In 2014, Ubisoft released their highly anticipated hacking-centric open world shooter “Watch Dogs”, and it was met with mixed emotions. Many players loved the unique gameplay element of hacking into various electronics, and felt the city of Chicago was captured well, but criticized the driving controls, some story and character elements and most of all, the graphics degradation the game received before release.
I generally enjoyed the game, although I haven’t gone back and finished it. I do that often with games, play them halfway through then quit. I know I liked what I played, though, even through the flaws, and I have been expecting a Watch Dogs 2 for the past year now, and this past week it was announced.
The video below is the “World Premiere Announcement” from E3 2016, and I think this is the best thing to base my initial thoughts off of, as it covers the developers general ideas and feelings on the game they are making.
I will say this much – the game looks good. I enjoyed the gameplay of the first game, and for them to expand on the hacking element to include most everything around is just ideal. It looks like they are focusing less on a personal revenge story and more on a single person in the world reacting to events around him, which is certainly a fitting staging for a character who is an active member of a hactivist group.
The new main character, Marcus, has had some hate thrown his way, for stupid reasons. I like what I see of the character, and I look forward to seeing his story as I play, much as I did Aiden’s story in the first Watch Dogs; or, for that matter, any character in the Grand Theft Auto series.
The setting of the game, in the San Francisco Bay Area, should lead to quite the varied set of characters and events. Of course, that requires the developers to take advantage of these options, but we will see upon release what they do. They state that they are trying, like every open world game development team, to make the most realistic city they can. I’m expecting about average on that front, but in the end, if the game plays well, that’s all that matters.
All in all, yeah, I’m looking forward to it, but like every game, I’m keeping my expectations in check. Yeah, this should be good, but it is just another video game, as they all are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Dogs_2