The Division 2 vs Real life D.C.

Washington D. C. is truly a majestic city packed with fun, confrontation and actions, both in-game and in real life. 😉 It’s remarkable how D. C. has been recreated in the world of The Division 2 with a special post-Apocalypse filter, so vivid that sometimes it’s hard to tell game screenshots from live photos. It’s easier to just show this with pictures rather than words…so here we go~

Overlooking Washington Monument/The Castle from National Mall East

“Navy Plaza Control Point”

Near “Theater” Settlement entrance

FBI

In front of “District Union Arena” stronghold

The mall next to the arena

Air & Space Museum

We watched two shows Dark Universe and Journey to the Stars in the “legendary” planetarium.😆 The projection looks as astounding as in game, no sniping holes from where people would shoot you though. (No photographing during shows so an unexciting green screen pre-show is I all could shoot. 🤔)

The hall at the final stage of the mission

Space shuttle backpack trophies? xD

Viewpoint Museum

Based on Newseum at the exact same location in real life. Its interior is quite different from the in-game mission, but the museum itself, which contains more than 500 years of news history, turns out to be a pleasant surprise with a plethora of fun exhibitions to explore. There is so much to see that we ended up coming here 2 days in a row. (Plus one ticket is good for 2 consecutive days so why not.😉)

Update: Deeply sorry to hear that this museum will close by next year due to financial struggles. It’s truly a heartbreaking loss to museum lovers. 💔 Will visit there again before its closure to show support and appreciation that what a informative and unique place it has been.

Wall of text warning: feel free to skip if a wordy rundown of museum exhibits doesn’t interest you. 😛

To name a few of their impressive collections, there are the earliest printed news dated back to 15th-century, 19th-century sensational tabloids, 1970’s TV news clip which fret over the invention of Internet fearing that it would ultimately evolve into a powerful surveillance tool for “Big Brother” and it was the harbinger of the futuristic world depicted in George Orwell’s 1984.(Yes, 1984 was still “future” back then 🤔) The crown jewel of the exhibits is probably Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery, a collection of photographs from every Pulitzer Prize-winning entries since 1942, complemented by detailed background stories and interviews that the pictures themselves could not capture fully. What I find most interesting though, is Today’s Front Pages, which updates and displays more than 800 newspaper front pages from around the world daily. It may be mundane to read a typical American small-town newspaper on its own, but once the front pages of major news outlets from each state are put together side by side, an interesting pattern of stark regional differences starts to emerge. It becomes quite amusing to observe that New Yorkers seemingly have a never-ending rat problem, while Alaskans are largely concerned about black bears ransacking trash bins in their back yard. Such comparisons make it easier to apprehend how immensely local interests may vary from area to area. Day-to-day norms in one town could be something utterly unimaginable in another town. The world is indeed full of wonders, all you need is a scope to help you look far and wide. 🧐

West Potomac Park

National Mall on Independence Day was nothing like the grim in-game scenes of conflicts and destruction. It was instead “invaded” by hordes of festive people roaming around and celebrating the holiday. Wherever you went, be it parks, museums, restaurants, restrooms…there would be a joyful crowd to surround you. Even in game you could still find a moment of peace amid all the chaos, like watching sunrise by Reflecting Pool before heading off to kill more baddies. Such serenity may exist on any other day, just not on 4th of July, not on the likely busiest day of a whole year in Washington D.C.

Summer heat was real though. The air was heavy and sticky. Your clothes were always damp, either from sweating under a scorching sun or from getting caught by a sudden thunderstorm. Having had enough of the horrid fickle weather, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon inside American History Museum. The museum felt a bit bland and generic, but with free air conditioning and fountain water, it was at least a comfortable hideout away from the elements. Also found the helicopter and the mini-gun in Vietnam War section. The sound effect was precisely the same as in the mission, although I think the in-game setting was more engaging and provided way cooler photo opportunities than the actual exhibits. 😛

Canadian geese enjoying themselves in Reflecting Pool despite a bit gloomy weather.

Little remained in game except for a forlorn wrecked boat

Tidal Basin shot at the same spot in and outside game.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the bridge are almost unrecognizable unless you look at them really carefully. Apparently black tusk has been hard at work converting the recreational park to a military shipping dock.

This year’s 4th of July fireworks was underwhelming due to poor weather condition. In the first minute or two the display was indeed captivating. Not long after, smoke started to thicken and obstruct the view as there was no wind to blow them away. For the rest of the show all you could see was just patches of dull color flickering on a dark murky sky. People began to leave before the fireworks even finished. Yet smoke kept gathering near the ground as more fireworks went off nonchalantly into the sky. Visibility was low. Air was filled with smells of gunpowder as though a large firefight had broken out nearby. Pillars of light danced behind the white smoke veil with sound of explosions in a distance. Slowly the line between reality and fiction began to blur. There and then this popular tourist site felt more like an apocalyptic war-zone than its virtual counterpart, where savage battles over the control point ceased for a brief moment on a quiet sunny afternoon.

Campus

Based on George Washington University. Quaint little schoolyard in a lovely neighborhood. You can learn something new even in a restaurant menu here. Ever wonder what BLTOTSAJC stands for? You’ll know it if you order it! 😆

The memorable bounty-hunting spot south of Campus😉

Bonus: A panorama of surroundings in real life

North of Watergate Hotel Complex, next to the “Maskdeer” cipher graffiti

Looking south from the bank of Potomac River

Roosevelt Island

An earlier storm which ravaged the island the day before our visit somehow gave it a believable vibe of dangerous biohazard and depressing isolation. Small ponds of yellow muddy water from the overflowing Potomac River littered the shoreline. The woods were strangely quiet for a nice summer day, with an eerie feeling that something monstrous might be lurking in the bushes. But there were neither Outcast lunatics nor Black Tusk robot dogs. Only mosquitoes…lots of mosquitoes! They are fast and furious like the Outcast hammer dude, accurate like the snipers, and 10 times more desperate than the suicide bombers. Standing still long enough with any spot of uncovered skin, you could be eaten alive by these ravenous blood suckers. I myself got at least 10 huge red bumps all over my legs wandering off-trail for just a few minutes. They are the true villains of this island. And now I fully understand why D.C. is called “swamp” in the first place. lol

Statue of Theodore Roosevelt and its vandalized in-game counterpart

And that’s the end~~At first I just wanted to post the pictures I took in D.C. Then I decided to do a game v.s. real-life comparison for fun therefore I ended up spending a lot more time taking game screenshots at the corresponding locations. Then I started rambling on and on about the trip itself, eventually turning this blog entry into a long-winded, unorganized and unfocused mess…lol Oh well I don’t expect it to serve a large audience anyway. It’s mostly to record my own thoughts/experience on this trip so that at some unforeseeable point in the future, when/if I revisit this post, I could remember the memories of yore, or reflect on the passage of time, or just have a good laugh at the naive thoughts the silly younger me used to have. 😜