The Division pre-loads start today on Xbox One, Sunday on PS4

If you pre-ordered a digital copy of The Division on Xbox One, you can pre-load it starting today. PC players can begin grabbing the files ahead of time at 5 pm GMT / 9 am PST on Thursday, and PS4 players can catch up at 12:01 am local time on Sunday, according to Ubisoft's official blog. Early box photos (via GearSiege) revealed that The Division's PS4 version will require a meaty 40 GB, so you'll want to get downloading early.

Global servers for The Division will actually go live at 12:01 am on March 8 in Australian Eastern Daylight Time, which translates to March 7 at 1:01 pm GMT / 8:01 am EST / 5:01 am PST - quite a few hours before the "release date", depending on where you live. Unfortunately, digital copies of the game won't be made active until 12:01 am EST on March 8 in the US, so watch out for high-level Aussies if you head straight for the PvP-enabled Dark Zone.