While its Anniversary event was a nice way to celebrate The Division 2’s tenth year, its latest season, Rise Up, could be even better. Now live on all platforms, it introduces Escalation, a new endgame difficulty. Available to those who finished the campaign and hit level 40, it currently applies to main missions and Strongholds, and can be found in the Base of Operations next to Countdown.
Escalation offers ten tiers of difficulty, each with different Mutators and Modifiers. Alongside harder challenges, there are also no checkpoints by default and a timer. Escalation Tokens are required for attempting the higher tiers, though you can obtain some by completing the same missions. But fail a mission, and those Tokens are gone forever.
What kind of Mutators can you expect? Well, there’s Harvester, which regenerates an enemy’s armor and health while they deal damage; Suppressor, which charges an EMP when an enemy takes damage; Anchor with its damage resistance and free incendiary rounds to foes; and more. This all sounds vaguely like Diablo 3’s Greater Rifts, so surely there must be some worthwhile rewards, right?
That’s where Prototype Gear comes in. As a new rarity, it includes higher stat rolls (which are up 1.5 times the previous maximum) and Augments, including Echo, which grants a chance for a bullet to repeat its damage; Amalgam, with a chance for each bullet to apply random statuses; and more. They’re not guaranteed from Escalation Missions, but higher tiers offer better drop chances alongside other rewards.
For even more details on what Rise Up has to offer, including brutal new Kill Squads which can drop Exotic Blueprints, head here.
