open/close all folders
Enemy Factions
The Rioters
In General
Role: Low Level Enemy
Goal: Survival by Any Means
Identifiers: No unique identifiers. Members wear mixed tactical gear and clothing
Rioters' Icon
Random thugs of various levels of organization, they are the primary enemies in the game. They show up again in the sequel's Warlords of New York expansion pack, still playing the role of random thugs that are inconsequential to the plot.
- Batter Up!: Melee units will charge at the Agent with a baseball bat.
- Demoted to Extra: Rioters never really had a particularly large presence to begin, but the sequel's Warlords of New York DLC reduces them to a minor faction with zero missions to their name, akin to the Ambushers and Underground factions.
- Faceless Goons: In Warlords of New York, they all wear black ski masks even in the sweltering summer heat.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Some Rioters will randomly boast about having been in the service when fighting you.
- Gangbangers: Many of the Rioters are gang members using violence to get what they want, even aiming their pistols Gangsta Style.
- Although, annoyingly, this seems to have no impact on their accuracy.
- In the Hood: One way to spot them is (aside from charging at you or shooting you) they wear gray hoodies.
-
Jerkass Woobie: Many of them are desperate people who are willing to murder and rob to survive in a world that has totally gone to shit. But don't be mistaken, there's still plenty of bad bastards among them... - One-Steve Limit: Averted. It almost seems as though all of them are called Alex, given how many of them exclaim "They got Alex!" whenever you kill one.
- Starter Villain: They are the first enemy faction fight and the least armed, mostly pistols and baseball bats. Their units are also noticeably weaker than the equivalents used by the other factions; i.e. their Heavy enemies are only about half as tough as other faction Heavies.
- Tragic Villain: Based on various phone recordings and incident reports many of the Rioters are simply regular people trying to survive and provide for their loved ones in a world gone mad.
- To put it in perspective, here is an excerpt from a phone recording belonging to one of the Rioters.
Rioter: "[...] I'm hungry, Dan. Jesus, I'm hungry. I'd eat a fucking pigeon raw if I could catch one. The CERA people were handing out MRE's, but they didn't have enough and people started getting rough. I didn't, but... I can't blame 'em. Hunger, it gnaws at you. Like your brain's eating itself from the inside out. I lied. I got rough. But I got something to eat. You don't have to call me back."- Yes. This guy is the kind of people you are killing.
- White Gangbangers: While they have a mix of White, Black, and Latino voice sets, if you look closely at their actual character model you'll see they all have pale skin and blue eyes (this is because there's only one single character model for each enemy class, which is obscured by the fact they're wearing bandanas and hoodies).
Ripper
Ripper
The boss of the Precinct Siege mission.
- Boss Battle: He's the first boss of the game.
- Elite Mook: He's also the first elite enemy you encounter, and is equipped with an assault rifle as opposed to his pistol and baseball bat wielding fellows. He's also wearing police body armor, likely stolen from the precinct armory, and takes about a full mag of automatic weapons fire to bring down.
- Hostage Situation: In Precinct Siege you need to rescue a couple of JTF officers the Rioters have taken hostage.
- Unique Enemy: Unlike most other bosses, who are King Mook versions of regular enemies, Ripper is unique in that no other Rioter uses an assault rifle and fights like he does. He fights more like a Rikers or LMB rifleman. He also has a unique character model, like Rikers leader LaRae Barrett and minor assassination target Michelle Mason.
Hutch
Hutch
The boss of the Madison Field Hospital mission, which was also the mission shown in the game's open Beta release.
- BFG: Wields a light machine gun.
- Flunky Boss: He'll summon successive waves of Rioters to help him throughout the fight, though he does eventually run out. While most bosses in the game also start out with a few mooks backing them up, Hutch is one of the few who keeps calling in new ones.
- Heavily Armored Mook: He's essentially a Heavy, being heavily armored and wielding an LMG. He can soak about 70-80 assault rifle rounds before falling.
- Hostage Situation: What the Madison Field Hospital mission essentially is.
- The Big Guy: Is slightly larger and more heavily armored than the other Rioters.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: He's the game's first real "bullet-sponge" enemy, which along with his high damage output from his LMG, make him a noticeable jump in difficulty from the basic Rioters you've been fighting before.
Finch
Finch
The boss encountered in the Lincoln Tunnel Checkpoint mission.
- Cold Sniper: He fights with a sniper rifle and attacks from the roof of a low one-story building. Unusually, he also seems to have more health and armor than most other boss snipers.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The mission involves Rioters trying to blow up a floodgate in order to escape Manhattan. The problem is, if they succeed that would mean that the Lincoln Tunnel would be flooded and the JTF would lose a major supply line.
- Sniper Duel: With how the boss battle is set up it could feel like that to Agents using marksman rifles.
"Alex"
"Alex"
The endless number of random Rioters that you fight during the course of the game who all just so happen to be called Alex.
- Joke Character: What he (they?) is quickly becoming for the fandom.
- Memetic Mutation: "They got Alex!"Explanation
- Acknowledged by the devs; the Commendation for killing Rioters is even named "They got Alex!"
The Rikers
In General
Role: Destructive Chaotic Threat
Goal: Power and Greed
Identifiers: Prison wear, tattoos, looted police uniforms and gear.
Rikers' Icon
Violent escaped cons who don't seem to have any goal besides chaos.
The sequel's Warlords of New York expansion has them returning as an enemy faction, still sewing chaos as usual.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Their end goal seems to be to cause as much chaos as they can.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: In a variation as they are not from a military division or unit, but they all fit as they are all inmates that escape from an infamous prison complex in the United States.
- Ax-Crazy: They are a band of ultra-violent psychopaths concerned only with tearing Manhattan apart, and killing anyone, civilian or government servicemen, in incredibly cruel and brutal ways imaginable.
- Cool Shades: A lot of them sport these in Warlords of New York, with their Rushers most commonly wearing them.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Less on the unusual and more on the cruel, they don't adhere to quick kills and want to ensure that the JTF or civilians, whom they felt are implicit in their plight, be given the very same treatment they suffered.
