Pro-tip: Don’t find yourself in the back of a delivery truck with a flame-spewing turret.

This is one of many lessons that Tom Clancy’s The Division has to teach. Fledgling government agents such as DoomBro007 learned the hard way. Perhaps next time he won’t try to shoot me as I nervously wait for a helicopter evacuation.

The greatest knowledge The Division imparts is that traversing a virus-riddled and militarized New York City is dangerous without backup. It’s also a far better experience with friends.

The Division sets players down in an open-ended version of the boroughs that is under military quarantine. This massively multiplayer third-person shooter tasks agents of a secret government operation called The Division to find a cure for the virus, take control of the city, and quell bands of rioters and escaped inmates.

Anyone who has played Bungie’s 2014 space shooter Destiny will know what to expect. Level up your agent, collect mounds of weapons and gear, and travel to safe zones in each area of New York while clearing missions.

These tasks are better handled with a group of real world friends. Pairing up with a player is as easy as finding them on the map. The drop in and out nature of The Division’s multiplayer is a blessing compared to the tedious series of menus and load screens that come along with attempts to do the same thing in Destiny.

The formula of “go here, kill things, get loot” goes down far smoother with two or three teammates in the mix. Main story missions that take players to abandoned police academies, underground facilities, and even Times Square are far more fun with a team.

Pairing with other players in The Division creates a real sense of teamwork and unity that Destiny never achieved. Playing with friends in Destiny often felt like working separately toward the same goal but never on the same page.

Working together in The Division feels natural, much in part to the three unique skill trees. Playing as a designated healer is a lot of fun when you aren’t worrying about killing everything on your own. These roles were never as defined in Destiny, which always hurt the game’s team play.

The inevitable Destiny comparisons will follow The Division for the life span of both titles. Each game fills the void left by a lack of persistent multiplayer games on consoles. For now, The Division is the better game, thanks in part to its strong multiplayer hooks.

Playing with a team breaks up the sameness present in the nonstory missions. While playing alone, I found myself sprinting to the next main story mission and ignoring the small stuff, all in the name of seeing something new.

Speaking of sightseeing: The Division is a gorgeous game. Seeing the spectacle that is an abandoned and wintry New York provides an intriguing backdrop to a story that will feel like standard Tom Clancy fare. Ambushing a cadre of enemies as a whiteout occurs is something incredibly cool to behold.

The story missions are also a visual treat, leading players through terrific scripted events like powering up the lights of Times Square during a snowstorm. Likewise, the Dark Zone has a quiet stillness that reinforces the zone’s “everyone for themselves” design. As of launch, the Dark Zone is an unbalanced mess, but with further updates I can see real potential in the area’s ability to create panic from something as simple as an approaching player.

The game isn’t perfect and has a mess of bugs, glitches, and bizarre design choices that get in the way. As with most MMORPGs, The Division is a work in progress. New weapon types and more futuristic technology could break up the endless stream of rifles and shotguns. Likewise, more content for the Dark Zone will determine if players stick with the mode in the long-term.

Where The Division will succeed or fail is post-launch support and content. A steady stream of new stuff to do and new places to go will do wonders for keeping the player base engaged. Ubisoft will have to learn from Bungie’s mistake of post-launch content to keep Division agents coming back to New York long after the fires stop burning.

New cards, Old Gods

Developer Blizzard has announced the next full expansion in their competitive card game Hearthstone, titled Whispers of the Old Gods. The set contains 134 new cards themed around the Lovecraft-esque elder gods of the Warcraft universe.

One of these Gods, C’Thun, will be free with the first purchase of a Whisper of the Old Gods booster pack when the expansion releases in late April. For more information, visit us.battle.net/​hearthstone/​en.

Contact Will Harrison at wharrison@theblade.com or on Twitter @DoubleUHarrison.

First Published March 24, 2016, 4:00 a.m.