Ubisoft has announced that filming on the first-ever Watch Dogs movie has now finished. However, the thing that's taken most people by surprise with this announcement is that there's a Watch Dogs movie in the works at all.

With filming wrapped, the production will move on to editing a final cut that should make it into cinemas and onto streaming services, but there's no indication of what that looks like. The plot of Watch Dogs has been closely guarded since the movie was announced, and nothing leaked after filming began earlier this year. For many, it's hard even to believe that Ubisoft is investing in a movie when it seems to care very little about the games after launching Watch Dogs: Legion.

What's it about?

Fans in the replies to Ubisoft's news are asking the exact same question most of us are. "Based on the first game’s plot?" Unfortunately, no clarification has been provided. Our only concrete information is from an article on Ubisoft's website in June 2024. It states that the movie will be an original story that takes place within the Watch Dogs universe.

This sounds very much like Ubisoft has had director Mathieu Turi and screenwriter Christie LeBlanc, who also worked on Netflix's Oxygen, craft a story that captures what the Watch Dogs franchise is while being an original narrative in its own right.

The first Watch Dogs takes place entirely in C??hicago and sees protagonist Aiden Pearce take on the company that's established itself as a veritable big brother and all the shady groups working within the system for their own nefarious desires.

In Watch Dogs 2, Marcus Holloway works with DedSec to execute the biggest hack in history in San Fransisco. Watch Dogs: Legion is the bleakest but most compelling setting, a post-Brexit London that's patrol?led by an advanced security force that hits just a bit too close to reality.

Fans loved the Bloodline DLC for Watch Dogs: Legion because it brought original protagonist Aiden Pearce back into the fold. I'd love to see something similar from this movie. An original story set in a city never expl??ored in the franchise before, with interesting characters specific to the movie.

However, I'd also love to have characters from the games make a cameo?? and tie them all together. There's so much to pull from with this IP, but throwing every element together and hoping for greatness won't be enough. The story must enable the tech on show to feel real and craft a world you could reasonably believe is only a few years more advanced than our own. It needs to wow viewers but also scare them.

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The Steam Stealth Fest sale is now live through July 31. In particular, this festival highlights games with sneaking in mind. You'll find discounts aplenty??, as well as some exclusive demos for upcoming games. Steam users interested in stickers can als??o claim a free sticker for every day of the event.

After looking through the sale, there are a ton of Ubisoft games discounted for this event. Pretty much every game in the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Tom Clancy, and Watch Dogs franchises are on sale for 60% off or more. I don't think I've ever quite realized ?just how much Ubisoft likes making stealthy games. Thanks, Steam!

Overall there are some pretty decent sales in here with most discounts being at least 75% off or more. To commemorate the start of the Stealth Fest, Steam has sneakily re??l??eased a trailer for the event.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LzmKFJgwWg

I've gone through and found some of the more nota??ble deals as part of the Steam Steath ??Fest.

Steam Stealth Fest notable sales

• A Plague Tale: Innocenceâ€?$7.99 (80% off)
• Assassin's Creed Odyssey â€?$11.99 (80% off)
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla â€?$14.99 (75% off)
• Batman: Arkham Knight â€?$11.99 (80% off)
• Far Cry 5 â€?$8.99 (85% off)
• Far Cry 6 â€?$14.99 (75% off)
• Generation Zero â€?$7.49 (70% off)
• Hitman 3 â€?$34.99 (50% off)
• Little Nightmares II â€?$9.89 (67% off)
• Sniper Elite 5 â€?$16.99 (66% off)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpointâ€?$11.99 (80% off)
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Reson Wildlands â€?$9.99 (80% off)
• Watch Dogs: Legion â€?$8.99 (85% off)

Even if none of these titles tickle your fancy, there are a ton of games currently on sale for the Steam Stealth Fest. You can view the f??ull list of di??scounted games here.

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Downton Crappy

They're deleting? saves, hard-locking consoles, and blocking progression. It truly is an??archy in the UK.

Watch Dogs: Legion kind of sucks -- a hollow game hamstrung by its insistence that any character can be the main protagonist, and weighed down by a repetitive structure. It's also very broken, as there have been many reports in the month ??following l??aunch of players who simply cannot complete the game thanks to some combination of problems in an impressive array of technical fuckups.

