Yesterday, Ubisoft confirmed that an upcoming gameplay event in The Division 2, Codename Nightmare, has been canceled and will not be released as planned this year, Yannick Banchereau, the Associate Creative Director on the game, explained the situation in the latest State of The Game livestream.
Codename Nightmare was a planned upcoming special Division 2 gameplay event that was teased back in September. It seemed that it would in some way repurpose a section of the game’s map for a new challenge. Its placement at the end of a trailer suggested it was something Ubisoft thought would be special and worth getting excited about.
Since then, Ubisoft has been quiet about Codename Nightmare, until yesterday. During a live-streamed State of The Game episode, Banchereau broke the bad news to fans explaining that the gameplay event was no longer going to happen. Instead, the rewards and cosmetics created for the special event would become part of an apparel event that will happen later in Season 4. Apparel events are sort of like a mini-battlepass within Division 2 seasons, allowing players to earn new rewards and cosmetics during a specific and limited window of time.
“It’s been a tough year for everyone,” said Banchereau during the stream. Although Covid-19 was not directly referenced or mentioned during the episode, it seems likely that it was a factor in causing the new event to be canceled. Codename Nightmare was planned to be a unique event that would feature new gameplay and would be set in a reworked Kenly College, a largely unused location already featured in the game. That’s not happening, but the apparel event planned to accompany Codename Nightmare is still a go, but will now feature more rewards that were originally planned to be part of the gameplay event.
Unfortunately, for those curious about what Codename Nightmare was going to be or what players would do, Ubisoft isn’t sharing any details about that. And it seems we probably won’t find out anytime soon.
It wasn’t all bad news, however. During that same stream, the team announced that The Division 2 would receive a small next-gen patch that would uncap the game’s framerate. Banchereau confirmed during the stream that the patch is planned to be released on February 2. Once the patch is live, players on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 will be able to play the game in 4k at 60 frames a second. Though Ubisoft was clear to point out this is a small patch and not a full upgrade or a next-gen conversion. Instead, the game will utilize the power of the new consoles to allow it to run better than ever.
The Division 2’s latest season will go live, with the next title update, on December 8 and will feature Faye Lau, an important character from both The Division 1 and 2, who went rogue at the end of the last expansion, Warlords of New York.