The Division: Ubisoft Remembers How to Animate Playable Female Characters

Ubisoft sparked controversy last month when it emerged that neither Far Cry 4 or Assassin's Creed Unity will allow gamers to play as women characters in the co-op modes for those games. 

The publisher defended these decisions, arguing it would add to development time and cost on the two projects but The Division developer Ubisoft Massive appears to have missed that particular memo. 

Speaking to The Gadget Show, game director Ryan Barnard commented "You are actually the hero, so your own fantasy of how you want your agent to start is up to you. So there'll be choices of male or female, do you have a scientific background, maybe a more athletic background… but then when you get into the game and kind of start to move around and explore the city, how you decide to progress your agent is up to you."

Bernard describes the game as an "online RPG" but states that, "You absolutely can play the game by yourself all the way through if you want, but we hope you don't want to. Basically everything in the game is about pushing people to play together. We have a great matchmaking system that tries to put players of a similar level and similar interest together."

The Division is set in New York about a month after the release of a deathly virus on Black Friday, and sees players sent in to restore order to the city. Bernard says they choose the city because of its iconic nature with Time Square and the Statue of Liberty both being mentioned – possibly suggesting parts of the game will take place in those locations. 

Tom Clancy's The Division is set for release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2015.