Ubisoft is fixing the issues with singleplayer while putting multiplayer on the backburner. The four-player cooperative mode with new missions, dynamic events, and challenging Tactical Ops missions is no longer arriving on December 3. Ubisoft has pushed it back to "early 2021" while sorting out all the problems Watch Dogs: Legion launched with.

As for the existing problems, there's a patch coming this week that addresses a lot of the major stability issues. Here's the full list. Watch Dogs: Legion will eventually get fixed -- these gigantic triple-A games rarely stay busted forever -- but everyone knows it's pretty unacceptable right now. If you already own Watch Dogs: Legion, no one would ??blame you for Brexiting off to another game while Ubisoft puts ??out all the fires.

Patch Update Regarding Watch Dogs: Legion a??nd Announcement for the Online Mode [Ubisoft]

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London Falling

"This video game is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or any real persons, living is purely coincidental. No organization or govern??ment agency has approved endorsed or authorized the use of their names or logos or product."

For some time now, Ubisoft has opened many of its titles with a disclaimer similar to the one above, often placed front and center each time the game in question loads. While a company wanting to "cover its back" is understandable, it gets harder to swallow said message with each release. Ubisoft is heavily invested in narratives concerning political upheaval, corr?upt governments, class rebellion, and the breakdown of society. But the publisher's persistence in distancing itself from the topics it capitalizes on is getting long in ??the tooth.

Ubisoft's fiction is frequently embedded in recognizable real-world drama. The publisher openly linked Watch Dogs: Legion with Brexit before reiterating that Ubisoft games are "not political." The Division 2 featured war in the streets of Washington. 2018's Far Cry 5 was about doomsday preppers following a false idol, while the upcoming Far Cry 6 concerns a fascist dictatorship on an island off the shores of the United S?tates.

There's nothing wrong with tackling socio-political subjects in any medium - creators can and should when the opportunity arises - but at least own your stake. Telli?ng the audience that your wares "aren't political" doesn't wash when you set your latest adventure in "post-Brexit" Britain, open the story with terroris??t attacks, feature dialogue referencing "fake news" and "social media conspiracies," and then add British xenophobia, a work-shy Prime Minister, and a crumbling NHS to the mix.

When companies take this tack, it comes off as having your cake and eating it too, allowing the product's marketing to bask in th??e headline-grabbing buzz of real-world co?ncerns while not having to actually enter legitimate discourse with those for whom these themes may be disturbingly relevant. Make your point, but also own it. To do otherwise is arguably exploitation.

Watch Dogs: Legion (PS4 [reviewed], PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, Stadia)
Developer: Ubisoft Toronto
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: October 29, 2020
MSRP: $59.99

Watch Dogs: Legion? is the third entry in Ubisoft's high-tech, open-world crime series. The story concerns a London that has become a locked-down surveillance state following a tragic night of terrorist bombings, resulting in much death and destruction across the capital. DedSec - th??e franchise's phone-hacking heroes - have been left holding the bag for this disaster, having been framed by an unknown party known only as "Zero Day."

In the wake of the bombings, the British government has all but abandoned the police force, bringing in paramilitary security firm Albion to handle London's law ??enforcement. In the following months, London does become relatively free of crime, but also free of human liberties. Albion, with its army of surveillance drones, its jack-booted soldiers, and its propensity for violence, rules over London with a fascist fist. It's up to the hackers of DedSec - now deeper underground than ever before - to rally the people and bring about freedom, one terabyte at a time.

As a narrative concept, Legion sets the stage for an exciting, state-smashing rebellion. Outmanned and outgunned, our ragtag revolutions must use their wits, cunning and technical prowess to research their enemies and bring them down from within, toppling the government and its skull-cracking rent-a-cops using brains over brawn. But in reality, Legion translates this "Vive? La Revolution" spirit into hour??s of relatively choresome missions, with almost all falling into a formula of Infiltrate, Hack, and Escape.

While the narrative persists in telling you that you're being the Trojan Horse that's bringing down a regime, it's hard to feel like 007 when you're repeatedly driving to locations, meeting a dude, driving somewhere else, opening a few doors, and hacking a terminal. While Legion is certainly peppered with its fair share of vehicular mayhem and head-popping gunfights, for the most part the campaign consists of a queue of mundane missions, often leaving the player feeling like they're performing odd-jobs rather than taking down a dangerous dystopia. On a mission-by-mission basis, Legion is... fine, but it's startling just how quickly gameplay becomes stagnant. The very first mission, before the credits have even rolled, is a "hold off enemy waves while a hack takes pla?ce" set-piece, setting the tone for the fami??liarity ahead.

