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Believe it or not, this humble construction worker is a key figure in the hacker resistance.
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What if you're not actually in good hands, though?
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Pasting up your own counter-propaganda is always fun.
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Environmental storytelling at its finest
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Home sweet home.
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Cute ears.
Then along comes a game like Watch Dogs: Legion, which aims to blow up that dichotomy with a simple question: what if practically every non-player character could become a protagonist?
The results of Ubisoft's ambitious attempt are a little sloppy at points, and it doesn't fix the open-world genre's problems with repetitive quests. Still, Watch Dogs: Legion earns points for weaving together a coherent open-world game where no one is the protagonist and everyone is the protagonist at the same time.
Everyone’s a hacker
Legion takes players to a version of London that has been utterly transformed in the well-established techno-dystopian near-future of the Watch Dogs universe. Things start off with a literal bang when a terrorist hacker collective known as Zero Day sets off a series of massive explosions around the city. Dedsec, the "good guy" hackers from previous Watch Dogs titles, gets framed for the attacks, leading the city to grant sweeping police state powers to mercenary mega-firm Albion in the name of "security."
Dedsec's membership is quickly decimated by deportations and killings under this new regime. As one of the last remaining members, it's up to the player to recruit new members to Dedsec and fight back against Zero Day, Albion, and other tangential criminal and government groups in their orbit.
That recruitment process, as presented in Legion, requires the player to suspend more than a little bit of disbelief. You can go up to literally any random person in the game, push a button, and start a completely unprompted conversation about potentially violent overthrow of the system.
Almost without fail, that person will be instantly on board with joining Dedsec's shadowy, distributed hacker collective. Only, could you help them out with a quick problem (read: side quest) first? Forget about the hard sell, in the London of Watch Dog: Legion, everyone seems just inches away from joining the resistance in exchange for a simple favor.
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Psst... hey buddy... want to join the resistance?
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All fashion choices are valid in the resistance.
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Little details like this make the world feel alive.
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Effective propaganda.
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Print media is not dead!
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How is this not a real thing?
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My first Dedsec operative was a bit out there...
You also have to accept that the random assemblage of average citizens you recruit are ready to immediately become the master spies, hackers, and counter-mercenaries needed to take down this entrenched fascist system. Sure, there are some potential recruits whose backstories provide them access to special skills or high-octane firepower—uniformed officers, for instance, can walk around sensitive areas without being instantly noticed as out of place.
But even the most out-of-shape, underskilled schmoe on the street still has to have the basic ability to perform the stealthy infiltrations and complex hacks that form the basis of the game. Once again, you just have to suspend your disbelief more than a little bit to buy into the game's core concept.
The hacker melting pot
Once you can accept that premise, though, this conceit creates a veritable explosion in the diversity of character choices in the game. My Dedsec cell looks like a true melting pot of London society in terms of race, gender, and even class. Forming a team where a college professor and chess champion can fight for the same goals as a cockney-speaking construction worker (who takes out enemies with a giant lug wrench) feels refreshingly cosmopolitan, especially as one character gets immediately called in to help when the other fails.
These characters aren't just interchangeable ciphers, either. Each one has their own personality that comes through in the fully voiced lines they deliver during the game's many cut-scenes and mid-mission conversations. While the overall story plays out the same no matter who you're controlling, individual conversations can play out very differently depending on what character happens to be the current protagonist.
Unfortunately, the seams for this system do show through in many places. In conversational cut scenes, your character's model often falls into an uncanny valley of standing awkwardly and making semi-random facial expressions in response to their partner (oddly timed changes in camera angle don't help in these situations).
The intonations behind your character's lines often feel just a bit off, too, like they were cut and pasted from a set of generic responses rather than from an actor responding to a specific story beat. That's a shame, because the few named characters that can't be controlled by the player generally give pretty good and nuanced performances—the foul-mouthed, joke-cracking AI assistant Bagley is a particular standout.
Still, it's a wonder that this system of interchangeable player characters works at all. Despite the warts, building your own ragtag group of resistance fighters from across society makes a strong statement about the power of collective action that would be hard to get across in another medium.
44 Reader Comments
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across? All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new. Yours doesn't lean in as heavily on this but I thought I would bring it up here because I am sure some other readers will remember this game.