- Delinquent Hair: A good number of them in the sequel sport mohawks.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In ambient dialog, a couple of Rikers sometimes talk about a child one of them has and the possibility that they were still in New York during the outbreak. It turns out that the Riker's wife took the child and moved to Oakland two years into his sentence.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The only gang to be led by a woman and (besides the LMB) have other women among their ranks.
- For the Evulz: While most of the other factions have understandable motivations, the Rikers gleefully torture civilians and JTF prisoners or execute them over as minor things as playing the wrong piano key on a song they requested. They also planned to destroy a power plant, simply to deny the rest of New York light and warmth.
- Gangbangers: Given that they are escapees from Rikers Island it stands to reason that many of them were once gangsters before being sent to prison.
- Guns Akimbo: The Rusher archetype in Warlords of New York dual wields a pair of machine pistols.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: In Warlords of New York many have have replaced their prison overalls to leather jackets.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Rikers Tank unit wields a hefty one. In Warlords of New York, the Sniper and Heavy Weapons archetypes also have shields, with the latter even having a mounted machine gun on top of theirs.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: In The Division 2, almost all of the Rikers' enemy archetypes have their own twist to them, making their encounters very different from other factions:
- Throwers chuck nail bombs at their enemies that double as proximity traps.
- Snipers wield a rifle and plexiglass shield and tend to engage enemies at mid-range.
- Rushers dual wield Uzis, giving them the option to engage enemies at farther than point blank ranges.
- Their Tanks are the only ones in the game that wield shields, and they come with flashing lights to blind enemies with. Also, instead of relying on More Dakka, they take precision shots with a hydraulic-powered nail gun that inflicts a hard-hitting Bleed status.
- In lieu of a Medic or Support role, the Rikers exclusively get the Leader, who overheals nearby Rikers merely by their presence. If they go down in battle, the overheal they apply is instantly removed. Their weapons are also randomized and don't conform to a single weapon type.
- Mirroring Factions: Interestingly to the JTF. An ECHO recording shows a JTF officer pleading with a Riker not to execute him, claiming that he isn't just a uniform or a number. The Riker points out the irony of the statement right before he guns him down.JTF: "We're real people, okay? We're not just...symbols or uniforms or-."
Riker: "Well then one o' you fools finally know what it feels like." - Nicknaming the Enemy: To showcase their seething hatred towards the JTF, they often use their acronym to mean, "Jack This Fool", instead of "Joint Task Force".
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Not for these guys. For them, this is an everyday routine.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Pretty much their entire MO. They're not looking to establish a new order, re-establish the old one, wipe out the virus or even just plunder others to survive ( those that took over the power plant were perfectly fine with blowing up themselves as long as it screwed things up for everyone else). They simply want to inflict as much pain and misery as possible on everyone in their path, particularly the JTF or any other "uniforms". What little infrastructure they have is implied to exist simply so they can continue to do that.
- Revenge: Besides causing chaos throughout Manhattan this seems to be the Rikers' hat, based on the graffiti in their territory and the fact they target the JTF more than they target any other faction.Riker Graffiti: "Fuck #Justice we want revenge!" "You left us to die in Rikers. We'll leave you to die on the streets." "12 years in Rikers. 1 cop for every year."
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Their close quarters units carry shotguns, and if you're not careful they can and most likely will own you.
- Sigil Spam: In Warlords of New York, their territory is more prominently marked with the Riker cross, which is specifically white on black backgrounds.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Heavily implied that their escape and the ensuing violence they caused was the final straw to cause everything to collapse in Manhattan. The forced pull back and retreat of the majority of JTF forces to the Western half, the LMB deciding to execute everyone that disobeyed them or committed any crimes, and Aaron Keener and some of the other First Wave Division Agents to snap and go rogue.
Larae Barrett
Larae Barrett
The leader of the Rikers, a crazed career criminal who managed to unite the population of Rikers Island and managed to get them onto Manhattan.
- Ax-Crazy: You kind of have to be if you can manage to unite a bunch of prison gangs under your leadership.
- Bad Boss: A video the player comes across shows Barrett giving an impassioned speech to her fellow Rikers while simultaneously torturing, then killing another Riker, evidently because he complained a little too much.
- Big Bad Wannabe: She rallied the criminals and gangbangers at Rikers, and broke out of the prison to take over the city with an Eat the Rich and The Social Darwinist mentality. Too bad her forces get constantly hounded by the Last Man Battalion and the Cleaners.
- Dark Action Girl
- Dark Messiah: Comes across as this. She's charismatic and brutal enough to unite hundreds, maybe thousands of gang members that likely don't have high opinions of women, certainly not as a leader. Yet they seem (with one unfortunate exception) devoted to her, following her orders without question.
- Although arguably this is largely because those orders are what they'd do anyway: terrorize, loot and murder as much as they want.
- Elite Mooks: Is accompanied by two elite Rikers in heavy armor and carrying light machine guns.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has an X-shaped scar on her left cheek.
- Made of Iron: She was shanked in the back of the head with a pen while she was still in prison. Her attacker soon regretted it.
- Manipulative Bastard: Again, you kind of have to be if you can unite a bunch of prison gangs together. Also, stage a mass escape and arrange several hundred people (if not thousands) to be shipped to Manhattan.
- Refuge in Audacity: In an incident report, Larae is said to have killed two cops execution-style. She claimed it was in self defense.
- Sassy Black Woman: Talks like one, anyway.
- The Social Darwinist: With a good portion of Eat the Rich. She views the outbreak as an opportunity for the strong to rise up and take what's coming to them, now that the cops are no longer around to stop them.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Wields a Milkor MGL multi-shot grenade launcher.
- Unique Enemy: La Rae is a unique boss rather than a King Mook version of a regular enemy, being armed with a grenade launcher and having more health and armor than a regular Rikers boss (though not as much as a boss Heavy).
- Would Hurt a Child: When she's running down the governmental departments to a group of Rikers she's riling up, she says "Child Protection Services" in an especially venomous way.
Slingshot
Slingshot
The boss encountered in the Times Square Power Relay mission.
- Cold Sniper: She's an elite Hitman, so her main method of attack is sniping at a distance. That being said she has no problem with going for her pistol if the Agent is close enough.
