Watch Dogs Legion marks the third installment in Ubisoft’s unique, open-world franchise about anarchy in the digital age. The first Watch Dogs was a singularly intimate tale about a hacker seeking revenge, and Watch Dogs 2 placed us in the shoes of a member of a small group jump-starting a digital revolution. In Watch Dogs Legion, the revolution is in full swing, and amid the mayhem, every person is a potential agent of the uprising.
Here’s a preview of everything you need to know about Watch Dogs Legion:
Watch Dogs Legion Release Date
Originally slated for release on March 6, Watch Dogs Legion will now launch on October 29, 2020, as announced during the Ubisoft Forward 2020 conference. The decision to delay was made in October 2019, following the underperformance of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and extends to other Ubisoft titles, including Rainbow Six Quarantine and Gods & Monsters.
In a May statement, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot announced that concerns related to COVID-19 may result in an additional delay for one of their major 2020 titles. Ubisoft has not stated the name of the title, but the company currently has five AAA games planned to release this year, including Legion.
Legion Will Be Coming to Next-Gen Consoles
Last October, Ubisoft confirmed that Watch Dogs Legion will be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The game will make use of Xbox’s Smart Delivery feature. This means players only have to buy the game once and can play an optimized version on either Xbox One or Xbox Series X.
In terms of PlayStation users, there will be a free upgrade from the PS4 to PS5 version of the game. Watch Dogs Legion will also be available on Google Stadia and PC. If you’re planning to play it on PS4 or PS5, get your PSN Gift Cards ready for this highly anticipated game!
It’s Set in a Post-Brexit London
DedSec, the upstart hacker group from Watch Dogs 2, has evolved from an underground movement in San Francisco to a massive revolutionary force with influence in major cities around the globe. Watch Dogs Legion takes us to London, where DedSec’s local group of resistance fighters battle an authoritarian regime that wants to control the masses through a surveillance system known as ctOS.
Interestingly, the developers at Ubisoft Toronto came up with the setting back when the idea of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union was still considered an unrealistic notion. The studio’s spooky talent for prescience aside, the team seems committed to tackling these political themes, despite potential backlash from players.
There is No Main Character
Rather than focusing solely on a single character, Watch Dogs Legion explores the idea that everyone can be a hero, from the inconspicuous construction worker to (as the game’s E3 2019 trailer showed us) an elderly lady with a cane. Every individual in London has the potential to become a player character, and your job isn’t just to subvert the police state by completing missions as a member of DedSec, but also to recruit people to the cause.
Recruitment isn’t as simple as approaching a person and adding them to DedSec. Each individual in the game is entirely unique, with their own backstory, skill set, and personal beliefs. Some many even support the police state. You’ll have to study your target and use what you’ve learned to convince them to join the cause. The cool part is that you can hop bodies and switch between anyone in your group as you please.
Some of the characters you can choose to play as include a construction worker, a street artist, a drone expert, a football hooligan, a spy, an anarchist, a paramedic, a hitman, and a hacker. All this is based on the recent gameplay trailer released by Ubisoft. There will also be a selection of lethal and non-lethal weaponry, so how you choose to play the game will be completely up to you.
Characters Can Be Wounded and Imprisoned
You can lose your recruits in Watch Dogs Legion, an interesting new mechanic to the open-world action-adventure series. Permadeath is also a possibility, though it’s much rarer and results from a deliberate risk-reward choice from the player.
There are two places a character can end up that will result in them being out of commission: jail or a hospital. Taking too much damage will make a character much easier for the cops to take down and capture. If a character is arrested, they’ll end up in the local jail, and the only way to get them back is to break them out. If the character takes so much damage that they effectively “die,” they’ll wind up in the hospital where they’ll need time to get back into fighting shape. Ubisoft has also said that there’s a way to come back from a potential defeat, but you could potentially lose a character forever if things don’t go your way.
There’s a New Melee System
In previous Watch Dogs titles, there were a few ways to engage with enemies without blowing your cover. Eventually, shots would be fired, cop sirens would blare, and the chase would be on. Since controlling a geriatric is absolutely in the cards with Legion, players are going to need more options than simply engaging in a full-on firefight.
The new melee system aims to make stealth a more viable mode of play, allowing players to dispatch bodies without raising alarms. It’s more than just stealth takedowns, too; players can punch, dodge, and block, as well.
The Game Tells Five Different Stories
Watch Dogs Legion’s campaign will cover five distinct story arcs set throughout the city of London. Each of these arcs will shine a lens on a different societal issue, such as the effects that total automation will have on our way of life or the casually intrusive surveillance of a people by their own government. It will be interesting to see how the developers plan to tell a coherent and compelling tale with a cast made up entirely of random NPCs.
Watch Dogs Legion Will Have Co-Op
Just like in Watch Dogs 2, Watch Dogs Legion is going to allow players to team up with four of their pals in co-operative online multiplayer. Single-player and co-operative progression will be linked, so you can hop back and forth between the two and any missions completed in one mode will carry over to the other. There will be dedicated content and side missions to accomplish, including freestyle football, bare knuckle boxing, and illegal couriering, among others. There’s no word, yet, on how NPC recruitment will work (or if it will play a part at all) in the multiplayer mode.
Parts of the Soundtrack Will Be Crowd-Sourced
In October 2019, Ubisoft announced a collaboration with HitRecord, the crowd-sourced media company helmed by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Several upcoming Ubisoft titles will benefit from the partnership, including Watch Dogs Legion, which is expected to get 10 unique tracks from HitRecord.
HitRecord is a collective of online musicians who collaborate to create works of music. A single artist might create a catchy vamp or a drum beat and other artists can build upon it, contributing different elements and instruments to the work. All contributors will have their names mentioned in the credits of Watch Dogs Legion and receive a split of the $2,000 per track bounty, which will be distributed evenly among contributing artists.
All Aboard the Hype Train
Watch Dogs Legion is looking to be a fantastic addition to the franchise, with an increased focus on stealth, and an innovative recruitment mechanic. What do you think? Are you excited for the next Watch Dogs game? Let us know in the comments below!
