I am many for we are legion! We had the chance to take a look at Ubisoft’s newest addition to the Watch Dogs series, and so far it is a very promising title that will take up hours of your life. Imagine an entire city full of NPCs, and you can recruit and play as them all. Some will take more work to coerce into your resistance. Let’s get into it!
The start of Watch Dogs: Legion follows an underground cell of seasoned operatives who have aligned themselves under the alias: DedSec. The group is in the middle of uncovering a conspiracy to attack London when a new enemy emerges and crushes the resistance in a calculated assault. With DedSec members all dead or on the run, London falls into the grip of an authoritarian police state, enforced by a private security force called Albion. In a gamble fueled by hope, our first character is recruited and goes on to represent the new DedSec, this one now entirely comprised of everyday Londoners.
The majority of recruits have a mission for you to complete in order to enlist them, and it really keeps the game refreshing. There does not appear to be a cap on team members, but they can get killed in the field if you have that option selected in the gameplay settings. You can play as any of them, and it surprised me how everyone has dialogue ready for the main game and side missions. Sometimes you can tell that it is a cookie cutter situation, but it works out very well. This might be obvious, but everyone varies in their competency in fighting and what skills they excel at. Some skills are more passive and help your organization in other ways, like raising money or reducing jailtime (if your caught).
You might also be wondering: Can I recruit even the Albion officers? Technically, yes. You can add them to your list of recruits, and if you unlock an item with tech points you can look into ways to sway your target. Tech items also include better weapons, spider bots, drones, stealth devices, and disruptors for enemies (very handy). You can also access drones across the city, from spider infiltrators to cargo-carrying drones. You can even ride that one to the rooftops! Hacking is the everyday function that gets you to your objectives. The iPhone has never been more powerful.
The lore objects are also worth reading and listening to, especially the podcasts and radio shows. The message is abundantly clear that large tech firms have a scary access to our lives through our phones, our search history, and our social media. The message is further exacerbated by the oppressive Albion enforcers who conduct raids based on Orwellian wrong-think and arrest citizens, justifying that they are stopping crime before it can occur. To make matters worse, there is a major crime syndicate that takes advantage of the less fortunate civilians, as well as migrants marked for deportation. You can sometimes find these factions at odds with each other when carrying out missions.
The gameplay is very easy to master within the first 10 minutes of the campaign. I would say that moving around, whether you are running for your life or sneaking around, is fair. The game gives you plenty of time to react to the things around you. Hacking is simple left bumper press away and it acts as your main tool. I would also say that the game gives you plenty of opportunity to be creative, given the technical nature of … everything. You can cause cars to crash into each other, turn transformers into traps, and jam weapons – all with your phone. Gunplay handles very well too. There is an aim assist feature that works very well with the cover system. You essentially hug the wall and can round the corner with the tap of the A button. Everything just feels so streamlined and smooth.
There are plenty of vehicles around as well. Some recruits even have their own personal vehicle. Trust me, there is no shortage of cars around here. I only forgot that since we are in the United Kingdom that we are supposed to drive on the side of the street. That makes for interesting car chases. You can also access boats on the Thames, but I haven’t fully taken advantage of that. Since this game has a fully incorporated automated driving feature, I have hope that Tesla is not far behind and fiction can become reality.
My only issues with the game have been the occasional glitches, audio-video syncing, and the occasional crash. They are all anecdotal, isolated, incidents. The game froze within the first 3 minutes when I hijacked a security camera, but since it was so early in the game, I didn’t mind. The video-audio thing only happened a couple times, namely when I interacted with NPCs; the lips didn’t match their voices. The glitches are probably going to stay and will vary from experience to experience. For example, sometimes an enemy will not register a hit and will bounce off you (not a block).
*A hotfix will be deployed on Xbox and PlayStation consoles on October 30
I started recording my experience so far, and you can watch my series if you’re interested. The story is interesting so far, and I’m curious who Zero Day (our main antagonist) is and what he/she wants. Liberating London borough by borough is also fun. I hope I get to see my operatives at work even when I am not playing as them.
I think a fair rating for Watch Dogs: Legion should be a 9.5 out of 10. At the end of the day, it is a well-crafted game with hours’ worth of content. I am constantly changing the batteries in my controller – that’s how good I think it is!
Check Out our Watch Dogs: Legion Gameplay Trailer:
Watch Dogs: Legion will release tomorrow, October 29, 2020 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and for Windows PC on Epic Games and Uplay.
For more information about Watch Dogs: Legion, please visit watchdogs.com, and join the conversation by using #watchdogslegion.
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I like to think of myself as the average Joe who grew up alongside video games. I have fun playing strategy games, RPGs, shooters, sandboxes, the whole shebang! Every game provides an experience whether it strikes you as profound, mundane, or someplace in between. I'd like to weigh in my two cents before you spend a single penny.
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