- Dark Action Girl
- Geo Effects: She is encountered sniping at you from the opposite side of the area, on top of a flight of stairs which has plenty of cover on her side. The boss area is also relatively large and open, with cover placed around the perimeter instead of inside (likely to better protect you against her Mooks, and vice versa). So, what's between you and her in the middle of this boss area? One statue.
- Glass Cannon: Like other snipers, she has less health than other enemy types of equivalent rank. As a result, she's got less health than a regular named boss, and is about as durable as a regular gold-rank Elite.
- In the Hood: Just like every other Riker sniper.
Keller
Keller
The boss encountered in the Warren Gate Power Plant Mission.
- Ax-Crazy: Not only is he okay with blowing up a power plant (possibly with him and his men still inside) he's actually pretty excited about it.Keller: "Welcome to the end of the world, assholes!"
- Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: He doesn't outright give any orders but he does motivate his men to do what he wants them to do.
- Death Seeker: According to Paul Rhodes, Keller and his men have a death wish if they're happy to blow up the plant.
- Duel Boss: Unlike almost all other bosses in the game, he's fought solo without any backup at all. Though this is mostly because he hid in the control room taunting you until he ran out of mooks to throw at you.
- Elite Mooks: His character class is the same as the main Rikers Elite Mook, equipped with a submachine gun and flashbang grenades.
- Evil Is Petty: Is of the opinion that if the Rikers can't have the power plant then nobody will, and he's perfectly willing to blow it up and failing that have his boys completely trash the place until it blows up by itself.
- The Nicknamer: Whenever he addresses you directly through the loudspeaker he calls you "Cowboy."
- Taking You with Me: Implied, given that he tries to stop you from preserving the plant.
Glass
Glass
The boss encountered in the Rooftop Comm Relay mission.
- Blood Knight: Comes across as this during the mission, when he is talking to you. He also sends up a flare telling you where he is and then invites you to "the party."Glass: "I spy, with my little eye, someone beginning with fucked."
- Elite Mooks: Before you face him you need to face two gold Elites and a couple of purple Veterans, and he has a third Elite accompanying him when he finally does show up.
- Escort Mission: Not that he goes anywhere but you need to protect a JTF engineer as he repairs a communications relay. In a tiny area. Against three waves of Mooks, plus Glass.
- King Mook: Glass himself is a boss version of the regular Rikers enemies, basically the same except for a lot more health.
- The Remnant: If you follow the story missions in order, you'll be facing Glass after already having killed La Rae Barrett, the leader of the Rikers.
Swizz
Swizz
The main antagonist in Agent Origins: Escape. The leader of a Riker gang that attacked a JTF supply drop and took several people hostage, thus needing the Division to commit to a rescue mission.
- BFG: Fights the Division agents with a light machine gun.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Mia kills him.
- Establishing Character Moment: Mercilessly shanks a helpless prison guard in the middle of a riot shortly after he is introduced. He also executes another guard as he crawled to safety just a few seconds later.
- Hostage Situation: Gets into one when he uses a civilian as a human shield.
- Slasher Smile: Has a pretty good one when he is walking by his fellow prisoners as they are raising hell during the prison riot.
Slider
Slider
The boss of the Clear Sky Incursion.
- Arc Villain: He's the main villain of the Clear Sky Incursion, and taunts you over the radio throughout the Incursion.
- Large and in Charge: He's a Tank.
- Large Ham: Likes to hear himself talk, and he wants to make sure you hear it, too.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Carries an indestructible Ballistic Shield in front of himself at all times, which gives him a stronger resemblance to a Last Man Battalion heavy than to a Riker's heavy.
Bobcat
Bobcat
The final boss of the Stolen Signal Incursion.
- Final Boss: Of the "Stolen Signal" Incursion from the game's final DLC, Last Stand.
- Made of Iron: Although he's a Rikers Runner, his health and armor is insanely high even compared to other bosses. And that's not even counting his special ability to periodically turn invincible.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Bobcat has the unique ability to periodically trigger a God Mode-like state in which he becomes almost completely immune to damage; he'll also whip out an M249 LMG and deal increased damage while in this state. Bobcat's ability acts like a combined version of the ultimate abilities Survivor Link and Tactical Link that Division Agents have access to.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Like other Rikers Runners, he fights with a shotgun, although his particular shotgun is more heavily customized.
The Cleaners
In General
Role: High Level Threat
Goal: Cleanse New York of the Green Poison by burning everything, and everyone, that is contaminated.
Identifiers: Hazmat Suit, Reflector Vest, Flamethrower, Full Mask
Cleaners' Icon
Flamethrower-wielding members of the city sanitation department who have decided to purify the entire city in an effort to destroy the virus. Unfortunately, the strain of the outbreak has caused them to snap, and they've decided the best way to do it is to burn anything that might be infected. They make a return appearance in the sequel, with the D.C. Agent running into them while investigating Aaron Keener's last known position at Coney Island, and they later appear in full force in the Warlords of New York expansion pack.
- Attack Drone: The Controller archetype in Warlords of New York uses one that carpet bombs its targets, no doubt supplied by rogue agent Vivian Conley.
- Badass Normal: Unlike the Rikers, who are all hardened criminals, or the Last Man Battalion who are all military-trained, the Cleaners are mostly made up of waste disposal and sanitation workers who happen to have a lot of guns, home-made napalm, and conviction.
- Blatant Lies: In the Hudson Refugee Camp mission, two Cleaners are seen trying to keep refugees inside the camp, promising them that anti-viral medicines were on their way to them. Right. Because a couple of guys wearing homemade hazmat suits and carrying flamethrowers are totally trustworthy.
- Brooklyn Rage: They're comprised of working class city sanitation workers, and to a man they all have the Brooklyn accents to match.
- Death by Irony: Shooting their gas tanks to make them explode, as well as killing them with fire grenades, count as this.
- The Determinator: If all of Manhattan and everyone in it has to be burned to ash to eradicate the virus, so be it.
- The Dreaded: No one wants to mess with the Cleaners. Even the LMB mention making an effort to steer clear of them. While the LMB are better equipped and trained, the Cleaners are utterly crazy, and no one wants to fight crazy (plus, being burned alive is a really nasty way to die).