As for Watchdogs, this sounds like another skippable entry in this series. Still holding a slight grudge from the bait and switch that was the original entry.
Looks pretty much like London today to me. A bit more neon.
I remember enjoying the first game, but I went back to it earlier this year and it was appalling.
I haven't dared try replaying the 2nd one yet, although I think I liked it more than the first.
I'm fairly unbothered about this one. I might play it, at some point.
Ubisoft seems to be reliably great at making virtual sightseeing products, not nearly so much at writing and scenario design.
Still, I guess I should be thankful they're at least making singleplayer games still.
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across? All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new. Yours doesn't lean in as heavily on this but I thought I would bring it up here because I am sure some other readers will remember this game.
As for Watchdogs, this sounds like another skippable entry in this series. Still holding a slight grudge from the bait and switch that was the original entry.
I only got to play the demo, but man, Messiah was unique as hell (rimshot). Really wish we could see a modern take on it (that's not WDL).
The game has seemed interesting enough to me that I'll be covering it on my own gaming site (which just launched a couple months ago and is much too small-fry for Ubisoft to want to send a review copy.. *sniff*), but I'm not going to get my hopes up that it'll be anything spectacular. A nice diversion, perhaps, but the review has definitely confirmed that Ubisoft still has an issue with lack of diverse experiences in the open world.
Since they have the mechanic of another character jumping in if the active one "dies", it doesn't seem that big a leap to design challenges where the player controls only one character at a time, but the objective requires 2-4+ characters, acting individually in disparate places, controlled one at a time until the appropriate, individual, sub-objective is achieved (or controlled character is "in a safe place"). To make it more challenging for a 3+ player mission, the player chooses who to control next, but can't change away from that character 'til that character's sub-objective is satisfied (as in, choose the wrong order of control and life gets harder).
Oh well.
I honestly don't know that I dig this "any character is playable" cell kind of thing in Legions. It seems that it'll be hard to craft the kind of tight knit banter of the 2nd game without main core characters. Maybe I'll snag it on a deep sale sometime.
If anyone doesn't happen to remember Messiah, it's available for purchase at GOG.com
https://www.gog.com/game/messiah
Mmm...Shiny.
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across? All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new. Yours doesn't lean in as heavily on this but I thought I would bring it up here because I am sure some other readers will remember this game.
As for Watchdogs, this sounds like another skippable entry in this series. Still holding a slight grudge from the bait and switch that was the original entry.
I only got to play the demo, but man, Messiah was unique as hell (rimshot). Really wish we could see a modern take on it (that's not WDL).
The game has seemed interesting enough to me that I'll be covering it on my own gaming site (which just launched a couple months ago and is much too small-fry for Ubisoft to want to send a review copy.. *sniff*), but I'm not going to get my hopes up that it'll be anything spectacular. A nice diversion, perhaps, but the review has definitely confirmed that Ubisoft still has an issue with lack of diverse experiences in the open world.
God, Messiah brings back memories. Played it to the end back in the day and it was quite good in my opinion.
You are absolutely correct: the body swap mechanic is not new.
Last edited by kaworu1986 on Wed Oct 28, 2020 8:39 am
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across? All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new. Yours doesn't lean in as heavily on this but I thought I would bring it up here because I am sure some other readers will remember this game.
As for Watchdogs, this sounds like another skippable entry in this series. Still holding a slight grudge from the bait and switch that was the original entry.
As for another game about possessing NPCs, Driver: San Francisco was a surprisingly fun take on the idea (especially when the NPCs would comment on the sudden changes in driving habits). Nothing quite like jumping into some old woman's car and suddenly ramping over rooftops.
The first Watch Dogs was only really "fun" because of the silly randomly-generated profiles for civvies (like the infamous 15 year old Navy SEAL veteran). And within a year of launch, that feature got modded into GTA IV, which basically did every other aspect of Watch Dogs better.
Looks pretty much like London today to me. A bit more neon.
Yes ... but just what is that bridge by Battersea Power Station supposed to be ?
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across?All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new.
If you go back even further, the 1991 arcade game (and '92 GB game) Avenging Spirit worked the same way but as an action platformer. It's more like an old concept that only sporadically pops up if you exclude Kirby which isn't 100% same.
The XCOM reboots showed that a randomized collection of personality-less goons can still be compelling characters if they feel distinct enough and there's real tension in holding on to the "good" ones. Even if their capabilities and appearance were just numbers from an RNG, I felt legitimately attached to my team in those games and was crushed when they got taken out.
