Welcome to our review of Watch Dogs Legion, a game with possibly the most impressive trailer ever made.
In the near future, London is facing its downfall. After devastating terror attacks rock the city, an all-seeing authoritarian state has oppressed the people, a corrupt private military corporation controls the streets, and a powerful crime syndicate is preying on the vulnerable. The fate of London lies with you, and your ability to recruit a resistance and fight back.
Recruit anyone from the entire population of London into your resistance: from an MI6 agent to a tough bare-knuckle fighter, or an inconspicuous old lady… Anyone you see can join your team and has a unique backstory, personality, and skillset.
Personalize each member of your resistance and level them up by building out different skill sets, from hacking to stealth moves to all-out assault training. Customize further with unique outfits and iconic masks.
Explore a massive urban open world and visit London’s many famous landmarks – including Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, or the London Eye – and engage in side activities like bare-knuckle boxing, freestyle football, illegal courier contracts, or street art.
If you have seen the trailer of his game and you were not impressed by it, I honestly don’t know what would. The game was promising a fully immersive experience where you could take control of everybody and play the game. In theory, this almost sounded like it was too good to be true and then I played it myself.
Watch Dogs: Legion is quite possibly one of the biggest game projects I have seen in recent years, being able to do so much while taking control of nearly everything around me, and so on. I don’t even know where to begin this review because I was this impressed by its technical features. I will be nitpicking later in the review, just to give a few bad points but in all honesty, they did not change my mind nor did they change my final score.
In short, this game is all about Dedsec that got set up to look like terrorists. After playing a short introduction to the game, Dedsec got pretty much wiped off the planet, all but you survived at first glance. After choosing your initial player mode, you find out that Sabine is also still alive and you set off to recruit new Dedsec members and to find out the involvement of the Zero-day hackers.
As you progress through the story slowly but surely you’re able to do more and more with your skills and recruit many new members into Dedsec. Despite these being mostly side missions, the amount of Dedsec members all depends on you, whether you are recruiting a construction worker so you can use his skills with building drones or get a lawyer to join up, the possibilities are nearly endless. Yes, you cannot recruit everybody, but that is not a problem at all.
Usually, I try to skip side missions as much as possible, not that I hate them, I usually just focus on the main storyline. But Watch Dogs: Legion handles these side missions in a completely different way and they are actually quite fun to do, aside from the benefits of getting new recruits. Every side mission has its benefits and rewards, that can really help you out later on in the story.
One of the things I really like about this game is the ability to take over cameras. You can see what’s behind certain walls, find out if enemy troops are hiding or if they are just civilians. A really cool feature here, jumping from camera to camera, is actually implemented into the story and allows you to take pictures of places without the need to go there physically. Some missions can be easily obtained this way without the need of putting yourself in face of danger.
Another really cool feature is the hacking of drones. Whether you use a construction drone to fly home or use a normal drone to spy on people, you are only limited by your imagination. All throughout the game, you will be hacking a lot and for example, use a spider bot to gain access to places where you can’t enter physically. Often allowing you to get in-game currency or tech points that allow you to purchase certain upgrades that will make your life easier as the game progresses.
The hilarious side of this game is for example when you enter a bar or a pub and you have a drink, the screen turns blurry representing a drunk status. It is details like these that push this game to new levels.
Obviously, as this game is played in London, the map is huge and it can take a while to get from one side of the city to the place you need to get to. Sure you can commandeer a car and drive there, even running all the way without losing stamina is completely possible. But allow me to give real kudos to the developers behind the auto-drive system!
This system basically makes you follow the actual traffic, yes, in all its glory. You will stop at the red light. You will give way to other cars as you would in real life in London, where they drive on the left side of the road. Even that little detail was not left out. The auto-drive mode makes you a real gentleman in traffic and I adored it. As a pro tip, set your waypoint on the map and just enjoy the music playing while the car will drive across London, I never bothered with fast travel because I just love this side of the game so much.
Now for some of the bad parts, not really bad parts per se but more like a little annoyance I had. I often went too close to places I needed to hack and the game did not always accept my inputs, making me step back a little to make it work. I warned you ahead of times, this is me nitpicking. Also, some vents are very dark and not really easy to maneuver in with spider-bots due to the lack of proper lighting. It never prohibited me from reaching the needed endpoint but I did have to backtrack a few times just to make sure I was on the right path.
Graphically, it is very clear that this is pushing the current Xbox One to the very limit. As I tested the game on a slim version of the console, I was often struck with loading times in between missions. They never really bothered me but I can see however that they might bother other players. London looks so lifelike that you could easily recognize some of the most important landmarks of the city.
Having visited London just last year, it all looked very familiar to me and I really had that London feeling while playing the game. I recognized Harrods, Buckingham Palace, London Eye and so many more. This is really a pretty game!
In conclusion, Watch Dogs: Legion has always presented itself as a massive project and I can only say it delivered on its promise. Even simple things like shooting an enemy from Albion can be influenced by how and where you shoot him, the game is that detailed. And yes, in full disclosure I did aim for that part of the male body and the soldier reacted properly. It is like you could feel his pain… Watch Dogs: Legion is an amazing game with such great depths and the story just keeps you entertained from start to finish. As it stands now, this is most likely going to be my game of the year.
