With Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft Montreal is hoping to inject more life into the series. It looks like they were successful for the most part.
The sequel to the dismal 2014 open-world hacking game Watch Dogs has ditched the previous open-world sandbox game’s stomping grounds of Chicago, deciding to travel westward to the San Francisco The game’s protagonist is Marcus Holloway, an African-American youth from nearby Oakland and a hacker extraordinaire. He is a member of DedSec, the hacktivist group introduced in the original game. Their aim is to recruit people to their cause, ruining things for the local establishment along the way.
Fortunately for Marcus and DedSec, San Francisco has recently installed CtOS 2.0, the latest version of the municipal network unveiled in Chicago. This affords Marcus and his DedSec cohorts more control over the city’s systems, like the power grid, communications network, and power grid. In addition, Marcus can hack any smartphone or vehicle and use them to his advantage.
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The gameplay demo shown off at E3 showed off some interesting things. Marcus also has access to new gadgets. Foremost among them are remote control drones, both a quadcopter and a wheeled drone that he can use to scout areas, reach inaccessible areas, or unlock doors. He also has a stun gun he can use when he wants to disable enemies and his firearm is not a good idea. Most impressive are Marcus’s parkour abilities, another new feature introduced in Watch Dogs 2. He can leap and bound over and around obstacles, Assassin’s Creed style. This can be very useful while being pursued by the authorities. It also looks like his agility will make gameplay more entertaining.
Also new to the series is multiplayer. The world is constantly online, and players can join each other at any point to do missions cooperatively. The multiplayer looks to be seamless and has a vibe similar to The Division. The ability to call in a friend to help me tackle a particularly tricky mission sounds like a great thing.
Fortunately, the game doesn’t seem to suffer from the visual shenanigans Ubisoft pulled with the original. The game looks really good. San Francisco is visually more vibrant than Chicago. The rain and gloom have been traded in for lots of ‘shine. The city also has more personality, with its citizens seeming more alive. Overall, Watch Dogs 2 looks like a game that I will actually enjoy to play.
(One note about the gameplay demo: during an infiltration mission in a swanky penthouse, Marcus dons his headphones and fires up Don’t Sweat the Technique by Eric B. and Rakim. If you do stuff like that, you will always earn tons of love from me. Yes, I am that easy.)
Watch Dogs 2 seems to be a massive improvement over the original in every way. When this game releases for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows 10 on November 15th, we will get a chance to test that theory out.
