Tom Clancy's The Division 2 Battle for Brooklyn review: Short but sweet stroll down memory lane

It sure feels weird to say that Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is getting a new DLC in 2025, but that seems to be the case now that Battle for Brooklyn is out. After spending years in developmental uncertainty, agents of The Division are once again returning to the very streets from where the story began all those years ago in Tom Clancy's The Division.

The storyline revolves around the ongoing relations between the Rogue Agents and the Division agents, fallout from the Warlords of New York expansion, unresolved narrative instances from Tom Clancy's The Division, the Black Tusk problem, and now the Cleaners and their new purple flame. The Battle for Brooklyn DLC is both a standalone experience and intricately intertwined with everything that has happened in the Division universe and rewards those who have stayed with the franchise since the beginning.

---

Tom Clancy's The Division 2's Battle for Brooklyn DLC is perhaps too short

Haven't forgotten this sewer entrance ever since I saw it in the first The Division trailer (Image via Massive Entertainment)

The Battle for Brooklyn DLC has been a long project for Massive Entertainment. It is the culmination of a passionate player base and dedicated developers not giving up on the dream of walking through the streets of Brooklyn. Despite the multiple delays, Battle for Brooklyn was officially confirmed to kick off the Year 7 of The Division 2's live service content pipeline, complete with a dedicated storyline involving two original factions from the first title.

The DLC can be easily summed up with one word: Short. The campaign, as a whole, is comprised of three main missions and four smaller missions. The main missions follow the bog standard structure of main missions from the base game and the Warlord of New York expansion. The smaller missions are interesting because they are perfect for farming specific loot, thanks to the mission structure.

The red bricks really do mesh well with the Autumnal colours (Image via Massive Entertainment)

Despite being a smaller DLC, the developers have spared no expense in fully fleshing out each of the missions, as well as the two zones: Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo. Tom Clancy's The Division 2 has always had a flair for exceptional lighting and interesting playable spaces, and Battle for Brooklyn takes a few cracks at it. Walking into a repurposed indoor Skatepark or a museum exhibit retrofitted with walls of LED screens was some of the best usage of gameplay spaces in the DLC.

Beyond the interiors, the exterior that is the Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, are also pretty unique in their rights. It is not as spacious as the roads of DC, nor is it like New York, battered by the natural forces. Brooklyn is instead rather claustrophobic despite the lack of civilian buzz. The red-bricked buildings rarely hide the feeling of being cramped, further increased by the ever-present Brooklyn Bridge serving as the constant fixture, effectively a central point of the map seen from every corner.

Battle for Brooklyn might be short, but it doesn't stop hitting every bit of nostalgic string. The new leader of the Cleaners is eager to inform the players about the happenings within the faction post-Paradise Lost, the Propaganda Broadcasts in the open world talk about Joe Ferro, the leader of the Cleaners in the original Division. From the moment the player steps into Brooklyn, they're greeted with the crashed Osprey from the first game, a grim reminder of how the agents began their journey.

Despite the smaller scale, Battle for Brooklyn is ironically far more intimate and narratively compact compared to the base game and even the Warlords of New York in certain instances. The DLC relies on veterans to remember the storyline of both titles, and for someone like me, that is enough. But the smaller and intimate narrative nature, combined with the price point, makes it a hard sell for newer players.

Even the skill is a throwback to the original (Image via Massive Entertainment)

Battle for Brooklyn costs $15, which is half of what Warlords of New York costs. However, the DLC merely contains two compact zones, seven missions, one exclusive Exotic, and one returning skill from The Division, which is a far cry from all the new missions, zones, Exotics, skills, long-term endgame progression, and not to mention the seasonal content Warlords of New York has offered players for $30. This isn't to say that the DLC isn't worth it, but from a price vs content perspective, $15 might be a little steep for some players.

Personally, the most important aspect of the DLC is the nostalgia and how much the developers care about our dedication to the game. Some of us have been with this franchise from the first day, all the way back in 2016, when Tom Clancy's The Division first launched. At no point did the nostalgia overstay its welcome because the game's exploration keeps you moving to find something new to reminisce about.

This osprey crashing and killing the First Wave agents begins the story of our characters in The Division (Image via Massive Entertainment)

Usually, these reviews end with some sort of scoring system. Given the nature of Battle for Brooklyn's scope and its limited focus, it would be a disservice to judge it as if it were a full title. All I can say is that Battle for Brooklyn is a niche DLC meant for veterans more than players who are just starting their journey through the Division universe. You should get it once you are caught up with the story and want to discover where it all began for some of us.

---

Here are some other Tom Clancy's The Division 2 features and guides:

• St Elmo's Engine and Striker armor nerf
• SHD Exposed guide
• Textile vendor guide