I feel like this game had the potential to go down that same path, but if characters' capabilities are all basically the same and there's no real threat of losing anyone, a lot of that potential evaporates.
It let you take possession of the bodies of robotic animals you've defeated, such as using a bear to lift crates to construct a set of stairs so that you could jump up and float across a gap using a sheep's floaty-jump. Or to, for example, kill a dog who has a secret love affair with a sheep, possess the dog to kill and burn said sheep using your crashed ship's thrusters and get the first hidden object in the game.
Man 90's games were weird.
Looks pretty much like London today to me. A bit more neon.
Yes ... but just what is that bridge by Battersea Power Station supposed to be ?
Good point. Chelsea bridge post-Brexit?
Ubisoft seems to be reliably great at making virtual sightseeing products, not nearly so much at writing and scenario design.
Still, I guess I should be thankful they're at least making singleplayer games still.
I think Ubisoft have run into the "Star Citizen" problem. To get around having anomyous but voiced NPCs with a pre scripted dialog/personality and no memory other than scripted comments on scripted events requires a bunch of technical systems that no one has ever really implemented in a AAA game before, maybe "Prom Week" comes closest?
For Ubisoft to build a London where you can park a car and have it offscreen for 30 seconds and still be there when you return is actually a big ask, as you cannot keep that much stuff in memory and have to build a database object system (Cloud Impreium are promising one called "iCache" but haven't managed to release it yet).
I think Cloud Imperium/Star Citizen are being too ambitious, but Ubisoft are being too conservative. Ubi could try and implement at least one new system per game, or even every two open world games. Maybe just have a simulation of London's population off screen (every house has 1-5 occupants), and simulate their daily movements to or from work, and then have an object database of just the location of all the cars in the game. That's technically difficult, and only a simple change to the open world, but could lead to interesting emergent gameplay, even if a bit broken.
Right now all their games feel pretty much the same (although I'll admit that I stopped playing them a few years back).
Games (open world sandbox) have reached a point where there are diminishing returns to prettier graphics and more fully voiced NPCs, and need to start implementing systems that simulate a little bit more of reality. I didn't really enjoy Red Dead Redemption 2 that much, as it was pretty much RDR1 but with better graphics, more voice acting, and more missions. If I had never already played RDR1 I would have loved it as much as the first game, with with 2 I was pretty much just replaying RDR1 and I was already bored with that.
Looks pretty much like London today to me. A bit more neon.
Yes ... but just what is that bridge by Battersea Power Station supposed to be ?
Good point. Chelsea bridge post-Brexit?
That’s to the west of the power station. Vauxhall Bridge (in the future!) is the first one going east. For those not familiar with the geography Battersea Power Station is on the south bank and the camera is facing south west. It looks to be too close, but I’ve never seen it from that height and angle.
I’m mostly amused by the idea that you could wander up to someone, in a city where accidentally making eye contact with someone on public transport is a major faux pas, and casually initiate a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
The XCOM reboots showed that a randomized collection of personality-less goons can still be compelling characters if they feel distinct enough and there's real tension in holding on to the "good" ones. Even if their capabilities and appearance were just numbers from an RNG, I felt legitimately attached to my team in those games and was crushed when they got taken out.
I feel like this game had the potential to go down that same path, but if characters' capabilities are all basically the same and there's no real threat of losing anyone, a lot of that potential evaporates.
Very good idea. I'm also wondering if they could have added in the Nemisis system from Shadow of Mordor somehow? If one of the Goons kills your character, the next time you encounter them they have levelled up and become a boss. Or perhaps Xcom Chosen type enimies? Xcom is actually the only game so far to adopt the Nemisis system from Shadow of Mordor:
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/xcom-2s-chos ... is-system/
On the other hand Ubi soft employees have probably already ptiched these ideas in meetings and been told not to do them to meet budgets and returns. If people keep buying the same game reskinned and slightly upgraded, then why not? Call of Duty and FIFA make this work.
Last edited by Jim Bacon on Wed Oct 28, 2020 12:18 pm
Yes, this is the case. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-ga ... h-politics - basically, they had about a 100 voice actors record a crapload of lines, then they modulated them to make 6x more voices and did the choppy chop to make more lines.