- The Engineer: Their primary Elite Mooks class is a combat engineer that can deploy a turret that's stronger and harder-hitting than your own.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Warlords of New York shows that the Cleaners have expanded past stereotypically Italian New Yorkers, with their ranks being comprised of multiple ethnicities, women, and all walks of life.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Both Joe Ferro and the point-of-view Cleaner character from the Underground Audio Logs claim to be doing what they do in order to protect the people they love. The same could likely be said for many others in their ranks.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: They can't fathom why anyone would want to stop what, to them, is the only thing anyone can do stop the infection from getting worse. Part of the reason they're terrified of the Agents' interference is the belief that they must be total, irredeemable psychopaths to want to stop the only hope for mankind's survival in their eyes.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: They're former sanitation workers - meaning janitors, custodians, and garbage men - who have now became a major force in New York City.
- Gas Mask Mooks: All Cleaner types wear some form of gas mask or respirator.
- Gadgeteer Genius:
- Downplayed; the Cleaners aren't able to fully emulate the same tech the LMB and Division have, but they are able to create improvised flamethrower attachments for their weapons, create automated turrets of their own that are tougher than what their enemies throw out, build an entire improvised napalm facility, and rebuild a fire engine into a literal fire engine.
- In Warlords of New York, the Cleaners have become adept at using rogue SHD tech such as mortar turrets and bombadier drones.
- Improvised Weapon User: There is an ECHO that states their flamethrowers are made out of hoses and bicycle parts, their napalm is also home made.
- Just Following Orders: The Cleaners see what they do simply as a job that needs to be done. During combat, some of them even yell out "Let me do my job!"
- Kick the Dog: In the Agent Origins: Ashes short film, a couple brings them the body of a loved one, assuming that they would dispose of it. They killed them, burned them along with the body they brought to them and then went after the apartment building they came from. They'll kill and burn anyone whom they suspect carries the virus, even if their victim is healthy, so god help you if you are asthmatic or have allergies.
- One Cleaner Urban Exploration Audio Log in the Underground also has them burning actual stray/feral dogs they come across whilst patrolling down there.
- Kill It with Fire: They plan on burning the entire city to the ground and they don't care who's in the path of their flamethrowers.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Melee units carry a fire ax as well as a shield to repel bullets.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: They see themselves as the heroes Manhattan and the world needs to destroy the Green Poison virus, but it's worth noting none of them have medical degrees or anything in the way of actually understanding the outbreak; Kandel points out that they're really harming efforts to study and create a cure/vaccine for the virus. By burning and killing all signs of infection, they're preventing professionals like Kandel from doing what they can to stop the virus in the long run.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: As noted under Death by Irony, it is not unreasonable to feel that this is the case when you use incendiary weapons against the Cleaners, or breach their fuel tanks (see below) and cause them to explode. They simultaneously manage to be the most and least sympathetic of the enemy factions, thanks to various audio logs and their general mentality respectively.
- The Remnant: In Warlords of New York, Despite the best efforts of New York City's Second Wave Agents and the death of their leader Joe Ferro, the Cleaners remain operational. They make their first appearance in a brief cutscene in a shootout against Faye Lau, and later make their first in-game appearance during Episode 3, where a small group of them are caught in a three-way fight between D.C.'s Agents and the Black Tusk.
- Shoot the Fuel Tank: Regular Cleaners and Heavies have napalm fuel tanks strapped to them - for the regular troops it's on their back, for the Heavies, they hang around the waist/thigh level. You can also shoot the satchels of grenades the grenadier's carry on their waists. In either case, shooting them enough causes a distinctive noise as a jet of flame sparks off from the tank. A couple of seconds later, it'll explode. You have to do this twice to Heavies, given their health pools, but the resulting explosion is magnificent.
- Shown Their Work: More than one Cleaner instance has recipes for napalm spraypainted on the walls.
- Sigil Spam: In Warlords of New York, Cleaner territory and property now comes marked with an abstract version of the Rod of Asclepius
, fitting their pretensions of "curing by sterilization". - The Sociopath: What most of them have become. Everyone they come across is already dead, as far as they're concerned, and their begging and reasons are nothing compared to "doing the job". They'll even turn those flamethrowers on their own people the moment infection seems apparent, as seen in Agent Origins: Ashes.
- Taking You with Me: Normal and Veteran Cleaners flail and panic when their gas tanks get shot and are about to explode. Elites, however, charge directly at the nearest player before they explode.
- The Turret Master: In the sequel, Controllers with a wrench icon have access to a mortar turret that fires flaming tar, capable of inflicting both Ensnare and Burn at the same time.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Shooting their gas tanks is pretty much instant death to them as well as high damage to anyone else near them.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Cleaners don't want to take over the city; they want to cleanse it, for the good of the (healthy) people still living there and everyone else in America. However, their plan is to burn the entirety of Manhattan to the ground, along with anyone who even might be infected, and anyone else who gets in their way. And, as noted above, none of them have the biological, genetic or medical knowledge to understand that other methods (like creating a vaccine and eventual cure) might be better (or, arguably, enough residual sanity).
- Working-Class Hero: While the hero part is ridiculous, their background as New York's blue collar workforce and the named Cleaners give off this idea. Where the Rioters and Rikers have names like Big P or Rekt, the Cleaners are populated by names like Rodriguez and Greenberg.
Joe Ferro
Joe Ferro
The leader of the Cleaners, a former sanitation worker who believes that the virus could be better contained by burning the infected and everything (or everyone) they come into contact with.
- A Father to His Men: One of the incident reports found throughout Manhattan is a recording of Joe delivering a heartfelt eulogy for one of his men.
- Almighty Janitor: Used to be a sanitation worker. Now he has a flamethrower.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Like all Cleaners, Joe has gas canisters attached to his back which is useful when damaging his armor bar.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The leader of the Cleaners and the hardest one to put down. An Incident Report also has his men mentioning that the reason why they respect him so much is because not only is he always in the trenches with them, but he never asks them to do something he wouldn't be able to do himself.