The fresh element that Legion brings to the party - as its title suggests - is the concept of playing as a gathering of mismatched rebels, rather than a singular protagonist. Players seek out recruits to the cause while traversing the streets. Simply find a disfranchised Londoner, perform a short mission for them, and you have another DedSeccer on your squad. Each character brings their own set of skills to the urban war - perhaps they have access to certain weaponry, or a special drone, maybe they have legal skills to free your jailed teammates, or are a bit handy with the ol' one-two. Legion's hook lies in the player building a bespoke party of operatives to ensure that, as a collective, DedSec has the sk??ills on deck to tackle any situation.

It's a solid concept, but unfortunately, the idea promises more than it delivers. For the most part, save for a few specific technical traits, very few revolutionaries are required in DedSec's efforts to liberate London. A team of unique protagonists with individual abilities, skills, and perks is a great, Mission: Impossible-type idea??, but in reality, the gimmick is mostly superfluous. Almost e?veryone you bag is, ultimately, more than capable of dealing with the majority of encounters.

Ironically, the lack of a true "lead" actually hurts Legion's immersion. Despite his iconic hat, Aiden Pearce was an insufferable bore, but stripped of the charisma of characters such as Watch Dogs 2's Marcus Holloway and his hipster kidz, Legion leaves us with a band of mostly interchangeable nobodies. This often leaves player characters feeling hollow and NPC-like, rather than a passionate posse of freedom f?ighters. Case in point: the first character to draw any real emotion from me was a sad, broken Spiderbot, still trying its very best to be useful despite its pitiful state. Godspeed, little Spid?erbot.

This dissonance affects Legion's campaign in multiple ways. Everybody had a chuckle at the "spy granny" trailer - sure - but in reality, this party rarely feels like an undercover, state-breaking unit. I was able to play half the game as a lofty, high society woman - Ascot hat, lace gloves, heels, the works - who I'm supposed to buy is also a stunt driving specialist, an expert gunslinger, and can take down waves of special force??s agents in hand-to-hand combat like she's Amanda Nunes.

It's a juxtaposition that Legion struggles with for its duration. One minute you're being told immigrants are being kidnapped and butchered for their organs, and the next Miss Money-Sterling and her Chanel suit just won a pit-fighting tournament on the dark web. Titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Saint's Row get away with blending their dark violence with off-the-wall wackiness due to their satirical, stylized worlds. But Watch Dogs' narrative is so grim and po-faced, rolling out theme??s of police brutality, human trafficking, terrorist atrocities, and political fascism, that it doesn't earn the same tonal conflict.

Where Watch Dogs: Legion does put one in the net, however, is in the incredible work done in recreating The Big Smoke. The London of Legion is stunningly authentic and brilliantly detailed, from the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus and the pomp of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben to the grimier underbelly rarely shown when U.S. sitcoms do an obligatory vacation episode. The developers have done an amazing job in replicating the bustling metropolis of modern London, tweaking it just enough to make the city feel that little bit more dangerous - a nightmarish vision that feels d??epressingly ??plausible.

Equally as effective are Legion's visual effects, featuring some of the best color, lighting, shadow, and weather effects we've seen in an open-world title since Batman: Arkham Knight. The Watch Dogs: Legion vista more than holds its own against the impending next-generation in both shine and scale. By comparison, the city's inhabitants are a little rougher around the edges visually - and feature a wide spectrum of voice-acting ranging from s?olid to hilarious. At one point I had a construction worker on my squad with the face of a 30-year-old but the voice of an 80-year-old.

Legion ran acceptably on PS4 Pro but was? still fettered with small, irritating bugs. While the reported save corruption and Xbox-bricking flaws have now apparently been fixed, I still encountered multiple issues. These include unresponsive button prompts, missions failing to trigge??r/end, two full crashes, and endless NPC oddities, such as a screaming woman having a fight in the street with nobody... Come to think of it, maybe that just added to the city's overall authenticity.

Watch Dogs: Legion certainly isn't a bad game by any stretch, but rarely is it engaging, and it is hardly ever simply "fun." Despite its multi-man concepts and intriguing narrative, Legion slots into the Ubisoft oeuvre of sequels, bringing little new to the table and feeling repetitious a mere third into its 20-30 hour run-time. Watch Dogs: Legion is as serviceable as a-n-other open-world crime sim, only really hitting highs when the pl??ayer steps away from the main thread to spread a little extra-curricu??lar chaos.

