News: The Division 2 - Red Horizon Brings Cleaners to Washington D.C.
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is an open-world tactical third-person shooter in which SHD agents use cover-based combat, weapons, and skills to reclaim a crisis-stricken Washington, D.C. Year 8 Season 3, Red Horizon, now sends that fight into a burning new chapter. The Cleaners, previously confined to New York, have moved south and are spreading fire across the capital. In the open world they run activities, seize control points, and trigger Retaliations, while passively building Agitation in place of Black Tusk during other faction clashes based on kills and control point retakes. Their arrival also introduces a new Elite Kill Squad, 95 Company, which invades other faction Retaliations. Agents must defend the city from spreading flames while taking on this new threat, limited-time events, and a fresh Blackout Dark Zone alongside Conflict reward updates. The season frames D.C. as a city on fire that only coordinated SHD operations can contain.
Red Horizon overhauls how agents fight through a new modifier suite built around a Pressure Gauge global modifier. Completing actions such as headshot kills, multi-kills, or grenade kills fills the gauge and grants growing bonuses, but the gauge decays if players stay out of cover too long. Once the gauge hits a threshold, three Active Modifiers can be triggered for powerful effects including damage resistance, spreading burn damage, and boosted weapon damage plus shield health. Active Modifiers have no cooldowns this season. Three Hostile Modifiers punish agents by shrinking magazines, overhealing enemies, and cutting damage output; setting enemies on fire is the way to remove or reverse those effects. Twenty Passive Modifiers further shape the gauge and grant buffs to items and skills. Dark Zones also change. PvE Toxic Dark Zones stay in the rotation permanently with reduced Toxicity intensity, no season-specific canisters, all enemy factions present, and rogue protocols still off so the mode stays focused on cooperative survival. A new Blackout Dark Zone disables normalization so SHD Watch, Expertise, and prototype gear operate at full strength, with special PvP overrides for balance. Balanced Dark Zones remain the competitive, skill-focused option.
Two new Classified Assignments support the Cleaner invasion. The District Mall Inferno is available now, sending agents to back up a fellow SHD operative as Cleaners assault the mall. Georgetown Dead Zone arrives later in the season. Crossplay is scheduled for November, with more details still to come. New equipment is built to fight fire with fire: the Ember Engine Gear Set, Loaded for Bear exotic gloves as a late-season Climax Mission reward, Season Pass vanity outfits inspired by 95 Company, the Fafnir exotic shotgun, Iron Will exotic chest, Boiling Point weapon talent, plus additional weapons, premium credits, dyes, skins, and caches. Together these systems, assignments, and rewards give agents new ways to push back the Cleaners, experiment with pressure-based combat, and prepare for platform-wide play later this year while D.C. burns.