- Badass Normal: Joe Ferro isn't a highly trained operative, or a mercenary, or even a hardened escaped criminal. But he does have a flamethrower and he's not afraid to use it, and neither are the men who follow him.
- Big Bad Wannabe: He became a Knight Templar Well-Intentioned Extremist, when his wife was killed by the Green Poison, and made his fellow sanitation workers into pyromaniacs to stop the Green Poison from spreading. Of course, while his men are able to hold their own, they’re out of their league against the Rikers and the Last Man Battalion.
- Crusading Widower: Joe Ferro, leader of the Cleaners enemy faction, lost his wife to the smallpox outbreak.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: A recovered phone recording shows Joe calling his niece warning her that the radio will be saying lots of lies about him (implying he's about to form the Cleaners), and that whatever he's doing, he's doing it for her.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Because nobody else has the stones to do it.
- Large and in Charge: Looks just like every other Giant Mook the Cleaners have (like Kosinski), and is their leader.
- Made of Iron: Like the other named Cleaner Giant Mook bosses, he's the most durable boss enemy in the main story quests, about to take almost twice as much damage as most other bosses (including LaRae Barrett and the Rogue Agents). It can take almost 200 rounds of automatic weapons fire to bring him down.
- Start of Darkness: It started when his wife died of the Dollar Flu. Then when the JTF pulled out of the Dark Zone, he took a flying leap off the deep end and came back with enough flamethrowers and napalm to burn the city down.
- So Proud of You: His men are heroes as far as he is concerned, as evidenced by an incident report of him giving a speech.Joe Ferro: "[...] But you all, the ones making the hard choice right now, you ask me? You're all goddamn heroes."
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The virus needed to be destroyed, and he feels that the only way to do that is to burn it out, and that he and his followers are the only people with "the stones" to do what they feel needs to be done. Though one could argue against his methods it's hard to argue against his reasons.
Benchley
Benchley
The boss encountered in the Subway Morgue mission.
- Attack Its Weak Point
- Giant Mook: He is the first elite Cleaner you encounter, and though he's not so much giant in the strictest sense of the word he is noticeably larger than his friends.
- Made of Iron: Like the other named Cleaner Giant Mook bosses, he's the most durable boss enemy in the main story quests.
Martinez
The boss encountered in the Hudson Refugee Camp mission.
- The Engineer: Implied, given his use of technology when fighting.
- The Turret Master: He is able to set up turrets during his boss fight.
- Weak Turret Gun: Averted. His turrets are bigger and can take a (slightly) better beating than yours can.
- You Are Already Dead: Says this almost verbatim when referring to the refugees.
Kosinski
Kosinski
The boss encountered in the Broadway Emporium mission.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Natch with the Cleaners. He has two canisters hanging from his back which an eagle-eyed Agent (or one who has the Turret power they can use as a distraction while they go around him) can take advantage of when stripping his armor bar.
- Giant Mook: Just like Benchley.
- Made of Iron: Like the other named Cleaner Giant Mook bosses, he's the most durable boss enemy in the main story quests.
- Mighty Glacier: His default tactics when facing you seem to be "slow advance." Thing is, with how the boss battle is set up and the number of Mooks you're forced to concentrate on lest they be the ones who kill you, he's pretty good at it.
Rogan
The boss encountered in the Amherst's Apartment mission.
- Cold Sniper: He's a boss version of the Cleaners' snipers.
- Glass Cannon: Like other snipers, he has less health than other enemy types of equivalent rank. As a result, he's got less health than a regular named boss, and is about as durable as a regular gold-rank Elite.
- The Remnant: If you follow the story missions in suggested order, you'll face him after already having killed off Cleaner leader Joe Ferro.
The Collective
A group of four Cleaner Heavies encountered in the Dragon's Nest Incursion, serving as the bosses of the first encounter.
- The Dragon / Dragon Their Feet: Seems to be their role in the story, given they're still trying to burn out the Dollar Flu after Joe Ferro's death.
- Flunky Boss: After the first one of them is killed, endless waves of Cleaner reinforcements, including multiple bomb-car deploying Engineers, will begin spilling into the combat area. Because of this, the general raid strategy is to weaken all 4 of them to low health and finish them all off at once.
- Four Is Death: They are, indeed, four of them, and they're all pretty nasty if they get close.
- Kill It with Fire: As per standard for Cleaner Heavies, two come equipped with powerful and distressingly long range flamethrowers.
- Large and in Charge: Like most Heavies, every member of the Collective is either having their height increased by their gear or they really are just huge. Either way, they tower over the common Cleaner mook and the player Agents.
- More Dakka: Strangely, two of them (Death and War) opt to use LMGs instead, causing them to come across more like Riker Heavies than Cleaner ones.
- Theme Naming: After the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The Last Man Battalion
In General
Role: Occupying Force
Goal: Fascist Rule
Identifiers: Distorted U.S. Flag, Bird Skull
Last Man Battalion's Icon
A PMC group that was brought in by Wall Street investors and others to protect their assets. As the situation grew worse, their leader Charles Bliss became embittered that he and his soldiers were trapped in Manhattan protecting other companies and diplomats assets and belongings, while many of them had long gotten out of NYC. Viewing the JTF as completely incompetent for setting up the Dark Zone and abandoning equipment, as well as their retreat to west, Bliss and the LMB decided that they should be in-charge with restoring order. Unfortunately for NYC, that order came about as "Obey us, or else" with the muzzle of a gun pointed at everyone who refused. The LMB now controls large portions of Eastern Manhattan, and currently has set up base at the U.N. HQ in Turtle Bay. They are referenced in audio logs in The Division 2, apparently having dissolved after their CO's defeat at the end of the first game. Remnants of the unit — namely, their shotgun-wielding CQB specialists and combat medics — eventually join forces with the Black Tusk.
- Attack Drone: You fight these in the Falcon Lost Incursion.
- Badass Army: Opposed to the other bandits, the Last Man Battalion are well-equipped and trained professional mercenaries. Tellingly, in the sequel the True Sons are only classed as being the same threat level as the Rikers were, while the LMB are classed as being nearly as dangerous as Black Tusk.