That's why I've largely stopped playing Ubisoft titles. In the last generation, middling publishers disappeared. You had either indie titles or big budget titles. Ubisoft IMHO has teetered on becoming "middling" and little else given their propensity to what to put out "samey" titles on a regular basis. I can't blame them, they are a public company and they do need to make money.
But it seems this latest title underscores the idea that Ubisoft seems to like to scrape at the bottom of the barrel a bit too much and thus they risk ceasing to be a top tier player and just an "also-ran."
Danny O'Dwyer made this point seven years ago when he was still with GameSpot about the Assassin's Creed series (I put WATCH_DOGS in a similar league):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZutpV4qQKnw
Then two years later he did a wonderful follow up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZRUdlWZz_o
Given the history of the series, Ubisoft will probably give it away for free as part of some marketing stunt to keep Uplay relevant in a few years. I have the first two games and never paid for either.
I don't know if the review copy was supposed to be the final master, but it's one of those "if they let little easy things like that slide, what bigger gameplay issues am I going to find?" things.
Looks pretty much like London today to me. A bit more neon.
Yes ... but just what is that bridge by Battersea Power Station supposed to be ?
Good point. Chelsea bridge post-Brexit?
That’s to the west of the power station. Vauxhall Bridge (in the future!) is the first one going east. For those not familiar with the geography Battersea Power Station is on the south bank and the camera is facing south west. It looks to be too close, but I’ve never seen it from that height and angle.
I’m mostly amused by the idea that you could wander up to someone, in a city where accidentally making eye contact with someone on public transport is a major faux pas, and casually initiate a conspiracy to overthrow the government.
Oh yeah! I'm looking/thinking in completely the wrong direction.
In my defence, I'm from WELL outside of the M25.
The XCOM reboots showed that a randomized collection of personality-less goons can still be compelling characters if they feel distinct enough and there's real tension in holding on to the "good" ones. Even if their capabilities and appearance were just numbers from an RNG, I felt legitimately attached to my team in those games and was crushed when they got taken out.
I feel like this game had the potential to go down that same path, but if characters' capabilities are all basically the same and there's no real threat of losing anyone, a lot of that potential evaporates.
There's Ironman mode - which I believe, but cannot confirm, sticks you into permadeath and you cannot leave (probably some other things).
Some might say that a permadeath thing cannot do this or that, but there are plenty of games that have that option (most of them older or modern but indie) and the difference in the experience can be rather stark. In some game I have played, turning it off has effectively ruined the experience and tention.
I wonder if the game design was built around this due to the "every npc is your pc", but then got demoted to a non-default option to sell more copies without compensating elsewhere. I say that, because you would be surprised how shallow you get with other things if a character dying is permanent and you can run out of them and get a total game over. It's won't be for everyone, of course.
EDIT - Side point, but I wonder what they will try once they skip last gen console with their ultra crappy last gen console-CPU's. Contrary to what a different person posted, I think the "any npc is your pc" mechanic is new, but they were also limited on that system and other things due to last gen support (CPU limits gameplay, GPU limits graphics).
Remember that old game Messiah back in the early 2000s I think, where you were this cherub who could possess any of the NPCs you came across? All these reviews I've seen around Watchdogs treat this idea as if it is completely new. Yours doesn't lean in as heavily on this but I thought I would bring it up here because I am sure some other readers will remember this game.
As for Watchdogs, this sounds like another skippable entry in this series. Still holding a slight grudge from the bait and switch that was the original entry.
Every time I see something about Watch Dogs, it takes me a moment to process that it's not Sleeping Dogs, and then I get to be sad all over again that Sleeping Dogs 2 got cancelled.
Indeed! More recently MGS V: The Phantom Pain continued in that vein. You can play most of the entire game as another recruit if you're so inclined.
The setting and banter in Watch Dogs 2 was fun, but the gameplay got stale for me long before the game ended. Too bad it seems like they're not doing all that much to shake up the formula this time around.
What came to mind immediately reading the first part of this article is the assassination network Lawrence Fishburne runs in the second and third John Wick movies, which is largely made up of hobos, actual or not. Having eyes in the city that can't be easily tracked or hacked is supremely useful. I get that maybe it's not as "glamorous" as "everyone is secretly a hacker" but it seems like it'd be more interesting.
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