The Division 2 Launches Limited Time Cherry Blossom Event In April 2026 Update

Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment released the Year 8 Season 1.1 update for The Division 2, making a number of quality of life improvements, fixing bugs, and kicking off a special limited-time Cherry Blossom event. Limited-time events are no stranger to Ubisoft’s The Division 2, and the latest one has just arrived.

It’s been a banner year so far for The Division 2, which has enjoyed another successful resurgence in its 8th year. After announcing a new roadmap for 2026, which includes major content like Survivors and a possible expansion that takes place in Central Park, The Division franchise celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year. Alongside the future content reveal, Massive Entertainment kicked off a huge anniversary season in The Division 2, adding a new event pass, free rewards, and special modifiers to celebrate.

The Division 2 Adds New Weapon Rarity and Endgame Challenge Mode

The Division 2 releases Rise Up, a new season adding more content and changes to the game, including a unique endgame mode and weapon rarity.

For most, the big piece of this update is the Cherry Blossom limited time event. As the Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom in Washington D.C., players will notice new decorations appearing throughout the map from April 21 through May 12. Massive indicates that these cherry blossom decorations aren’t always easy to locate, but players will want to hunt for them as there are 40 total decorations that need to be restored across D.C. to earn a special Cherry Arm Patch. However, it’s also worth noting that each day, 3 new decorations will reactivate, so there’s always a reason to explore.

However, fixing these corrupt decorations may also cause enemies to attack with new encounters against unique enemies. About every 10 minutes, squads of 5 named Kitsunebi will hunt players with a few unique traits. Shared Health Link spreads damage across the group, though players will want to keep an eye out for malfunctioning tech, which shocks the enemy unit and breaks the link, meaning all damage is dealt solely to that specific unit.

Players who eliminate enough Kitsunebi will start to spawn Ronin, which also prompts the player to use The Division 2‘s backup request feature. As the Ronin arrives, the world shifts with dark blue petals falling and a clear audio change. Solo players will face off with 1 Ronin, while groups will need to deal with the Fox and Red Ronin simultaneously. While both units are more resilient and equipped to survive, each has their own specialties. Fox Ronin comes with a drone and turret ability, while Red Ronin brings a Hive and Seeker Mine to the fight. Best one or both and players will earn Event Keys.

As was the case with previous limited-time events in The Division 2, Event Keys can be taken back to the Base of Operations vendor at the White House to unlock special apparel caches. There are 30 items in total and players won’t receive any duplicate items when spending Event Keys. Items include the Kitsune Outfit, Kintsugi Fox Mask, Winter Tiger Boxer outfit, and more. Earning the full set will reward players with a Lucky Cat Emote.

There are also Gear Caches to earn as well, bringing back returning and event-specific loot that also includes The Division 2 exotic weapons, Named Weapons, and even a shot at Prototype Gear. The Cherry Blossom event weapon is a named PDR called First Bloom, which comes with the Blossom Harvest talent that makes the weapon deal 3.3% more damage for each 10% of total HP and Armor the enemy has remaining.

Fit the 9 games into the grid.

There’s also a community event kicking off with this patch as well, which has all player progress contributing to a shared, cross-platform total. Ronin-themed rewards await once specific milestones of 1 million, 3 million, and 5 million keys donated. There are also personal goals during this challenge as well, which award more cosmetic gear for personal milestones of 10, 20, 40, and 80 keys donated. Finally, just for logging in during the event, players can earn the Rising Sun headgear for their agent.

The Division 2 Year 8 Season 1.1 Update Patch Notes

STATS AND RESOURCES MULTIPLIER EVENTS

Optimization Surge – Resource Multiplier Event

Apr 21 – May 5
Earn double Optimization Materials from all available sources throughout the event, making it the perfect time to fine tune your build

Conflict XP

April 28 – May 12
Earn triple Conflict XP from playing Conflict, making it easier to rank up and unlock rewards.

IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES

IMPROVEMENTS

Escalation

Increased Prototype item drop rates across all Escalation tiers, excluding Tier 1.
Added Prototype items to the Targeted Loot daily rotation in Escalation. Enemies tied to the daily rotating Targeted Loot pool now have a chance to drop Prototype versions of those items.
- This applies only to the daily Targeted Loot rotation and does not apply to selectable Targeted Loot sources such as Countdown or Summit.
The chance for Prototype targeted loot drops increases with higher Escalation tiers.
Added a warning message to clarify that Matchmaking in Escalation is based on selected Tier rather than Mission.
Added a warning message to clarify that once an Escalation Tier has been confirmed, Matchmaking becomes unavailable for that run.
Disabled certain Matchmaking and Call for Backup options during active Escalation runs to reduce cases where players could be moved into unintended sessions or lose tokens after confirming a Tier [TCTD2-1274]

Prototype Gear

Prototype items with Skill Tier cores now grant 1.5 Skill Tier per item.
Each item contributes more than a standard Skill Tier, and multiple Prototype items can combine into higher total values.
This allows players to reach higher Skill Tier levels with fewer equipped items. For example:
- 1 Prototype item provides +1 Skill Tier
- 2 Prototype items provide +3 Skill Tier
- 3 Prototype items provide +4 Skill Tier
- 4 Prototype items provide +6 Skill Tier
This change applies retroactively, meaning previously acquired Prototype items will automatically benefit from the increased Skill Tier values.

FIXES

Fixed an issue where Prototype items could be lost when upgrading while the inventory was at maximum capacity. [TCTD2-1351]
Fixed an issue where items with mods equipped could incorrectly appear to have reduced or altered Talents and Attributes after being upgraded to Prototype quality. [TCTD2-267]
Fixed an issue where Daily and Weekly project objectives requiring Named enemy eliminations or faction bounties would not progress if a Level 3 Retaliation for that faction was active. [TCTD2-1350]
Fixed an issue where the “Abridge” Talent did not function with Prototype weapons. [TCTD2-1405]
Fixed an issue where optimized attributes would revert to their original values in Raids and Incursions. [TCTD2-1401]
Fixed an issue where only items of the same type could be compared in the inventory. [TCTD2-1403]
Fixed an issue where players were unable to redeem rewards for the “Summit Combat Mastery Merit”. [TCTD2-43]
- This fix is not retroactive, players will need to replay the Summit activity to receive the reward.
Fixed an issue where the Ruin Mask loot drop from the Pentco Fairview Power Plant mission displayed an incorrect Exotic rarity indicator. [TCTD2-162]
Fixed an issue where the “Quickstep” Pistol would not receive a Terminal attribute after being upgraded to Prototype quality.
Fixed an issue where the Recombinant Global Modifier description incorrectly listed the base value as 10 stacks instead of 8.
Fixed an issue where the Agitator Exotic weapon was missing a Skin Slot.

COMPENSATION

Alongside these fixes, we will be granting a Compensation Cache to all players starting April 21 as a thank you for your patience with the unexpected maintenance and store issues.

The cache will contain: