The Division 2: Warlords of New York introduces Seasons to Massive’s looter shooter, a three month cycle of events with a bevy of rewards. The Season Pass works similar to a battle pass found in other titles, and leveling it can be done in a handful of ways. The easiest way is mercifully simple: play the game.
The Season Pass/Battle Pass is leveled by earning experience from any activity and from Seasonal objectives.
Agents who’ve been around since the launch of The Division 2 likely remember earning experience from activities well after hitting the level 30 cap. While this remains true with the added SHD Levels, there was concern that the Season Pass/Battle Pass coming to the game would use a separate system. Thankfully, that is not the case. Though, be warned, only those who bought Warlords of New York and have reached level 40 will have access to the pass.
Leveling your Season Pass/Battle Pass works the same way as earning SHD Levels: play the game and earn experience. Light Zone activities, control points, missions, projects: all of these and more award experience upon completion that can be used to level the Season Pass/Battle Pass. Naturally, the harder the challenge the greater the spoils, so ramping things up either manually or with the new Global Difficulty setting will see a modest boost to experience earned.
That said, the experience boost from altering the difficulty is relatively slim, because Massive has a second system woven into the fabric of The Division 2 that was designed with experience boosting in mind: Directives. Directives are game altering modifiers that make The Division 2 harder, outside of the flat scaling of damage, armor, and resistance enemies receive from upping the difficulty with the traditional options.
A full list and breakdown of the Directives can be found in our guide here, but to sum it up in this article: each will provide a 25% increase to experience earned from all sources while they are active, for a total boost of 125% if all five are enabled. Because the Season Pass/Battle Pass is leveled with experience, Directives can be used to push your progress further faster. Do note that your SHD Level and Season level are divorced, though all experience earned will be dumped into both.
There will also be Seasonal objectives and challenges agents can complete for a straight helping of Season Pass/Battle Pass experience, centered around the Seasonal Manhunt predominately. Once Global Events and Leagues are live they will provide experience as well, but the Seasonal Manhunt objectives will offer the largest source of extracurricular experience.
In summary: play the game, use Directives to increase your experience earned, and complete Seasonal Manhunt objectives for a sizable injection of Season Pass/Battle Pass experience. As a bonus, the first premium track for the Season Pass/Battle Pass is free to everyone who purchased Warlords of New York, and the first week of the season will double experience from everything (this works for your SHD Levels as well).
For additional The Division 2: Warlords of New York guides be sure to check out our Guides and Tips hub.
