We have a lot of loot-driven games in the gaming medium, and they are often fun ways to kill some time and baddies. For the uninitiated, loot-based games are centered around a gameplay loop of killing baddies for new items and equipment, using the loot that's better than your own equipment, then using that new equipment to go kill bigger and badder baddies. It's a simple yet satisfying progression system that provides a steady influx of tangible rewards that can be used to earn even greater rewards. Game franchises like Diablo and Borderlands have used this system to great effect. Diablo starts the player with weak weapons and very little armor, and has them finding better weapons and armor as the game progresses. Borderlands is all about the guns, grenades, and passive buffs. You start with a simple pistol that does nothing more than shoot bullets, then find bigger guns that add elemental damage to their bullets or just explode. Both series feature simple premises, that make the loot-driven system the focus of the game. Diablo pits the player against the denizens of hell, and Borderlands drops the player on at lawless planet full of colorful people who let their humanity fall by the wayside in favor of madness and anarchy. Both games use violence at the main way to interact with their worlds and the people/ creatures in them, and they make it work by distancing the gameworlds from reality enough that the violence as main interaction passes without much attention. Tom Clancy's The Division does not have that luxury. The Division is undoubtedly a slick game with an engaging gameplay loop. As a loot-driven game it's great, but it's missions and premise cry out for The Division to be more than looting and shooting.
