Watch Dogs: Legion
Watch Dogs: Legion takes the basics from the first two games and improves it, as simple as that. In particular, the approach not to use a specific main character but to let players recruit DedSec members themselves, works very well and quickly becomes a game in itself. Looking for people with fun skills also pays off, because extra skills enrich the gameplay. Still, those extra options don’t prevent Watch Dogs: Legion from showing too much repetition. Many missions are very similar, because the actions you perform are always the same. The fact that mission locations are also frequently repeated does not help. Fortunately, there are also missions that break this ‘rut’ because they have a more original content, both in what to do and where to do it. Technically, Watch Dogs: Legion is doing fine, both in terms of graphics and loading times. Of course, the newer consoles promise to add even more to this, but it all looks good on the old machines as well. A final point to note is that this is a game in which the ‘Ubisoft formula’ is visible, both in structure and appearance. That all too recognizable style will not disturb some and be a deal-breaker for others. Apart from that, Watch Dogs: Legion is a nice ‘sandbox’ to play in, especially when Ubisoft will add the multiplayer mode in December.
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Pros
- London as a great playground
- Spider-Bot
- Recruit anyone
- Some missions spectacular
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Negatives
- Always the same actions
- Repetition in locations
- Multiplayer not yet available
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Final verdict
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It’s a dubious honor, but it comes to Watch Dogs: Legion: this is probably our last game review that doesn’t include the new consoles yet. Watch Dogs: Legion is a game like so many in the sense that you will be able to play the game in next-gen form later this month. Ubisoft has the upgrade ready, but when we started testing the game, Watch Dogs: Legion was still just an old-gen game. That is a bit inconvenient, because while we test with games running at 120Hz and games that already use ray tracing, we get a game in between that has to do with the old hardware – and therefore without the new graphics tricks. That is not bad, because if you want, you can of course wait until the next-gens are there and the upgrade for Watch Dogs: Legion is there. In that case, be aware that Watch Dogs: Legion will also support ray tracing on the new consoles, and read this review for the further content of the game.
Watch Dogs: Legion is the successor to Wach Dogs and Watch Dogs 2. Those games were set in Chicago and San Francisco respectively. Both revolved around the hacker group DedSec, which is fighting against the incumbent power. In the city, this power uses the ‘central Operating System’, ctOS for short, that controls everything in the city. The player could take advantage of this by manipulating traffic lights, opening bridges, steering cars in different directions and so on. Watch Dogs: Legion takes a step in a different direction: the game is now set in London and no longer in the United States. However, London also comes with a version of ctOS and, more importantly, a powerful party using it. That party is Albion, a Private Military Company headed by director Nigel Cass. Albion has come to power in the aftermath of a series of attacks in London, on a day that has come to be known as Zero Day. It is not known who is behind the attacks, but DedSec, which is now known worldwide, is blamed. The members are hunted down and locked up or killed.
The game opens with the events of Zero Day, but only really starts when the player is activated as the last ‘operative’ of DedSec. You then choose a character with a certain characteristic, but it doesn’t really matter which one that is. The main point of the game is that you don’t play one character. No, in Watch Dogs: Legion you are, as it were, DedSec himself. You gradually gather a whole team full of DedSec members with all kinds of different characteristics. In doing so, you are fighting against Albion and other groups that have used Zero Day to give themselves a position of power in London.
Recruiting new members, if you put it that way, sounds pretty silly. Fortunately, this is not a game where you have to stand behind Central Station with an iPad in search of people who want to make a note. Your weapon is your smartphone and you shoot with your ‘profiler’. We already know this from the previous games: you can read anyone on the street with the push of a button. You then see what someone does for work, what special characteristics he or she has and possibly whether he or she has a negative or positive attitude towards DedSec. You can approach people who are positive enough about it directly, which starts a mission to recruit them. They can all use the help of DedSec before they want to become a member themselves. Those chores usually don’t involve much. One time you have to delete a server containing incriminating information, another time you have to steal a truck full of medicines for which the owner charges extortionate prices to poor people. When you’re done with your ‘modern Robin Hood act’, you’ll have a DedSec operative with it. You have been able to see the benefits in advance. People can own weapons or vehicles, but they can also have special skills that make them less damaged or, for example, less likely to be noticed by enemies.
That goes for all the people you see in the game. Even the Albion guards can theoretically be won over to DedSec, although it won’t be easy. It is better to focus on the special targets that you are occasionally pointed out, or that you can just encounter on the street. For example, the Hitman has specific moves that others do not, while a Spy has a pistol with a silencer, in addition to a special watch that can deliver a shock wave to all those in your immediate vicinity. Handy if you are stopped by Albion agents. There are many more roles that sooner or later will be useful to add to your DedSec team. Think, for example, of someone who gets arrested members out of prison more quickly, or someone who is particularly handy with computers and therefore has a shorter ‘cooldown’ on skills related to hacking. Each of those persons has its own character and voice, although it should be mentioned that there is some repetition in those voices. In addition, not every voice fits the character that belongs to it, but that is not a big problem in itself.
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