The Division's locations overlaid on real life NYC map

The Division NYC

After first breaking Ubisoft company records within its first 24 hours of release, The Division went on to hit 1.2 million peak concurrent users and raked in $330 million globally in its first five days—a feat that crowned it the biggest new game franchise in history. Since, many a player has scoured its post-apocalyptic interpretation of Manhattan from corner to corner—you might even have spent your Easter weekend Easter egg hunting—however have you ever wondered how the game's depiction of NYC compares to the actual Big Apple?

One Reddit user named Feanauro has, and has overlaid a number of the game's important locales and missions onto the real thing via Google Maps as a result. Feanauro points out that due to simplifying the in-game world—dropping certain real life streets and tinkering with aspect ratios, for example—the Division creates certain "inconsistencies or visual anomalies" that stray from the real deal. "For this reason, I didn't attempt to reproduce the DZ border in game faithfully with all its nooks and crannies," they say. "Just closely enough to correspond to the major streets."

As you can see, though, Feanauro has depicted a number of safe houses, missions and landmarks within the Dark Zone and beyond, with the addition of neighborhoods (PvE areas) and resource locations, such as weapon parts, tools, fabric and electronics a possibility at a later date. Due to their circumstantial nature, Feanauro won't be adding side missions any time soon, however, nor boss locations as there's already enough maps out there to this end, apparently.

I love things like this because not only do they offer a peak beyond the velvet rope of video game research, but there's also much fun to be had spotting the similarities, inconsistencies and crossovers between real life and their video game translations. Or is that just me? Maybe I should spend more time outside.

Deputy Editor, PC Gaming Show
Latest in Action
The First Berserker: Khazan review - Blade Phantom
How to claim The First Berserker: Khazan pre-order bonus and deluxe edition DLC
gta 6 trailer
Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
A plastic duck dressed like a circus weightlifter
The 5th highest-rated game on Steam in 2022 is back with a multiplayer sequel
Latest in News
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion