The Division’s first free update, Incursions, brings new activities and gear

While Tom Clancy’s The Division does have paid DLC on the way, as part of its season pass, some content is coming for free. Ubisoft detailed the first update, Incursions, this week.

Incursions is the first of two free expansions, and will include new gear, new activities, and new game functionality.

There will be new daily and weekly activities, including something called Assignments, an optional set of tasks players can complete to earn game currency.

The meat of the pack is called Falcon Lost, an underground water treatment plant that players will have to go through fighting one of the game’s factions, the Last Man Battalion. The mission is intended to challenge the highest leveled players, so if your team dies, you’ll start back at the beginning of the map, though loot will be rewarded each time as if it’s your first time, so it should be profitable either way.

Speaking of loot, there are four new gear sets coming with this update, called Path of the Nomad, Sentry’s Call, Striker’s Battle Gear, and Technician’s Authority. The gear sets will complement different playstyles, and completing the sets will imbue the players with new and powerful talents. The update features a new gear score system that doesn’t sound entirely unlike Destiny‘s Light system, in that it allows players to keep increasing their stats past the level cap.

Additionally, the update will allow players to trade loot with party members by dropping it on the ground.

Finally, the Dark Zone will start seeing supply drops. These drops will be publicly available to fight over, but gear picked up from them can’t be stolen and isn’t considered contaminated, meaning it doesn’t have to go through the risky process of extraction, which can attract the attention of high leveled enemies and greedy players.

While the paid DLC will debut on Xbox One first, with 30 days of exclusivity, this update and the other free update, Conflict, will debut across all three platforms simultaneously.

While there are only two free updates scheduled right now, I hope Ubisoft will see the benefits of this content. Keeping the players who don’t buy DLC playing gives the ones who do pay something to fight against when they visit the Dark Zone, and that’ll keep The Division alive for a much longer time. If they do keep updating the game, they could have a fan favorite on their hands.

Incursions is set to release April 12.