It’s weird that game companies keep celebrating new launches by setting their online servers on fire. You’d think they would eventually learn.
Ubisoft debuted Tom Clancy’s The Division tonight (or early this morning for most of you around the world), which is a new military shooter set in apocalyptic New York, and it is already encountering connection errors. Since this is a “military shooter,” the errors have code names like “Sierra,” “Romeo,” and “Mike” (S, R, and M, respectively, in the style of military radio lingo) along with a string of numbers. It seems like this is a problem with publisher Ubisoft’s servers as well as the Uplay service that connects players across various Ubisoft games.
The Division is running properly for some right now, but others continue to run into problems. This isn’t a real surprise. The Division is an online multiplayer game where everyone must connect to a server. These kinds of games almost always launch with troubles — just look at Diablo III from developer Blizzard or Destiny from developer Bungie. Ubisoft also has a history of launching online games that can’t handle a massive influx of players.
We’ll keep an eye on The Division over the next few days, and we’ll also have a review of the game soon. This is the first major release of the year, and people are obviously trying to play even if they can’t get connected.