Watch Dogs Legion was without a doubt Ubisoft’s best reveal during E3, and in my opinion, the game might be considered as one of the best reveals of the entire show. Not because nobody saw this sequel coming but because it handles things so differently. This isn’t Watch Dogs as we know it, you’ll no longer play as a single hacker against the world, this time you’re able to control a wide variety of characters.
Enter London
London is your new scenery in Watch Dogs Legion and this isn’t picked at random. It’s a post-Brexit London and things have taken a turn for the worst. Although Ubisoft often claims to ignore political issues, they take a different path with Watch Dogs Legion. London isn’t the same anymore and it looks like the city transformed into one of Orwell’s visions. People are no longer free, they are being monitored by government-issued cameras. If you disobey, the law-forces will come for you and they will put you away for a very long time. Obviously Dedsec, the secret hacking collective can’t just stand there doing nothing. They want to take what belongs to them and they want to free the city from all those cameras, giving power back to the people.
Choosing London as the new city is an incredibly wise decision since it’s not an unthinkable future. This dystopian version of the city strongly mimics the fear of the people currently living there. The Brexit era is an era filled with stress and uncertainties, releasing a game addressing the potential outcome of such a drastic political decision is rather courageous and proves that Ubisoft wants to deliver something that hasn’t been done before.
Recruit everyone
Having such a modern setting is great but I won’t label a game ‘the most ambitious game in years’ for that. The ambition comes from the fact that you can recruit almost everyone in the city. Dedsec wants to strike as hard and as fast as possible, in order to reach their goal, they’re recruiting hundreds of citizens to aid their cause. Compare it to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, where you could recruit fellow assassins to help you out but even better. There’s no main protagonist in Watch Dogs Legion, the people of London are the heroes and it’s up to you to recruit the ones you need.
This is a rather innovate and ambitious idea but judging from the E3 presentations and demos, it really seems like Ubisoft is doing the impossible. The people you recruit aren’t just regular NPCs, Ubisoft promises real characters with real jobs, real stories, and real characteristics. This means you would, in theory, be able to follow a certain person, learn his routine and eventually convince him/her to join Dedsec. The amount of possible playable characters is mind-blowing and if you think a bit further, pulling this off correctly is unseen for. The character you pick will be featured in cutscenes, it will need voice acting and it will need separate modeling. We live in an age where umbrella AI networks can create things like this but it’s never done on this scale in a video game. If it really works, this will be by far one of those games people talk about years after its initial release.
Every character has its own skills
As if the idea of programming hundreds of NPC characters separately wasn’t enough to be impressed, Ubisoft also promised that not everybody is as fit for the job and you’ll need to work with what the city gives you. Once you recruit a character, you can divide him/her into one of the three new classes: Hacker, Infiltrator, and Enforcer. The hackers don’t have to enter buildings themselves but can use Spiderbots to scout the area. Similar to the Hacker, the Infiltrators use stealth and melee combat to get what they want in a silent and less combat-orientated way. If you want more combat, you have to count on the Enforcers, stronger characters who can inflict deadly damage. As seen on the presentations, combat is a lot more feral and aggressive than what we’re used of in Watch Dogs. These people aren’t messing around, they want their freedom back.
This also means you have to be wise when you hand out certain classes to your playable characters. Not everybody will be as fit for combat as trained soldiers or ex-martial arts champions. This will bring a completely new layer of strategy to the Watch Dogs franchise that will certainly change things up a lot. If you play a mission with your character and it dies, it’s gone forever. The game has permadeath, meaning your characters won’t respawn. If you lose someone in combat, you’ll have to send one of your other Dedsec soldiers. This, of course, will affect the way you play the game in many ways. If you recruited the perfect member for your team, you’ll be a lot more cautious to not lose him/her in combat. It’s an amazing system to increase the immersion in the virtual world and connection to your character.
Conclusion:
Watch Dogs Legion tries to deliver something that simply hasn’t been done on this scale before. If Ubisoft manages to pull this off, they created one of the most impressive games in years. As for now, we’ll have to wait and see if it actually works as good as it’s promised but we can certainly already conclude this is the most ambitious game in years.
