The Division: Manhattan in the Outbreak

The outbreak starts on Black Friday 2015, when a smallpox-based virus planted on banknotes sweeps through New York. The game's own opening is set in Brooklyn, which appears only in the first hours as the tutorial area. After that the story moves to Manhattan, and Brooklyn is never visited again. The Dollar Flu, also called Green Poison, soon puts major cities across the United States under quarantine.

Location precision: The game gives no single address for the tutorial; the pin marks central Brooklyn.

Agents arrive by helicopter at Hudson Pier, on the very outskirts of the quarantine zone. The briefing is short: terrorists have released a weaponized virus at the height of the Black Friday shopping frenzy, and those not infected are either struggling to survive or have formed gangs battling it out for turf. From the pier the game funnels you into Midtown Manhattan, towards the home base you will eventually claim.

Location precision: The pier is the game's own; the pin only marks the Hudson River waterfront on Manhattan's west side.

After the plane meant to carry the second wave explodes, the Agent arrives by JTF helicopter and reclaims the James A. Farley Building as a base of operations. It has three wings, Medical, Security and Tech, and playing missions for a wing earns points to upgrade it. In reality the building is a former main post office at 421 Eighth Avenue, facing Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. Since 2021 its old mail sorting room has housed Moynihan Train Hall.

Visitor guidance: Moynihan Train Hall now occupies the old mail sorting room.

One early Midtown mission sends the player up to the roof of Madison Square Garden to take down a crazed machine-gunner and his goon squad. The real arena sits between Seventh and Eighth avenues, from 31st to 33rd streets, on top of Pennsylvania Station, so the game's mission is only a few steps from the Farley Building base across the street.

Visitor guidance: The arena is open for events; you cannot go up on its roof.

The Last Man Battalion (LMB), a private military company hostile to the Division, makes its base in the now-evacuated Headquarters of the United Nations. The JTF and the Agent assault it. Rogue agent Aaron Keener abandons the LMB, taking the Russian virologist Vitaly Tchernenko with him, and leader Charles Bliss returns to make a last stand and is killed. The real complex lies in Turtle Bay, bordered by First Avenue, 42nd Street, 48th Street and the East River.

Visitor guidance: The complex is in Turtle Bay, on the East River.