I have been extremely excited about the prospect of The Division 3, a series I have loved for a long time, returning with another major installment. But today’s news is…not exactly comforting.
The executive producer of The Division franchise, Julian Gerighty, has left Massive, heading over to DICE to work on the Battlefield franchise. Vince Zampella, who tragically died in a car crash in December 2025, was leading DICE LA, though there is no information that Gerighty is assuming that role.
It’s a strange situation. There were rumors back in October 2025 that Gerighty was leaving or had left Massive, which Massive actually went out of its way to deny, only to see him leave for real four months later. Literally one week ago, Gerighty was talking about The Division 3, saying it was going to be “a monster.”
“Within these walls at Massive, we are working extremely hard on something that I think will have as big an impact as Division 1 was,” he told New Game+.
While we may see project heads leave games before release somewhat commonly, as the main thrust of their work might be done, this is not at all the same situation. Gerighty has been positively exuberant about The Division 3 since he announced it in September 2023. But as of right now, The Division 3 does not have a release date, nor even a release window more than two years later, and best-guess estimates put it somewhere in 2028. We do not know who may be taking up Gerighty’s role at Massive, a studio he’s worked at since 2014 where he worked on the original Division. Later, its sequel.
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I certainly wouldn’t say this is good news, and I have to wonder what happened here. There are flowery statements from both Gerighty and Massive about his time at the studio, and I wonder if this is just…DICE paying him a ton of money to hop over. We don’t know.
The Division has been in an odd spot for a while now. The second game is still rolling as a live service and occasionally produces new content, albeit far less than competitors. The Division. Ubisoft cancelled The Division Heartland, a survival game that had been in development for a long while. Just days ago, Ubisoft cut 55 jobs at Massive, the studio making The Division 3.
Given the state of the industry and how unwieldy AAA blockbusters have become, layoffs and Gerighty leaving a game with no release year at all do not inspire much confidence. Hopefully, we can hear a concrete update on the state of the game and when we might see it soon.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.