The Division's next update promises to make the game feel ‘like a shooter’ again

Ubisoft is releasing a public test server for Tom Clancy's The Division next week, but today the publisher detailed some of the planned updates players will get to send through the ringer. Update 1.4 is due in October, but Windows PC users will be able to try the myriad changes first.

The list of what’s coming in the update is already sprawling, but Ubisoft promises an even more exhaustive set of patch notes next month. For now, the highlights are on gear, weapon and skill set changes, all in the name of rebalancing characters and making the game "feel more like a shooter," as Ubisoft says it does up to level 30.

To do this, weapons accessible to all levels will be rebalanced, and mods will have at least one big bonus by default. Weapon talents are also changing, and there’s already a graph of new primary stat rolls available in the post.

Gear collected in World Tier 2 and above will come with all three base stats, something that doesn't currently happen for players above level 30. To compensate, these pieces of gear will lose their skill bonuses. Ubisoft is also taking out the scavenging skill, which the publisher said has been problematic since day one. Players have complained that scavenging was "broken" for months, yet little has changed to correct of drops getting worse after exceeding 100 percent with the skill.

It’s a detailed read, one that may be required for all Division players — especially those invited into the public test server, which opens on Sept. 26. This will be the first major update for The Division since June, and it arrives after Ubisoft announced it would be delaying new content in favor of improving the current game. Update 1.4 was originally set to launch alongside the game’s second expansion; Survival will instead launch at the end of the year.