Here are the changes coming to The Division on day one

Fashion-forward agents, lore lovers, and Dark Zone loot hunters will find some key tweaks to celebrate when they first log into The Division on March 8. Ubisoft posted the Day 1 Patch Notes for its upcoming post-epidemic shooter, and beta feedback has led to some new features on top of the usual bug fixes and optimizations. Why not read up while you're pre-loading?

The Dark Zone map has had Landmark icons meant to direct players toward happening spots since closed beta. After the patch these icons will also indicate whether each area is occupied by hostile NPCs, so you can spend less time searching for loot pinatas and more time smashing them open. Other players will probably start making a beeline to the landmark too, at which point they may lend a hand, or they may just gun you down and pluck that hard-earned gear off your cooling corpse.

Speaking of gear, the Appearance menu has been updated to display a grid rather than a list, making it easier to browse all of your cosmetic apparel like hats and shirts. You can also use the "Outfit Sets" option to quickly switch between looks. Custom gear sets, which encompasses your stat-altering armor and weapons, will be patched in sometime later in The Division Year One.

And as the kind of nerd who actually listens to all those phone call recordings and other intel left scattered around Manhattan, I'm also unreasonably excited about being able to continue listening to field data after closing the menu. If you want to know more about the changes headed to The Division between open beta and release, you can check Ubisoft's official site.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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