Watch Dogs Legion builds on the spirit of Watch Dogs 2 to deliver an experience that lets players indulge in the fun of future technology. Where the first game tried to play everything straight and the second game featured a lot more personality, Watch Dogs Legion embraces the cool possibilities of using a spider robot to shock security guards or riding a shipping drone to the top of the London Eye.
Ahead of the Ubisoft Forward event this weekend, The Best War Games had the chance to play about 4 hours of Watch Dogs Legion. The demo offered a large portion of the open world to explore, a few main missions to complete, and a lot of potential distractions should players get pulled in one way or the other.
Much like our time with Watch Dogs Legion at E3 2019, this demo put a lot of focus on the idea of using different recruits to achieve an objective. For example, players can recruit a construction worker into DeadSec and then they can freely walk around a construction site mission area. Getting too close to enemies can still raise an alarm, but it isn't necessary to go on with a complete stealth approach. It's a way to give different recruits their own gameplay options, while still working off the same framework.
Not all recruits will fit the mold of the scenario perfectly, though, and there are plenty of tools at players' disposal to help. A lot of the gameplay should be familiar to Watch Dogs veterans – players hack into cameras to gain intel on enemy positions or to eliminate obstacles from a distance. The moment to moment stealth still feels snappy and like a technological puzzle, albeit with a few new additions.
One of the best gadgets shown during our Watch Dogs Legion demo is the spider bot. Much like the Jumper from Watch Dogs 2, the spider bot can walk around the environment without putting the player character at risk. The spider bot can hack into terminals, activate distractions to eliminate guards from a distance, and even perform takedowns with an attack that's reminiscent of Alien's facehuggers.
The simplest solutions in Watch Dogs Legion are usually the least fun, but players can still approach the encounters like a third-person stealth action game should they choose. But mixing in the technology adds a layer that's become a signature of the Watch Dogs franchise and helps keep things feeling fresh. Whether that will be true for a full-length experience – a lot of the gameplay feels very reminiscent of Watch Dogs 2 – is yet to be determined.
Where Watch Dogs Legion tries to set itself apart the most is with the recruiting system, where players can analyze any NPC and eventually turn them into a playable character. Every NPC has an inherent “role” that can work in a number of different situations. There is the aforementioned construction worker but the demo featured an exhaustive number of different recruit types. One playable recruit was a graffiti artist that used a paintball gun as their primary weapon, while another, the spy, had a car equipped with missiles a la James Bond.
Some recruits also improve the overall DeadSec team, like a Barrister role that helps get arrested recruits out of jail faster. Every recruit has value in Watch Dogs Legion and they don't all feel like cookie-cutter versions of the same basic character. The gameplay underneath it all is still the same, but the strengths and weaknesses can dramatically change how players will approach a given situation (e.g. Stealth or guns blazing)
Even beyond the moment-to-moment missions and side missions, Watch Dogs Legion seems to have the most to offer players. In those aforementioned recruitment missions, players can gain backstory on their potential playable characters while further exploring the mechanics and systems of the game. On top of that, Watch Dogs Legion has tried to give an approximation of near-future London that hits enough of the landmarks for the international gamer while giving the residents more hot spots to point to.
There are even some fun mini-games scattered around London that are completely optional but are fun to engage with. A personal favorite was the Kick Up mini-game that turns the act of soccer ball juggling into a series of rhythmic button presses. It’s simple yet addicting, and Ubisoft has put in enough depth into the mini-games to make them evolve as players progress. Darts is a fun mini-game seen in many video games, but Watch Dogs Legion’s version forces the player to hone their darts skills in order to go further.
Much like our time spent playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Watch Dogs Legion gameplay demo was just enough to show the fun new twists that Ubisoft has added to the formula while still reassuring fans that nothing is being radically changed. For some, that is going to be a disappointment, but at the end of a console life cycle, these games that hit their stride are crucial for delivering quality entertainment. And after 4 hours with Watch Dogs Legion, there was no lack of enjoyment to be had.
Watch Dogs Legion releases October 29, 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.