As a new generation of gaming dawns, one can't help but wonder what Ubisoft has planned for its flagship franchises. It appears that the Rainbow Six team is already taking initiative and switching things up with the upcoming Rainbow Six: Quarantine. But what of the Assassin's Creeds, Far Crys, and Watch Dogs of the world? In the latter's ca??se, it feels like the well is running dry, and if D?edSec are intent on Hacking the Planet into the next decade, then they might need to download some new tricks.

For all its themes of rule-breaking anarchy, Watch Dogs: Legion toes the line as a formulaic, though ambitious, open-world adventure. While it boasts one of the most visually exciting and stunningly authentic locales in the genre's history, Watch Dogs: Legion's gameplay is mechanical, over-familiar, and repetitive, struggling to capture the e?xciting promise of a fist-pumping, system-smashing revolution.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Dolly Dearest

Last week saw the UK enter government-mandated lockdown once again, as the nation severely struggles to subdue the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. T??he lockdown led to a spike in video game sales, as UK citizens prepared to spend several more weeks indoors.

Overall, the boost in physical purchases didn't make a world of difference to the UK Charts, which sees Electronic Arts' football simulator FIFA 21 retain the number one spot for a fifth consecutive week. Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons managed to clamber back up to number two, pushing out Ubisoft's open-world adventure Watch Dogs: Legion, which? appears to have peaked - at leas??t physically - after just one week of release.

Animal Crossing is not the only Nintendo brand to appear in the Top Ten, as veteran entries Super Mario 8 Deluxe, Ring Fit Adventure, Super Mario 3D All-Stars all continue to shift copies on a week-by-week basis. Perhaps the only real news of note this week is the debut of L.O.L Surprise! Remix: We Rule the World, with the mega-popular gacha doll br?and poking its wide-??ass head into the premier league.

This is the final UK Chart listing of the current generation. While physical PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One titles will continue to sell way into the foreseeable future and beyond,?? the PS5 and Xbox Series X platforms are expected to raise the bar on digital purchases.

U.K. video game sales chart w/e: November 7, 2020
(Chart reflects in-store physical sales only)

1. FIFA 21 - Electronic Arts
2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Nintendo
3. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Nintendo
4. Watch Dogs: Legion - Ubisoft
5. Minecraft - Nintendo
6. Super Mario 3D All-Stars - Nintendo
7. Ring Fit Adventure - Nintendo
8. Minecraft Dungeons - Nintendo
9. Grand Theft Auto V - Take-Two Interactive
10. L.O.L. Surprise! Remix: We Rule the World  - Nighthawk Interactive

U.K. video game charts [GamesIndustry.biz]

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A new era approaches

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that, somehow, the weeks of the horrorscape that is 2020 are getting faster and faster. Events that once seemed set in the future are upon us, impending, or passed entirely. It feels as if the year has flown by ?and, as we head into November, a new era of video gaming beckons. None of us really know when Real Life will return to normal, (or "The New Normal"), but just continue to be your very best self, look after those around you, and support those that may not be doing as well. Things will improve and a lot of us are handling this unprecedented y??ear better than we give ourselves credit for.

This week was a bit of a disaster for me, game-wise. A couple of blinding migraines put me off excess screen-staring for a couple of days, then my PS4 - a launch model - finally bit the dust while trying to eek out Ubisoft's Watch Dogs: Legion. This required me to purchase another PS4, just a fortnight before the PS5 drops. Beggars belief. As for DedSec's adventures in old London town, keep your eyes peeled for a revi??ew very soon. Oh, it was also my birthday, which saw me enter a new decade. I hope it's a good one.

Hope y'all have had a good week, and have been successful in finding hours of great digital entertainment. This is your time to shine, as always, so jump into the comme?nts belo??w and let us know what games have taken your fancy this week. There are no rules, (there are some rules), but spill the beans on the old, the new, the great, the bad, and everything in between. We love hearing what you've all been up to.

Have a safe ?and pleasant weekend, from all of us at Destructoid.

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New releases fail to crack the physical Number 1 spot

Despite the launch of three brand new titles, Electronic Arts' football sim FIFA 21 h??as managed to retain the top spot of this week's UK Charts, at least as it applies to physical sales.

