The Division Resurgence developer says they're 'very satisfied with the touch controls' of the 'more tactical' game

• Executive producer Fabrice Navrez says The Division Resurgence's gameplay was refined for mobile
• Ubisoft also did a lot of work making controllers compatible
• Navrez says The Division is a good fit for mobile because it's "more tactical" than other shooters

Tom Clancy's The Division Resurgence executive producer Fabrice Navrez is "very satisfied" with the mobile game's touch controls, but says players can choose to play with a controller if they prefer.

Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming, Navrez said that the team at Ubisoft refined the mobile game's "core" touch controls through multiple playtests, while also paying attention to players that want to use a controller instead.

"The main principle is to offer what players prefer. If you prefer to play with a controller, we did a [lot of work] to make it compatible," Navrez said. "It's more or less the same control scheme as The Division 2, so if you're familiar with The Division 2, it's easy to get in.

"Coming back to the to the mobile touch control, we did a lot of iteration on that front, doing a lot of play tests, getting player feedback to make sure that you can have the same level of control with a controller, or even with a mouse and keyboard. It was all a question of first keeping the core gameplay."

The developer also believes The Division, which has predominantly been a console and PC series, belongs in the mobile gaming space because the pace is "a bit slower than a classic shooter", making it a good fit for handheld gaming.

"It's more tactical, you're going from cover to cover. You have some time to observe the situation, pick your target, etc," he added. "So that pacing is already a good basis to create a good mobile game."

The team also developed multiple iterations on the game's "cover to cover shooting mechanics", offering multiple ways for players to approach combat, including an option where they can automatically go into cover. This simplifies the number of inputs needed, making the game more approachable.

"At the end of the day, I think I'm very satisfied with the touch control we achieved," Navrez said, adding that he personally prefers playing on mobile.

"I'm playing like that, so I guess it's a good sign," he revealed. "Actually, I'm a bit faster on touch than with a game controller. Perhaps because I have hours of training now, but I think it's working quite well. As I said, what matters is player choice. And here we have a lot of options to change the HUD to what you like, changing the size of the button, opacity, etc. So that's very complete on that front."

The Division Resurgence is a free-to-play game now available on mobile devices. Ubisoft has confirmed that it's entirely canon to The Division universe, with gameplay tweaks that allow users to play for shorter sessions at a time.

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