Ubisoft officially announces that The Division 2 is the works. The video game developer/publisher released Tom Clancy's The Division - a new IP - in 2016 after teasing the game for three years. It centered on a group of agents from the Strategic Homeland Division, aka The Division, who were tasked with retaining order and discovering the source of the outbreak in New York City following a smallpox pandemic that started on Black Friday.

The Division was an enormous commercial success for Ubisoft, breaking the studio's record for first-day sales. While the game showed significant promise, its player base started to decline due to the lack of post-game content and the minimization of the Dark Zone. At one point, it was reported that the game's player count had dropped 93 percent within just a few months of releasing (via Githyp). However, Ubisoft gnawed at it and eventually managed to bring the player count back up thanks to constant updates. Hopefully, they've learned their lesson and will be able to apply all that knowledge to the inevitable sequel that's on the way. After a series of teases, Ubisoft has finally confirmed that a second installment is happening two years after the first game released.

Related: The Division Video Game Movie Lands Gold Director Stephen Gaghan

This morning, Kotaku's Jason Schreier posted an image of The Division 2's logo on Twitter, teasing the game's impending announcement. Then, Ubisoft officially confirmed the leak just a few hours later in a blog post by Massive Entertainment Creative Director Julian Gerighty, saying they always imagined The Division as the first chapter in a larger saga, and now they're ready to share what's next for that universe: Tom Clancy's The Division 2. The sequel is being developed by Massive Entertainment in partnership with Ubisoft Reflections, Red Storm Entertainment, Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Shanghai, and Ubisoft Bucharest. Take a look at the logo:

The Division 2 is going to be powered by an "updated version" of the Snowdrop Engine that was developed specifically for The Division. That's great news for fans of the game because the first game's impressive graphics and physics were part of the reason that gamers were so excited about the game in the first place. Also, Massive says they are taking "learned over the past two years and applying it towards the sequel to make sure we get it right." That means, in addition to substantial content, The Division 2 will have a new achievement called Shields, that grants users special rewards when earned at launch.

Sure, Ubisoft announced the game today, but this isn't the first time that fans are hearing about the possibility of The Division 2. This news comes on the heels of Massive’s Managing Director David Polfeldt teasing a continuation of the franchise this past December (via IGN) as well as Ubisoft expanding The Division's dev team just a few days ago (via PCGamesN). Of course, everything up to this point was just pure speculation - and all that speculation won't die down until the game's fully unveiled, which, according to Massive's Gerighty, is going to be at E3 2018 this June.

While Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment are working on The Division 2, they also promise to continue supporting the first game beyond its Year 2 Celebration, which will include new Global Events as well as Xbox One X enhancements, among other things. Hopefully, though, The Division 2's announcement doesn't mean that gamers will have to wait three years before the sequel actually hits store shelves, as was the case with the first game. It would be great if they did something akin to Far Cry Primal and release the game just a few months after its announcement, but we'll just have to wait and see.

More: 12 Best Tom Clancy Video Games

Source: Ubisoft