A new leak suggests that Ubisoft is in the early stages of development on an FPS that mashes together three Tom Clancy series: Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and The Division. The game, apparently called The Division BattleCat, is a competitive FPS with unique class abilities and multiple modes.
Images of "The Division BattleCat" were shared on June 6 by Zer0_Bytes, a known leaker with a solid track record of acquiring early assets from other Ubisoft games like Rainbow Six Siege and Rainbow Six Extraction. The tweets were eventually taken down by DMCA claims (presumably from Ubisoft), but ZeroBytes has directed curious readers to an alternate source for the assets (the link points to an anonymous file sharing site, so be warned). In its own report, VGC says it was able to confirm the game's existence and that BattleCat won't be showcased at the Ubisoft Forward event on June 12.
Most of the images appear to originate from a piece of marketing material breaking down the game's main factions, The Echelon (Splinter Cell), the Wolves (Ghost Recon), the Cleaners (The Division), and the Outcasts (also The Division). Each faction will have its own unique class abilities. The stealthy Echelon, for instance, don't appear on the minimap and can reveal enemies to their allies while the Cleaners use big flamethrowers.
The images also describe a few modes, like an escort mission protecting a four-legged transport robot and another called "Ringleader" that has players collecting rings from fallen enemies and trying not to drop them all by dying, Sonic the Hedgehog-style.
Based on the images and the fact that ZeroBytes refers to the game as "The Division" BattleCat, it seems clear that it's being built on The Division's engine. UI elements seen in one of the images look almost identical to The Division and a brief look at gadgets and environments shares those games' art styles. It's not clear what team within Ubisoft is working on the game yet, but it'll be interesting to see how Ubisoft adapts the framework of its third-person cover shooter into an FPS.
Borrowing an existing game's framework for a spinoff is becoming a habit for Ubisoft. The company recently announced The Division Heartland, an upcoming free-to-play take on Division's traditional third-person gameplay. Ubi also finally re-announced Rainbow Six Extraction, a co-op FPS that uses Siege's existing pool of weapons and operators for a standalone game in a different genre. It's also made by a completely separate development team than Siege, which I'd wager is similar to how BattleCat is being approached.
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