Watch Dogs Legion - Review
Watch Dogs is a strange series, it had one of the most successful reveals at any E3, but Chicago and the game itself, were both so dry when it released, people quickly left it alone. The sequel set in the tech rich San Francisco and the nearby Silicon Valley had all the right ingredients for something special, but if managed to drop off even faster, despite being a better game than the first. It has been a bit since the second game released, but now the series has jumped the pond, left America behind and as London is calling, the question is, does a new location help it, or are the same issues still present?
From the get go Watch Dogs Legion is a game that lets you decide and I am starting with the menu for the simple fact that before you even get into the game, you get to choose how you want to play it, with regards to accessibility options. The game has a narrator feature enabled at this point and then you can choose colour-blind options and more, and it really sets the tone for how the game plays out from that point. With your options set, you are given one final decision to make and it is a big one, Permadeath, you can turn it on now and then if you decide you want to turn it off later you can, but once its off, either at the start or whenever you manually turn it off, you can’t turn it back on. Given how you can recruit anyone into your team of renegade hackers, this is a big decision, I myself went with it off, because I would hate to lose someone from a stupid decision and there were a few of those.
But all that said, it was time to begin and the opening mission has you taking control of Dalton, a former MI-5 operative, who has snuck into Parliament and discovered that the intel was right, the place is rigged to blow. Taking that bomb offline triggers multiple other ones and while attempting to stop them, things go astray and the bombs are detonated by a new hacker called Zero-Day. In the aftermath, DedSec is framed and hunted for the bombings, the private military force Albion has been given control of the city and the largest gang in town, the Kelly’s are consolidating their power even more. All the while, people are vanishing, tech companies are providing new and not very helpful products and the citizens of London are being subjugated and defeated from all sides.
That is pretty much the setup, how the story plays out is mostly on you, I say mostly, because you can’t influence how it plays out, just the order in which things do. That was something I really liked about the game, because instead of being stuck chasing after one group of folks and finding myself bored of it, I was able to swap to something else. It also allowed me to tackle the numerous side missions and recruitment opportunities, whenever I wanted. The downside to the story is it is very predictable and while I understand that not everyone can predict how things are going to play out, the fact that it telegraphs so many of its big reveals, with little care, is sad. Thankfully, that is made easier to bear with thanks to the interesting characters, from the those that work with you at DedSec, Sabine and the AI Bagley, to those that help you from the sides like Nowt and Hamish. The baddies are mostly ok, Nigel Cass, head of Albion is a formidable enemy, but takes a strange turn at the end. Mary Kelly is as stereotypical as you might get for a female English gang leader, complete with that annoying voice, but she serves a purpose.
All that is just to help set the world, and thankfully Ubisoft have managed to restrain themselves in their world design here, in many ways and the game is much stronger for it. The city of London is just that, the city, there are no country roads, hidden farms, costal retreats or anything else, it is a compact location and suits exactly what you need it to do. One strange thing I encountered, is that I have never been to London, but I found myself recognising landmarks, purely based on Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which made me think, maybe they used that games map as a starting point and also shows how little London has changed. The city is broken up into different boroughs and each has an underlying feeling, but they blend together so that when you travel from Camden down to Westminster, there is no big shift in anything. Each of the boroughs within the city have their own objectives that you can complete, which will help you out and unlock new things for you to track down. Breaking a borough free from the control of Albion and the Kelly’s is also something else that made me think of AC Syndicate, as doing that causes an uprising of sorts, not in the grand scale of full on battles, but still it was enough.
Of course, you can’t talk about Watch Dogs without talking about hacking and here things are mostly the same as Watch Dogs 2, but there are a few significant changes, thanks to the number of drones about. One of the gadgets that you can equip on your operative is the Spiderbot, a little guy that you control and can interact with the world and while initially the little guy can be shot at, as he is defenceless, with upgrades, you can make him harder to take down. Sadly, some items can’t be reached by him or require a human touch and that is where drones come into play, because with drones you can freely scout an area, before you set foot in it, just remember to be out of the way before you take over, or you might find yourself getting into trouble. The drones range from package delivery and news drones, great for getting around fast, to combat style drones, which come equipped with guns, if you want to make an entrance. The one that I used the most was the construction drone, which lets you jump on it and fly around the city, though I don’t suggest it, as walking is faster. Using a combination of drones, cameras and your Spiderbot, allows for you to get in and out of most places, without being seen, something that is very handy.
