Watch Dogs: Legion

 

In the near future, London runs on cryptocurrency, augmented reality, and automation, made possible by a powerful cTOS (Central Operating System). Private military contractor Albion has assumed police duties and seeks to impose an increasingly restrictive surveillance state while criminal syndicate Clan Kelley has turned to the Dark Web to facilitate its nefarious schemes. Both are opposed by the London branch of DedSec, a global hacker collective dedicated to stopping abuses of technological power. But when a mysterious group called Zero Day frames DedSec for a terrorist bombing, the hacktivists are left to regroup and clear their name.

 

The third entry in Ubisoft’s surveillance-themed open-world action-adventure series, Watch Dogs: Legion is both an evolution of and significant departure from the two preceding games. DedSec is back as is the ability to hack everything from security cameras to traffic cameras to enemy coms. While the action moves to London after previous entries took place in Chicago and San Francisco, the biggest change is to the main player character: there isn’t one. The Legion of the title refers to the fact that nearly the entire in-game populace of London can potentially be recruited as DedSec operatives. Characters are randomly generated during each new single player campaign and assigned different appearances, backgrounds, strengths, weaknesses, and skills. Some are former soldiers and spies and come equipped with superior firepower; others are drone operators who have more sophisticated hacking tricks. Doing favors for potential recruits and raising a neighborhood’s resistance by sabotaging Albion will net rewards while story missions pit you against Albion, Clan Kelley, and British intelligence as you get closer to unmasking Zero Day. Along the way, you are aided by Bagley (a wonderfully snarky A.I.), mission control Sabine, sympathetic police officer Kailtin, and others.

 

The lack of a central protagonist here is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the ability to swap between team members with different skills supports a variety of playing styles (i.e. stealth vs. assault), and you may end up with some memorably amusing operatives. You may, for instance, get a chance to sick a swarm of bees on an Albion grunt or have a grandmotherly retired police officer unload a pistol clip on a Clan Kelley thug. On the other hand, despite the relevance of the game’s themes (living under an increasingly authoritarian regime in a world where technology has eroded privacy), the brief amount of information you’re given about each character keeps you at arm’s length.

 

There’s a similar trade-off in game mechanics. Drones play a bigger role this go-around. You can hack enemy combat drones to automatically target foes, and you can ride cargo drones around the city like personal air taxis. However, a few features from previous games (such as the “detonate a grenade” hack) are missed. Also, for all of the game’s possibilities, some of the operative recruitment missions (rescuing a recruit’s friend, retrieving a vehicle containing supplies, or breaking into a secure facility to hack or wipe data) can feel repetitive.

 

Watch Dogs: Legion falls short of reaching its fullest potential, but it’s still a timely outing that offers a new take on the open-world adventure experience.