The Division 3 Losing Top Boss Is No Big Deal, Ubisoft Says; Confirms Division 2 Won't Go Free

Ubisoft's The Division 3 is moving ahead without executive producer Julian Gerighty, who recently left the company to join EA to work on the Battlefield franchise. At the time, Ubisoft told fans they needn't worry about The Division 3 losing him, and now senior producer Fredrik Brönjemark has echoed that sentiment, saying the roadmap for The Division 3 had been "planned and secured for some time already."

"Julian's departure isn't a distraction. We're happy for him and obviously sad to see him go. He was a friend. But as far as The Division 3 goes, we have our future and our roadmap that is already secure, and we know exactly where we are going and exactly what we want to do," Brönjemark told GI.biz.

The Division 2 creative director Yannick Banchereau went on to say he has "zero doubt" that The Division will remain popular for at least another decade.

"It is all about having happy players and a thriving community," he said. "That is the main goal. If we have that, then eventually we will be able to grow the playerbase and have a strong and thriving community when The Division 3 releases and continues the growth from there. That's really what we see in front of us."

2026 marks the 10th anniversary of The Division, and Brönjemark said this year will mark the "biggest year" ever for the game in terms of content. "We aren't just still going, we are growing. We are growing in ambition and we are delivering more and more things. There aren't many games in the position we are in now," he said.

Also in the interview, Banchereau said Ubisoft has looked into the possibility of transitioning The Division 2 to a free-to-play model, similar to how Rainbow Six Siege adopted that in 2025. However, doing so for The Division 2 "never made sense," he said.

That's in part because switching to a free model would require design changes, and Ubisoft isn't keen to do that. "We are trying to be a bit protective of the experience of our players and the way we monetise, the way we do business," Brönjemark said.

For The Division 2 to keep growing, it needs to keep making money, and Brönjemark said Ubisoft wants to achieve this in a way that feels "respectful" to its players. Going free wouldn't necessarily "violate that," he said, but it would require adaptations that Ubisoft hasn't felt the need to implement.

In terms of future growth for The Division overall, Ubisoft just launched a new mobile game, The Division Resurgence. One The Division game that is not coming to market is the free-to-play The Division: Heartland, which was canceled in 2024. Brönjemark said the team learned some lessons from that game, and this has contributed to the growth of The Division 2.

A movie adaptation of The Division was announced in 2019 for Netflix but has seemingly stalled, with no major updates on it in years. John Wick's David Leitch was originally tapped to direct, but was later replaced by Rawson Marshall Thurber. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain were at one point attached to star in the movie.

Ubisoft as a company is undergoing major changes, as the publisher and developer broke apart recently with a new Tencent-funded subsidiary focusing on The Division, Rainbow Six, Far Cry, and Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft also implemented a drastic cost-cutting initiative that led to mass layoffs and the cancellation of numerous games. The company has new games coming, including "several new IPs" and numerous more Assassin's Creed titles.

Source