The Division's universe will expand with new comics and books

The Division 2's world and story will be expanding with new comics, novels, and a lore book.

Ubisoft doesn't just want The Division 2 to be a video game, but a larger cross media experience that explores the broader world. That's why the publisher has announced the publication of various Division-related books.

In 2019 alone, we can expected a novel, lore book, and comic series all set in the Division universe. The comic series will be published by Dark Horse, while the novel will be written by Alex Irvine. If that name sounds familiar, you may have read his previous tie-in book "The Division: New York Collapse".

"Even though the narrative team is very busy with the game, [the books] align a lot with what we're already thinking about, so it has been really natural for us to address those things, or talk about ideas, or adapt pitches," lead narrative designer John Björling said in a Ubisoft blog post about the publisher's involvement with these projects. "We've tried to participate as actively as we can. When you're starting a creative relationship like that, you also want to feel each other out, and get an idea of what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, and what do we have that fits and really makes things click?"

"I think every medium has its strengths, so with an open-world, nonlinear, co-op focused game, maybe we can't go into as much detail about how people are living through the chaos, or how people are trying to survive," Julian Gerighty added. "But in a book, or in a comic book, we can detail that a little more. So it helps us flesh out the whole universe completely."

While these Division books don't have an exact release date, they're expected to arrive in 2019. The Division 2 will launch for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on March 15, 2019.