The Division – Character Customization and Management

We’ve already discussed how The Division from Ubisoft compares to Destiny from Bungie. In this article we’ll take a more in-depth look at the character customization players will find when they enter Manhattan in The Division. If you’re unfamiliar with how classes work in The Division, be sure to check out our strategic preview to get more information on the classless class system featured in the game.

As you might expect, the first step in character customization in The Division is to determine how your character looks. You’ll be able to choose your characters’ gender, body type, head, appearance and outfit. Gender gives you the choice between male and female, body type allows you to adjust how your character’s body looks, including the physique and skill color. Appearance allows you to adjust hair, tattoos, scars, piercings and other similar categories.

You can have up to four custom characters to choose from, so feel free to experiment a bit when you’re creating a character. Keep in mind, at present you will not be able to change the appearance of your character after you’ve confirmed how they will look during character creation. There won’t be any points during the game that will allow you to cut your hair or trim your beard. So while you have four slots for custom characters, once you’ve confirmed a character, don’t expect to be able to change how that character looks later on.

The Basics

First you’ll need to choose a gender, and you can kick butt with a male or female character. You’ll also be able to choose what type of face you want, as well as skin tone and the color of your eyes. Your agent will still perform the same regardless, but feel free to create something as close to your likeness as you want, or someone entirely different!

Touching Up the Hair

Next, you’ll get to mess around with your hair. This includes choosing a particular style, as well as any facial hair you may want your character to have. You can also select color, ranging from black to red. Once you make your selections, though, you’ll need to stick with what you have through the game, so be sure to make the right decision before moving on.

All About the Markings

Markings are the little things that can signify a person’s face, including scars, war paint and tattoos, if you wish to go the Mike Tyson route. You can choose between five different scars in all, as well as various styles of paint and tattoos. The choices are a bit limited, but there should be something that suits your character.

Accessories Make the Man (Or Woman)

The accessories category includes ten different piercings and glasses available between the two, and while there aren’t a lot of options, they help define your character. Finally you have the confirmation screen. You’ll be able to review all of your choices before locking things in place. Make sure you finalize your choices properly – facial tattoo and all – and then prepare for the fight of your life through New York City.

Cosmetic and Equipment Slots

Once you’ve confirmed how your character will look, you can move on to the cosmetic slots. These are the slots that can be adjusted as you play through the game. This includes four categories: head, torso, legs and feet. This isn’t just one layer of clothing, as some of these slots will allow for multiple layers so you can really make your character look as unique as possible. In total there are roughly 10,000 options to make your character look and feel unique.

You also have equipment slots for body armor, gloves, thighs, knee pads, gas masks and go bags. These are a bit different compared to the cosmetic slots as they will impact your character’s stats. As you play through the game you’ll come across loot for each of these equipment slots. Similar to Destiny, these items will have stats that increase or lower your abilities depending on the level of the item found compared to the level of the item you already have equipped. Early on you’ll likely want to equip everything you find, but as you obtain higher level gear you’ll want to take a closer look at the stats to determine if what you’re already wearing is better.

How you customize your equipment slots should be tied directly to your skill set. What that means is if you’re focusing on the Security Branch, which offers skills that give your character more defense so they can last longer in a fire fight, you probably want armor that will increase your defense even more. On the other hand, you may be focusing on the Medical Branch, which gives your character support skills. In this case you may want heavy defensive gear so you can stay alive as long as possible, or you may want light gear that allows you to move around faster to aid your team.

If your focus is on the Technology Branch, where inflicting as much damage as possible is your main objective, then you may way to look for gear that increases your rate of fire, reduces the time it takes to change weapons and other similar abilities that will increase your overall damage output. The point here is that you can customize your character and your skill set to create exactly what you want in a custom class. Even if you focus on Technology Branch skills, you may want some defense to go with all that fire power, meaning you opt for heavy armor in your equipment slots.

For more on The Division be sure to check out our support class guide, learn how to survive in the Dark Zone or how to level up quickly in our walkthrough and guide!