- Combat Medic: The LMB are the only faction to have these; they use healing deployables similar to your own, and like Engineers they're often seen as Elite Mooks.
- The Dreaded: The Rioters and Rikers make it a point to avoid LMB territory, because unlike the JTF, the LMB shoots to kill, no questions asked.
- Elite Mooks: The LMB are notable as the only faction that fields specialists (combat engineers, combat medics, and heavy gunners) as regular enemies instead of just as mini-bosses. The regular versions are a lot less durable than their Veteran or Elite counterparts, but the flip side is you'll be facing them a lot more, including on the open world.
- The Engineer: Like the Cleaners, the LMB have Engineer Elite Mooks who can use deployable turrets in combat.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Just like the Rikers, they have snipers who are all female.
- Evil Counterpart: They're essentially an evil version of the JTF, having comparable if not superior military-level training and equipment, as well as the exact same goals, but willing to use much more ruthless means to achieve them. They even have their own Division Agents working for them.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: For all their ruthlessness, the LMB make very little headway in restoring order to the city, and over the course of the game your Division agent does more to pacify the Rioters, Rikers, and Cleaners in a few days than the LMB ever managed to achieve in weeks.
- Informed Attribute: Their official bio on the game's website mentions they're a fascist military force with aspirations for World Domination, something that's alluded to in one of Rick Valassi's radio broadcasts. While they have plenty of Kick the Dog moments in-game, at no point is it ever shown that they have plans to take over the world or anything of that sort. At best they can achieve is setting up a military junta.
- Kick the Dog: Began executing anyone that dared disobey them, causing the already worsening situation in NYC to completely fall apart, and the JTF to cease working with them. An ECHO recording also implies that an LMB soldier tossed a grenade in a jail cell full of prisoners simply for petty crimes.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: At higher levels, LMB heavies carry these in front of them, in conjunction with a Pistol. Unlike yours, their shield never breaks. They also have the ability to plant these shields into the ground and use them for cover, at which point they pull out a light machine gun.
- Amusingly these exact enemies will loudly complain about you using a shield when the ability is activated.
- Mirror Boss: The LMB are unique in that they have access to combat equipment comparable to that used by Division agents, due to being a well-funded professional military force. This is even brought up in a radio transmission by Lau where she warns you about this. Their combat engineers use deployable turrets, their combat medics use deployable health stations, their Heavies use ballistic shields, and their snipers have access to blinding laser pointers and shock mines, and their rushers tend to throw shock grenades at Agents to drive them out of cover. They also have a number of rogue Division agents that use turrets, seeker mines, EMP grenades, and can hack your own deployables.
- One-Steve Limit: Like the Rioter's infamous "Alex", the LMB have their own reused gender neutral call-out: "They got Dylan!"
- Private Military Contractors: Well...before they went rogue and took over a chunk of Manhattan, anyway.
- Putting on the Reich: They look like typical PMCs but when they went rogue they became more like a fascist occupying force. Some of their identifiers also resemble stylized fascist symbols.
- They also dress all in white, making them look rather a lot like Stormtroopers.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When they pulled out of the Dark Zone, it got too hot for them.
- Southern-Fried Private: In contrast to the very New York and Northeast accents, the LMB voices have a distinctly Southern drawl.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: LMB soldiers dive-roll into cover instead of simply sliding into cover like the combatants of other factions do.
Charles Bliss
Lt. Colonel Charles Bliss
The founder and leader of the Last Man Battalion who rules over eastern Manhattan with an iron fist.
- Bald of Evil: As bald as Lex Luthor.
- Beard of Evil: He has one of these.
- Big Bad Wannabe: As he leads a Private Military Contractor, and his men are professionally trained soldiers, this makes him the biggest threat over the Rikers and the Cleaners. When the situation went completely out of control, he turned against his former contractors and took over the UN General Assembly and became a Visionary Villain. Too bad he was completely unaware that Aaron Keener was using him for his own ends, and when it was clear that the LMB was finished, he cut his losses, and fled with Vitaly and Amherst’s research and equipment.
- Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: In the territory controlled by the LMB, Bliss' voice could be heard via loudspeaker either spouting off LMB propaganda or telling the people of Manhattan to cooperate with LMB personnel, "so [they] can keep [them] safe."
- Colonel Badass: He's the leader of the LMB.
- Evil Gloating: Averted. Unlike Barrett or Ferro, Bliss has no interest in taunting the Division agents when they attack his headquarters, and doesn't do so even when you fight him in the final battle. Most likely because, unlike the other faction leaders, he's a ruthless professional rather than a crazed lunatic.
- Final Boss: Of the main campaign.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Bliss wears glasses and he is also trying to form Manhattan into a dictatorship, and god have mercy on those who oppose him.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Sure, his name is Bliss, but he's anything but pleasant.
- Hellish Copter: His boss fight involves shooting his chopper down.
- Is This Thing Still On?: The Queens Tunnel video, after Bliss finishes his speech.Bliss: "Tell me we got that. 'Cause God damn it, I'm not doing it a second time."
- Jerkass Has a Point: One of the Incident Reports has him on the phone with a Wall Street exec who tries to chew him out for not having his company defend their offices. The city's gotten so out of hand that he decides what's the point in defending a server farm if there's nobody to use it?
- Putting on the Reich: If the LMB were Nazis then Bliss would be their Hitler. In a video acquired after the Queens Tunnel mission, Bliss is addressing his men with a speech that sounds very similar to a speech that the fuhrer would have made back in the day. Bliss even makes mention of "degenerates." Take that as you will.
- Revenge Before Reason: The whole point of the final mission is to assassinate him. Unfortunately, he manages to escape in his personal helicopter before you can even reach him. However, at the end of the mission, after already having made his escape, he turns around and comes back to attack the JTF instead of flying off to safety like a sensible person.
Scarecrow
Scarecrow
The boss encountered in the Police Academy Mission. A former Division agent now working for the Last Man Battalion alongside Aaron Keener, Domino, Raptor, and Hornet.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: He calls himself Scarecrow for Pete's sake.
- No One Gets Left Behind: He agrees with Keener that the JTF pulling out of the Dark Zone and leaving the bodies of his fellow Division agents behind to rot was not cool.
