Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs franchise is known for evolving after each iteration. Each release sees a major component of the game completely changed based on the shortcomings of its predecessors, such as moving away from the serious nature of Watch Dogs’ Aiden Pierce in favor of a more carefree protagonist with Marcus Holloway in the sequel. With Watch Dogs Legion, certain game mechanics have seemingly been targeted in response to concerns that the fun clashed with the tone of the game’s story.
To correct this potential issue going forward, Ubisoft has instead completely removed dedicated lead characters in favor of completely opening the sandbox and letting players be who they want, when they want. Naturally, questions began to arise from fans as to how this would work, especially from a franchise that is known for attempting to tell a story through its leads and strong support characters. It’s a unique solution to a gameplay-centric problem.
Whether the system truly works or not is largely dependent on the kind of person playing and what they want out of the experience. For those who care only about gameplay, this feature really elevates the game. Players are no longer boxed into being a single personality like Aiden or Marcus and the gadgets or weapons they have unlocked are less restrictive. Instead, players have the freedom and choice to make each mission easier or harder, just based on the characters they select. Switching characters also freshens the experience, helping to reduce character fatigue or boredom since each character offers something new.
On the flip side of that, it does hurt the narrative side of the game. While each character is fully voiced, has a persona, and a schedule, it’s harder to form a bond with any of them. In addition, none of the playable characters have a standout personality or a memorable presence that a true lead protagonist would likely have. Add in the fact that players are strongly encouraged to switch characters often, and it doesn’t leave much room for growing attached to any of them outside of customizing their wardrobe.
Even with this shortcoming, the “be anyone” feature surprisingly continues to work over the course of the game. The game’s overarching story is centered around the populace rising up and taking back control away from an oppressive government force called Albion, a terrible gang in Clan Kelly, and a mysterious new hacker collective called Zero-Day. It’s much less personal this time around but the goals are still similar.
It’s an interesting trade-off that the franchise has never seen before and one that will likely be divisive among players. Thankfully, some of that protagonist void is covered up by DeadSec’s rogue A.I., Bagley. The A.I. is a consistent voice in the player’s ear, along with the leader of the DedSec London branch. Of all the characters in the game, it’s Bagley who is best able to keep players tethered to this world, being a snarky mix of Tony Stark’s A.I. assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a moody teen who knows that they’re better than everyone else. Thankfully, Bagley never crosses the line into becoming tiresome.
The new location also adds a lot to the game as well. In Watch Dogs Legion, players hop the pond and step into a near-future version of London, England. Ubisoft has truly managed to turn London into a virtual playground for the player. Not only are iconic tourist locations and historic buildings all where one would expect them to be, but the city is fun to drive around in even though the arcade-style controls can feel a little loose. Familiar names like the Blume Corporation have taken up residence and installed a brand-new version of the ctOS surveillance system that players utilized in the past two games. Those events are mentioned directly through various in-game collectibles, indicating that the system isn’t safeguarding as well as Blume wants people to believe.
This point is driven home in the game’s prologue mission, which puts players in the shoes of operative Dalton Wolfe, a member of MI5 and DedSec who’s investigating reports of a terrorist threat. Players quickly discover a larger conspiracy going on through a well-coordinated attack on London by a mysterious shadow group called Zero-Day, framing the hacktivist group as the organization behind the plot. The driving force is to figure out who is leading Zero-Day and what their plans are.
Ultimately, Dedsec is framed, outlawed, and vilified by the people of London, providing a starting point for the player to rebuild everything from the ground up. Unfortunately, this attack also brings about the arrival of Albion, a paramilitary group led by Nigel Cass. They’re essentially given control of the city, spreading propaganda and generally harassing the citizens of London under the guise of safeguarding them. Cass and Mary Kelley, leader of the Clan Kelley gang, really sell their role as antagonists, displaying some really horrifying behaviors that serve to encourage the player to take them down.
The overall goal of the player is to systematically cause unrest in each London borough by completing various rebellious tasks like hacking propaganda, freeing VIP characters, and more. Doing so will raise the borough’s unrest until the district is considered defiant and a final mission unlocks to free the borough for good. These are typically centered on the iconic building located in the borough such as climbing Big Ben to reprogram it from Albion or removing the propaganda from the London Eye. Freeing a borough unlocks higher-skilled NPCs who appear more often as well as making it easier to recruit anyone in that borough.
Gameplay-wise, Watch Dogs Legion retains a lot of the same parkour and mechanics present in Watch Dogs 2. Where the unique element really comes in with the NPC characters themselves. It was surprising to see how much variety and diversity the game features with its characters as there weren’t a lot of reused assets as one would expect. Even with the huge amount of dialogue, Ubisoft didn’t skimp on the voice work, though as a non-native Londoner, it’s difficult to know if the voice work is spot on or more of a caricature of the area.
