The Division 2 Makes Big Change to Prototype Gear Drop Rates

Following game maintenance, Massive Entertainment announces major changes to drop rates for highly sought-after materials in The Division 2, such as the Cherry Blossom event keys and Prototype gear. It’s been a big year already for The Division 2 as the franchise celebrated 10 years with its fans, while also promising a ton of new content throughout the year.

Following the special anniversary event, The Division 2 kicked off April 2026 with Rise Up, a new season of content which included an endgame activity called Escalation. As Massive indicated, these activities are meant to be highly replayable, with higher difficulties offering a greater challenge but better rewards as well. Part of those rewards include the newest rarity tier of loot in The Division 2 called Prototype Gear. This gear comes with augments and stronger attribute values, and while players can convert High-End gear into Prototypes, once it reaches that level, it can’t be recalibrated or optimized further. Needless to say, players are enjoying the Prototype chase, though things have seemingly become a bit complicated as of late.

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The Division 2 Prototype Gear Changes Leave Players Conflicted

On April 28, Massive Entertainment took down The Division 2 for routine maintenance, applying a number of server-side changes as well. As part of its initial announcement, Massive confirmed that, as part of the background maintenance, it has removed Prototype Gear from dropping in loot crates, leaving only The Division 2‘s other high-end gear. The reveal naturally left players surprised and worried, prompting Massive to follow up with clarification. It appears that Prototype Gear was never supposed to appear within loot crates during Escalation missions at all, as players were only supposed to have a chance to find them after defeating NPCs and completing the activity.

While Massive views the adjustment as a simple bug fix, responses to the change have been mixed at best. Many comments appear to be frustrated at the drop rates being much worse than before, even after Massive confirmed that Prototype Gear rates were increased recently based on player feedback. Considering the already lower rates for this endgame rarity, removing one source of acquiring them has seemingly hampered how much gear players are seeing in general. Some in the comments lamented that, prior to the change, they saw a decent amount of gear pieces drop after just 3 runs, which has now dropped to 1 but, more often than not, 0. Either way, most players appear to be upset about the change, accusing Massive of removing part of the fun from the game.

While the debate will continue over Prototype Gear drop rates, the maintenance also made adjustments to The Division 2‘s Cherry Blossom event. With Cherry Blossom trees appearing all over the Washington D.C. map, players will need to acquire Event Keys to unlock special cosmetics at the Base of Operations vendor. The maintenance has further improved the drop rates of Event Keys, while also adding guaranteed drops when fighting the special enemies for the event, the Kitsunebi and Red Ronin. On top of that, Cherry Blossom Gear Caches still have a small chance to drop Prototype Gear, so fans have another way to potentially earn it.

Fit the 9 games into the grid.

After celebrating the franchise’s 10-year anniversary back in March, The Division 2 continues to soar for Massive Entertainment. The recent resurgence has helped keep the game packed with new content, including seasonal missions, special events, and even the Battle for Brooklyn expansion. However, 2026 is shaping up to be a big one as The Division 2 has tons of content planned for players, including the highly anticipated Survivors game mode, more seasonal content, and a recent tease about what many are assuming to be another story expansion set in Central Park.