- More Dakka: Carries an SMG for longer range engagements.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Fights you with a high fire rate semi-automatic shotgun if you get close and, unsurprisingly given his past as a former Division Agent, he's extremely dangerous with it.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Uses Seeker Mines (an ability usually used by tech-based Division agents) as well as EMP grenades to prevent your own abilities from being used.
- Weak Turret Gun: Also uses the Turret power.
Hornet
Carter "Hornet" Leroux
The boss encountered in the Russian Consulate mission. A former Division agent now working for the Last Man Battalion alongside Aaron Keener, Domino, Raptor, and Scarecrow. Sadly he's not dressed in black and yellow, to better fit his name.
- Back from the Dead: Despite his apparent death at the Russian Consulate, he shows up again in The Divsion 2, leading his own cell of rogue agents.
- Blood Knight: Asks for permission to stay behind and fight the player Agent(s) because he wants to see what the Division's Second Wave can do compared to the First.
- Cold Sniper: Not in the traditional sense but he does use a marksman rifle and prefers to take you on at range. Unlike other boss snipers, he's also got a lot of health and armor, and his backup weapon is a shotgun, just in case you thought to try getting anywhere near him.
- Geo Effects: There is a ton of cover and choke points in the area in which you fight him. Things you can use to your own advantage, yes, but so can Hornet, and he uses it a lot in addition to dropping turrets everywhere.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Not him, but rather you. He has the ability to hack into some of your own deployed abilities, like turrets and seeker mines, and use it against you, thus making you waste time either destroying your own equipment or taking cover until it's batteries run out. He uses this time to get into a better position to fight you.
- My Greatest Failure: He considers losing Tchernenko's research after the event of Russian Consulate this trope. Keener insists otherwise, saying it's just a setback.
- Villainous Friendship: Collectible comms obtained in his Manhunt Event show that Keener treated Hornet as less of a tool and more of a trusted friend. Lampshaded by Termite, the medic who revived him, when she asks if Keener and Hornet are "done making out" during their heart-to-heart shortly after Hornet's revival.
- Villainous Legacy: He carries on Keener's will after his death in the main Warlords of New York campaign. Fittingly, the Manhunt Event he shows up in is named "Keener's Legacy".
- Weak Turret Gun: Hornet, like Scarecrow uses the Turret power.
Raptor
Raptor
A mini boss encountered in the General Assembly mission. A former Division agent now working for the Last Man Battalion alongside Aaron Keener, Hornet, Domino, and Scarecrow.
- Hold the Line: Alongside Domino, Raptor was ordered by Aaron Keener to muddy the JTF's (and by extension yours) progress into the UN building while he escapes with Vilaly Tchernenko
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Like Hornet, he can hack into your turret.
- Mini-Boss: The first you encounter in the game.
- More Dakka: Carries an assault rifle.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: However, if you get too close, he'll whip this out instead, to shocking effectiveness.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Is able to use seeker mines.
- Weak Turret Gun: He uses the Turret power.
Domino
Domino
A mini boss encountered in the General Assembly mission. A former Division agent now working for the Last Man Battalion alongside Aaron Keener, Scarecrow, Raptor and Hornet.
- Cold Sniper: Not her, but she comes accompanied by two elite snipers...that can use flashbang sticky bombs.
- Dark Action Girl: The first female rogue Division agent you encounter in a mission.
- Hold the Line: Alongside Raptor, Domino was ordered by Aaron Keener to muddy the JTF's (and by extension yours) progress into the UN building while he escapes with Vilaly Tchernenko.
- Geo Effects: You fight her in a UN conference hall, and Jesus is there a ton of cover! And she's just as bad as Hornet in using it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Like Hornet, she can hack into your turret and use it against you.
- Mini-Boss: The second you encounter in the game.
- More Dakka: Like Raptor, Domino uses an assault rifle.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Also like Raptor, she pulls this out if you get too close, and uses it in a similarly punishing manner.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Like her fellow former Division agents (with the exception of Hornet) Domino comes equipped with seeker mines.
Perez
Captain Perez
- Arc Villain: Of the Falcon Lost Incursion
- Awesome Personnel Carrier: He spends the boss fight in this defended by turrets, drones and waves of mooks.
- Large Ham: As the mission nears its end, he starts shouting more and more, but he's not exactly quiet to start with.
- Villainous Breakdown: After the second bomb is planted on the APC, he snaps at anybody who says anything that he can hear, and when the final bomb is planted, he insists on continuing to try killing the Division Agents rather than bailing out while he still can.
- Worthy Opponent: He considers The Division to be this.
The Hunters
In General
A mysterious faction of highly skilled operatives who are hunting down and killing Division agents. They only appear in the game's Survival mode, featured in the "Survival" DLC. A group of Hunters equal to the number of nearby Division agents will attack at the end of each playthrough of Survival when the players attempt to evacuate at an extraction zone. After the 1.8 content patch, they also randomly appear in the Underground as a sort of surprise Boss in Mook's Clothing encounter.
Hunters make a return in The Division 2 as part of the main game's storyline, although their motives for going after Division Agents are still a mystery.
- Doom Troops: More so than any other enemy type in the game. They wear black ballistic masks as well as heavy black ballistic armor over dark grey digital camouflage.
- Deconstruction: One audio log from the Season 9: Hidden Alliance Manhunt in The Division 2 shows that, to trained military professionals, their Nothing Is Scarier shenanigans are an annoyance at best, a liability at worst. Natalya Sokolova, the current head of Black Tusk at the time of the Manhunt, voiced her disdain of their "lack of people skills" to Secretary of Homeland Security Calvin McManus, who offered a Hunter as backup to the BTSU on at least one occasion. Bardon Schaeffer, a high-ranking BTSU officer, had an even worse opinion of them, being completely sick and tired of their silent treatment and how most communications with the Hunters always feel like "cryptic bullshit" or "a fucking puzzle", as he puts it.
