The planned Last Stand DLC for The Division is coming soon, and based on the massive amount of changes the Massive development team has laid out for the accompanying 1.6 Update, players may want to jump onto the Public Test Server as soon as it is available to get used to the modifications.

In addition to the Last Stand game mode, which focuses on 4v4 PvP combat with some PvE elements, the update will add the following (subject to change before release):

New Dark Zone areas

• The Dark Zone has been expanded with three new areas, Dark Zone 7-9, north of Dark Zone 6 and Midtown East.
• New Landmarks feature waves of enemies.
• Landmarks award you with additional loot placed directly into your inventory.
• Fast travel between Dark Zone checkpoints has become available.

Contamination events

• New Contamination Events have been added to the Dark Zone.
• Roughly every hour, elite Cleaners will spawn in the Dark Zone underground. Contamination in those areas will reach lethal levels, so your virus filter will not be able to resist it.

Dark Zone Leaderboards

• Leaderboards have been added to the Dark Zone, tracking a wide range of different activities both in PvP and PvE. All tracked activities will be turned into a total score.
• Leaderboard rankings are divided into three tiers and will give out rewards when they reset on a weekly and a monthly basis.

Legendary Difficulty

• Legendary difficulty mode has been added to Times Square, WarrenGate Power Plant and Napalm Production Site and features new, powerful and smart enemies.
• Legendary difficulty is the most challenging content in the game and is intended for organized groups.
• Legendary difficulty rewards you with unique vanity items not available elsewhere in the game, on top of the regular rewards.

Exotic Items and New Gear Set

• Named gear pieces and weapons are now called Exotics and have been given their own color in your inventory.
• Exotic weapons all have their own unique talent. This change is retroactive.
• Exotic weapon sets have been introduced.
• Exotic Caches are available as a weekly reward from Legendary difficulty mission

Gear Set changes

• Alphabridge 4-piece bonus now shares the free talent from your weapons instead of all three.
• Frontline’s 4-piece no longer removes the critical hit chance, instead it removes the effect of any mods you have applied to the shield.
• The Reclaimer set focuses on the Support Station. Its 4-piece bonus activates all Support Station mods simultaneously. It no longer has an effect on consumables.
• Tactician’s Authority’s buff only disappears after you use a skill.
• A new Gear Set, SEEKR, has been added to the game.

Armor and Resistances

• Armor has been removed as a major bonus and replaced with Health. Gear still comes with base armor and some talents will still give bonus armor.
• Health and stamina are your primary means of toughness.
• Current Health rolls have been turned into the new stat Resist All.
• Resistances have become analogue instead of binary.
• Diminishing returns have been added to status effects.
• Other parts of the game have been rebalanced as a result, to make sure Time to Kill and Time to be Killed stay balanced.
• All changes are retroactive.

Changes to Skill Power and Skills

• Skill Power has been moved to a system similar to armor, where each new World Tier you reach will demand more Skill Power to reach the same effectiveness of your skills.
• There’s a bigger difference in skill efficiency between low and high Skill Power builds.
• Changes have been made to Sticky Bomb, First Aid and Shock Turret.
• We’ve rebalanced Signature Skills and made it impossible to trigger a Signature Skill when you’re already suffering from its immunity debuff. Tactical link’s damage bonus has been lowered in PvP.

PvP Balancing

• Hip fire stability while moving has been decreased and a new hip fire camera has been added.
• The damage gap between body damage and headshots has been lowered.
• When combat rolling, there’s now a one second delay before you can roll again.
• You can no longer reload your weapon while sprinting.
• Medkits can now be used at full health and remove certain status effects.
• The Rejuvenated talent has been changed to give additional resistance to status effects.
• Adrenaline no longer gives an overheal from medkits, instead it will give a heal over time.
• Your enemy’s health bar will flash whenever they use a medkit.
• Survivability talents like On the Move, Battle Buddy and Critical Save have seen some balancing changes.

Economy changes

• Unlimited recalibration has been introduced. The price increases each time, capping out at five recalibrations.
• Helping civilians reward Intel.
• High End pistols in Survival no longer costs Division Tech.
• Scavenger Box now scales with World Tier.
• Some item prices have been tweaked.

Other changes

• All activities now reward their own separate experience points and award their own caches.
• In Survival, solo players can no longer end up in games with players queuing as a group.
• Grouping up while in a PvP Survival game has been disabled.
• Reviving a downed player in Survival always costs a medkit.
• The In-game store will be revamped, and add a new currency.

No release date is planned, and more changes could happen based on feedback from a special meeting at the Red Storm offices with the Elite Task Force. You can read the full blog post for more details.