Traditional side missions have essentially been outright removed from Watch Dogs Legion and in their place comes recruitment missions. While players can play as anyone, they’ll need to first recruit them, which typically means completing a task for the individual. These can range from a variety of different missions, like destroying evidence, taking out a hitman, saving a relative, or many more. There’s plenty of variety that keeps these missions from feeling repetitive.
Failing a recruitment mission doesn’t give players a game over screen and it does not allow them to retry it. Instead, the character gains an unfavorable view of DedSec indicated by a red thumbs down icon in their profile. This means the player will have to do a bit extra to turn them, though if the mission is failed again or if the person has something happen to them, they may be permanently against DedSec. This does have gameplay implications but largely it serves as a fail state for those missions.
Character attributes are typically helpful, but certain characters may also have a negative or odd characteristic as well. Examples include characters with gambling addictions, which means the player’s ETO (in-game currency) may fluctuate as they win and lose at random. The Doomed modifier may result in the character randomly dying. While players could absolutely create an army of hacker grandmas, many older people in the game come with a negative trait that prevents them from running or taking cover. The perk options in the game are staggering, with Ubisoft clearly taking advantage of the added development time following the game’s delay.
That said, some NPCs are may be too powerful with the benefits that they offer the player. Recruiting a member of Albion essentially allows players to better blend into restricted zones, making missions much easier. While players can still be detected, guards take significantly longer to ID the imposter among them. In addition, calling in a transport drone basically lets players fly, making previously unreachable places a breeze to get to.
Most missions will be pretty familiar for longtime fans of the series, typically involving infiltrating a restricted zone to hack a terminal, using AR to piece together a past event, rescue an informant, and more. It’s nothing too surprising for the Watch Dogs franchise. Players can tackle missions as they see fit – going pure stealth, guns blazing, or a mix of the two. Even with a number of different options, it always felt as though stealth was the better option of the two, as third-person action is serviceable but not the strength of the game.
Where things get more interesting is through the upgrade system. Finding and earning tech points lets players unlock new abilities, gadgets, and tools that can be swapped when out of combat. These include non-lethal weapons, new abilities like being able to cloak bodies, new hacks, and tools like spiderbots. Each one is very useful and it lets players further tailor the experience to their playstyle.
One of the most satisfying aspects of the gameplay comes with the Deep Profiler upgrade, which can be unlocked at any time by once the player has enough tech points. Essentially, this tool enhances the profiler tool to provide even more information about any character including their daily schedule and potential options to help recruit them even if they currently hate DedSec. For NPCs who hate DedSec, the deep profiler will show ways to get them back in favor.
Player actions also have repercussions depending on how they approach a mission. Perhaps causing an accident put a friend or family member in the hospital or worse, and now a character may hate DedSec. If the player saves an individual from arrest, perhaps they’ll seek the player out or another character related to them is convinced to join the cause. It’s an interesting mechanic that has the potential to make each player’s game unique.
It’s here that Watch Dogs Legion truly shines, by turning a normally generic open-world interaction like causing an accident or saving an individual from an Albion guard into something that could dynamically change the player’s game at some point in the future. Things get even wilder if the player has enabled Permadeath mode, which is an optional setting that can be turned on at the start of the game. When active, any characters who are killed no longer go to a nearby hospital to recover after a certain amount of time, but will be permanently removed from the game.
That said, the game does have its fair share of odd bugs like NPCs walking into walks or improperly interacting with the environment. Other times, a random shootout would break out, but the location of the gunman or people involved were not seen. Another time after hacking a drone, the cars in the below parking lot would randomly shuffle, swapping out the currently parked vehicles with completely different ones once the drone ride was over.
The game displayed a few technical issues including screen tearing during driving segments and a few odd bugs and the physics engine can get a little weird at times as well. While there is fall damage in the game, getting hit off of a motorcycle and sent flying into the air generally results in a soft landing as though nothing happened. Thankfully, nothing is game breaking or progress halting, but they do impact the overall immersion.
While the game is planning on offering a full online suite of game modes including the classic invasion as well as open-world co-op, unfortunately, none of it was ready in time for review. The online portion of the game is launching early in December so all players will have to wait a bit once the game launches in full.
Watch Dogs Legion does follow other Ubisoft games in the fact that it offers microtransactions ranging from new operatives, currency, cosmetics, and more. None of them are particularly game-breaking and instead focus more on saving time. None of them felt required.
In the end, Watch Dogs Legion is an easy game to recommend for fans of the franchise, as it continues to utilize the solid gameplay foundation established by its predecessor. While the lack of a main character may not be a hit with everyone, it works surprisingly well. Over the last three iterations, Watch Dogs has introduced more and more player freedom, but with Legion, Ubisoft takes things to an insane new level.
Watch Dogs Legion will launch October 29 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. The game will launch with the Xbox Series X on November 10 and the PS5 on November 24. Game Rant was provided an Xbox One code for this review.
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