- The Dreaded: In-universe in The Division 2. In the briefing for the side mission that first features Hunters, HQ mentions that the local Hyenas are scared shitless of the Hunter's current hideout, thinking it's inhabited by ghosts. Their reputation remains as such in Warlords of New York, where half of the Coney Island Manhunt mission is spent showing the local Rikers panicking on their comms over the presence of a sole Hunter on the premises, making a Mook Horror Show out of their ranks.
- Exclusive Enemy Equipment: The "Memento" backpack in 2 is one of these, with the backpack itself almost completely covered in Division watches. Downplayed in that it's not "exclusive" to Hunters, as it's an Exotic that can randomly drop anywhere like most other Exotics in the game.
- Finishing Move: Hunters perform grisly executions on downed Agents, usually by cutting their throat or slamming an ice axe into the unfortunate person's skull. They can also perform a quick melee attack that will instantly down a player if it connects.
- Glass Cannon/Fragile Speedster: Because their health and damage resistance is on par with Players rather than other NPCs, they can't take as much damage as some of the tougher normal enemies (i.e. high-level Elites), but this also means they move fast, hit hard, and can even use Skills and heal themselves with medikits. They can also hack your Skill abilities similar to NPC Rogue Agents.
- Hero Killer: Each Hunter has a trophy belt of several Division watches, indicating they have killed multiple Division agents.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first one that's encountered in The Division 2 is one of these. After shaving off one armor bar (a hard feat in and of itself), the Hunter applies a Shock debuff to all of the Agents in the room, at which point the lights black out, he struts on over to the nearest Agent, throws a demeaning gesture at them, then promptly runs out of the room.
- Leitmotif: They have a unique musical cue that plays to let you know they're nearby.
- Lightning Bruiser: Since they move like Player Characters rather than other A.I. NPCs, Hunters are a lot faster and more mobile than other enemies in the game. They also have damage output and damage resistance equivalent to that of other players. Hunters in Resistance and Legendary missions play the "Bruiser" part straighter, as they have several bars of armor and truckloads of health, respectively.
- Mage Killer: They have the ability to disrupt and hack Division tech, which helps them level the playing field against S.H.D.'s elite super-operatives. They also have Skill abilities of their own, presumably due to using stolen Division tech from the Agents they've killed.
- Malevolent Masked Man: Hunters wear black ballistic facemasks that conceal their identity.
- Mirror Boss: Hunters basically fight like Player Characters rather than normal A.I. NPCs. They move like Players, and even have 2 Skill abilities (randomly selected from a possible list of 5), as well as carrying 3 medikits to heal themselves in combat.
- My Name Is ???: In Legendary missions, Hunters show up as Named enemies, and their "name" is simply "Hunter". Averted in Resistance missions, where they have rather generic Anglo-Saxon names. In The Division 2, the first Hunter players encounter is a Named enemy called "Unknown".
- My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Hunters mostly behave like Player Characters, the main exception being they have a powerful one-hit-knockdown melee attack that will down you in one strike if you let them get close to you. They can also execute downed Players. Also, they can hack your own Skill abilities, similar to LMB Rogue Agents.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Division 2 side mission "Agent Edwards Support" has no enemies and nothing but ominous music up until the actual encounter with the Hunter, at which point the lights in the room black out until Edwards's Division watch is inspected... then a flood light turns on and his dead body is hanging from the ceiling. The only warning the player gets that the Hunter is coming is ISAC saying "System curtailed." Cue their signature smoke grenade and EMP entrance.
- Outside-Context Villain: It's never indicated who these guys are and why they are hunting down Division agents. It's only clear that they're a credible threat to the Division's super-operatives.
- Renegade Russian: Implied by The Division 2's Season 3 Manhunt. The Black Tusk Special Unit's mysterious backer is a woman named Natalya Sokolova, the CEO of the Russian military manufacturer Sokolov Concern (one of the game's Brand Sets) and it's implied that the Hunters' cooperation with the BTSU is due to Sokolova. It remains to be seen whether or not Sokolova is operating on her own agenda or for the Russian government.
- Savage Wolves: They're marked on the HUD with a unique wolf icon that's almost identical to that of Bodark from Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, an elite special forces group that also was fond of using EMP and jamming tech to screw up their enemy's advanced technology.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Their "Your Killer" Flavor Text in The Division 2 is quoted verbatim from several Exotic weapons in the first game, resulting in things like one Hunter having the text "Get rekt, son.", which is definitely not something one would expect from a crew of stoic assassins.
- Superboss: The Hunters in The Division 2 are essentially post-endgame optional bosses, being One-Man Army enemies significantly tougher than pretty much anything else in Washington D.C.
- Uniqueness Decay: As revealed in a State of the Game livestream pertaining to Title Update 3 in The Division 2, the Hunters' AI was the foundation for the AI of every enemy in the sequel. As a result, it feels somewhat underwhelming to fight Hunters as their tactics are basically on the same level as everyone else. Even their gimmick of utilizing two SHD Tech skills against the player can be found elsewhere, like the Dark Zone and Heroic bounties. The only thing that remains unique to them is their portable EMP jammers and the use of their axes to execute players. As if that wasn't enough, Rogue Agents took their role as a Wolf Pack Boss in The Division 2's Title Update 8, further relegating all of the Hunters to a mere one-off side attraction.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Played with. In Survival Hunters are top of the food chain due to having a significant gear advantage, with the Agents being sick and wounded. In the Underground DLC, when Agents have proper equipment with them, two Hunters are the bare minimum you'll face but they're nowhere near as threatening.
- Thoroughly averted in the sequel. Hunters will always be at least level 35, five more than player characters, and their equipment reflects this. They've clearly learned a few tricks from the deaths of their NYC friends...
- Villain Team-Up: Hunters show up alongside other enemy factions in both Resistance and certain Legendary difficulty missions.
- Inverted in the sequel, where Hunters will attack anyone other than fellow Hunters. It isn't unheard of them to wander away from their spawn points, having been distracted by a string of NPCs they've murdered a path through.
- Wolf Pack Boss: The number of Hunters that attack at the end of a round of Survival is equal to the number of Division Agents present at the extraction zone. If you're playing solo, you'll only face one Hunter in a Duel Boss fight. Played straighter in the Underground DLC, where their numbers are always one larger than the player's team (e.g. if there's four players, five Hunters will show up).
