The Division 2 Dark Hours raid finally cleared on consoles
The launch of The Division 2's first eight-player raid, Dark Hours, has been a bit unusual.
After promising matchmaking for all activities pre-launch, The Division 2 developer Massive decided to instead disable it for Dark Hours due to its complexity.
The biggest news at the raid's launch, however, was about how seemingly impossible to beat it was on consoles. While the world-first record was set on PC five hours after launch, console players spent days attempting to finish it with no luck.
For days after launch, the raid leaderboards on PS4, and Xbox One were completely empty, which is rare for these types of games. Some suggested the 30fps cap on consoles, coupled with the limitations of controllers are the culprits. The Division 2 also does not currently allow players to go above the raid's gear score requirement, which means everyone playing will be at roughly the same power.
After days of frustration, console players finally managed to do it. It took the first PS4 team 36 hours to clear it, and 17 on Xbox One.
Though many initially believed the raid to be too difficult for console players, one of the people responsible for the first clear on PS4 told Kotaku that's not the case.
"People on console need to focus on RAW damage. Headshots damage won’t help us as much when you miss the head," Zach Caraway told the site.
"I believe on the final boss and the first boss, it’s all about team coordination.
"We always had people up and shooting. Frame rate could be an issue for some on console but the main thing is just getting the right 8 guys/girls and keeping them going. Don’t fight and argue or it will cause disarray from [where] people need to be focused."
As Kotaku points out, Destiny raids for example, were cleared on consoles just a few hours after PC. Now that the challenge has seemingly been figured out, it'll take future teams much less time to complete.