If you are spotted, the game is smart enough to not escalate things, unless you do and I really like that, because if gave you a chance. When you enter into a fight with any enemy, if you leave your gun or weapon of choice holstered, the enemy does the same, but pull out your gun and its open season on you. Fighting back with guns is possible, but when you are one against many, you can either run away, or use the environment to help even the odds, by triggering traps, taking control of passing cars to run into enemies and such. If you do make use of the runaway option, just know that escaping here is not as simple as turning down an alley and lying low, because again, Drones. While most are benign, there are plenty that will actively search for you when you are wanted and some just let the humans know where you are, others have guns and will shoot you down. Staying in a car still can have those drones following you around and it is made all the more challenging with the massive number of checkpoints that exist, drive through one when wanted and even if no one is on you, they soon will be.
All that is not to say that you are constantly on the run, you can choose to ignore Albion thugs attempting to put the boot on the throat of some old person or ignoring what could be easily be mistaken for a firing squad. Should you want something more fun, you can find soccer balls in various parks around the city and see how good you are at keeping the ball from hitting the ground, or maybe you want to enjoy a pint, then head to a local pub and grab a cold beer. Doing that and then trying to do a mission is especially fun, but it just provides somethings to do, that break away from running all over the city for someone, which is nice. The problem is apart from drinking, some little mini games and that thing no one is never meant to talk about, a fight club, dang it I said, there isn’t much to do. Sure you can take photos on your in game phone, if you want, but you can’t view them in game, so it becomes moot, I just wish there was a little more to offer, outside of being a hacktivist.
On the presentation side of things, it is one big mixed bag, with some good and some bad, but for the most part, everything looks fine and the game lets the artistic design shine more than anything. Let’s get the bad out of the way, playing the game is fine, but there are a host of visual hiccups that mar the experience, firstly the game has some loading issues when it comes to elements and while this occasionally refers to textures and such, most of the time it impacts elements in the world. It was not uncommon for me to head down the street, see a car I wanted to get in, only for it to unload for the world, or cars, bikes and such off in the distance would be driving towards me, only for them to not appear. There was a bubble of detail around my characters and everything outside of it was a lower quality and that included the traffic, then when it would cross the threshold, the detailed model would be loaded in, except it wasn’t always working. The other issue comes down to randomness of things, given that the game has created characters that you can pick, sometimes the visual just don’t match the voice, or the name, not in any significant way, but enough for you to take a second look at it.
On the positive side, the design of the game is pretty incredible and while I am not normally a fan of the whole anarchistic aesthetic, it suits the setting very well. London has been built to keep a lot of the old-world charm, but incorporate lots of newer tech, and apart from a few older places, most of it is kept relatively simple. The items in the world look futuristic, but not 200 years in the future, so they keep the line between what is possible and what might just be a dream, well except Bagley. Characters are fine, though there are some issues with clothes and effects from clothes clipping through items, but it is not on all, just some.
The audio side of things is a little messier, simple down to the voice work, now the characters that are fixed, the baddies, the helpers, those are ok, but it is the citizens that you can recruit to your cause that are the problem. The voice work is solid, but there are more times than not, when the audio that comes out when they speak, feels disconnected to the world, let me explain. When it happens, the voice feels like it was added in after everything else was done and it stands out, but it is usually accompanied by a slight delay as well, which doesn’t help. It is not for every single line, but when it happens you will notice it and that is a real shame. The other voices are fine, Mary Kelly notwithstanding and each suit, but the thing that helped me feel like I was in England was the sheer variety of voices, from cockney to Irish, Scottish and beyond, there were so many and it was wonderful to hear.
The music, at least from the in-car radio, is a little odd, there are a number of stations and while some play hard rock, others play dance music. Honestly, the selection, no matter the station, didn’t do it for me, but when I went on a mission to an exclusive club, walked in and heard Feel Good by the Gorillaz blasting through the place, it was a good weird, but still weird. The other thing that was not as nice were the podcasts/news shows, while they were entertaining, I couldn’t figure out how to control them, if you even can, so I kept hearing the same start of the same few over and over again, which was not as nice. As for the games score, it was great, there were times when it helped amp up the action, but for the most part, stays away from you, leaving you to enjoy the sounds of London as you go about your antics.
Watch_Dogs: Legion is an interesting game, it offers up a lot of options for players, but still manages to keep things focused. Recruiting people to the cause is a wonderful tool and if you take the time to look around you can find some great additions to the DedSec line up. While I had a decent sized group, of around 15 or so, I only really stuck with the same two, only swapping if a mission called for it, or they got arrested. The game has very little in terms of open world activities to do, but that is ok, it offers a very simple experience and while the story it is telling, telegraphs its twists a little to easily, it is still a fun ride.
The Score
9.0
Review code provided by Ubisoft
The Pros
+An open world that is just the right size to explore and not bloated like other Ubisoft games tend to be
+The ability to recruit anyone means your team can be as varied as you like, or many versions of the same type and the system works
The Cons
-Some visual oddities with loading in elements occur and while not a big deal, it is noticeable
-The recruits at times feel like they are not connected to the world, which breaks the immersion
