft, we can’t know for sure what platforms the game would be available on.
We cannot speculate on a a release date either, but the leak affirms that the game has been in playtesting since January.
