Back in June, we wrote an article highlighting the four factors that define the next-generation gaming. We listed open-world, blending single and multiplayer, a second-screen experience, and free running. Tom Clancy's The Division, an open-world title from Ubisoft that combines RPG elements with third-person shooter gameplay, has three of those four factors (skipping out on free running).
But ya know what? There's a fifth factor in all of these next-gen games: Dogs. And to make up for the lack of free-running, The Division will have dogs.
"Well, it’s a next-gen game so obviously it’s got to have dogs!" Ubisoft's community manager Nicholas Ross-Edwards said, jokingly — except that it really will have dogs.
"No, dogs won’t have any special significance other than the fact that New York has over 300,000 dogs living in the city, so imagine if they are all let loose at once… You may encounter some particularly nasty ones," he explained. "But no they don’t play a significant role."
So, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, and now Tom Clancy's The Division. Maybe the next next-generation will focus on cats.