We’ve already seen some of video game powerhouse Ubisoft’s titles set for movie adaptations with big name talent attached. Assassin’s Creed starring Michael Fassbender will be released on December 21st (watch the trailer here), and Tom Hardy has been attached to a project based on their Splinter Cell series.

Now comes word of a movie based on their latest hit, Tom Clancy’s The Division, and it looks like they’ve secured Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal to both star in and produce the film (just as Fassbender is with Assassin’s Creed).

The game is set in a New York City that was utterly destroyed when money is tainted with a virus just before Black Friday, causing a devastating smallpox pandemic. In it, you play as one of the sleeper agents of the Strategic Homeland Defense Division, or just The Division. In the event that everything goes to hell such as this, these special agents have explicit orders from high up to restore order by any means necessary.

A movie based on The Division actually makes plenty of sense. Because the game is more about joining up with other players to help rebuild the destroyed city, the story isn’t complex enough where the movie needs to remain strictly faithful. They can tell their own story set in that world, and it could be something worth seeing if done correctly.

The world is the key. The fusion of a snowy, apocalyptic New York City and holiday season decorations is a surreal thing to experience in the game, and it would be foolish not to replicate that for the movie. After that it’s just about figuring out the best story to tell in that world. And as we saw in the live-action “Agent Origins” shorts, every agent has a story, so figuring out one for Gyllenhaal’s character shouldn’t be too much of a dilemma.

You can find much more on The Division right here.

[Source: Variety]