Ubisoft's open-world sequel Watch Dogs: Legion, Nintendo remake Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Bandai Namco's horror title Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope all debuted? in the Top Ten, but failed to secure the number one spot, landing at numbers two, seven, and nine respectively. Of course, with the ever-increasing shi?ft to digital sales, the digital charts may tell a different story.

Next week sees the start of the next generation of video gaming, a generation that will likely see digital sales further supersede physical sales. While there will always be a market for physical games? sales, via online retailers and the high street, recent years have seen a constant and undeniable market shift towards digital downloads, whic??h is very unlikely to halt anytime soon.

U.K. video game sales chart w/e: October 31, 2020
(Chart reflects in-store physical sales only)

1. FIFA 21 - Electronic Arts
2. Watch Dogs: Legion - Ubisoft
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Nintendo
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Nintendo
5. Minecraft - Nintendo
6. Super Mario 3D All-Stars - Nintendo
7. Pikmin 3 Deluxe - Nintendo
8. Ring Fit Adventure - Nintendo
9. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope - Bandai Namco
10. Minecraft Dungeons - Nintendo

U.K. video game charts [GamesIndustry.biz]

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London Calling

Are the nights drawing in faster in your neck of the woods? Here in the U.K. we have put the clock backs, which lead to dark mornings and darker evenings. This can be tough on the old noodle, and I've found myself losing balance on numerous occasions this week. But I have a few good friends - both here on site and in real life - and they have done their best to keep me on an even keel... well, as even as pos??sible.

As we enter November and the dawning of a brand new gaming generation, I hope that y?ou and yours and handling the tail-end of 2020 well. Stay well-fed, warm, hydrated, and entertained, and be sure to engage w??ith friends and loved ones, keeping everyone's spirits high even when the temperatures are getting a little low. Also, wear thermal underwear, like in old cartoons, that should do the trick.

Oh yeah, right, video games. This week I have been playing two titles for review, D3 Publisher's Onee Chanbara Origin, and Ubisoft's Watch Dogs: Legion. Look out for my thoughts on both of these tit?les soon. But before then, dive into the comments below and fill us in on the games you've been playing this week. This is one of my favourit??e articles of the week, as well as one of Destructoid's most consistently popular, so let's keep the party going!

Have a safe and pleasant weekend, from all ?of us at Destructoid.

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SvS (Spider versus Spider)

There are about a dozen possible takeaways from Ubisoft announcing Watch Dogs: Legion's post-launch content plans. Maybe you'd like to focus o?n the fact that some is free and some is paid-for. Or, you might zero in on the fact that the protagonists from the first two games show up in the story DLC.

Me? I'd like to shine that spotlight on the unlicensed BattleBots multiplayer mode.

Soon after launch, Watch Dogs: Legion is getting a PvP mode called Spider-Bot Arena. It's an eight-p?layer deathmatch where everyone takes control of a mechanical arachnid. Hop, shoot, and destroy. W?hat a tangled web we weave.

That's just one r?eveal in this very detailed video. Let's tackle the rest in bullet-point style:

Free updates:

• Online open-world four-player co-op is coming on December 3, five weeks after the game first launches on October 29. This update will include new co-op missions and dynamic events. Tactical ops will be the most challenging cooperative missions, as they seem designed to function like raids.
• The aforesaid Spider-Bot Arena also appears to be part of the December 3 update.
• Invasion mode is coming back, which is a mode where you invade and hack other players' games.
• Ubisoft says more new game modes are planned but weren't detailed in the video.
• There are also new characters with new abilities, new missions, and new game-plus in the pipeline as free content.

Paid content:

• To the surprise of absolutely nobody, there's a season pass.
• The first expansion, titled Watch Dogs: Legion Bloodline, features a grizzled Aiden Pearce and Wrench from Watch Dogs 2. Bloodline promises "new storyline, new progression, and unique gameplay abilities."
• Season pass owners get access to four additional hero characters: Aiden Pearce, Wrench, Mina (a human test subject with mind control powers), and Darcy (a member of the Assassin Brotherhood because crossovers sell).
• The season pass also comes with: three additional DedSec story missions, an exclusive car skin, and a digital copy of Watch Dogs: Complete Edition. They kinda just snuck that last one in there.

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Where's the killer gramma?

Today on the Ubisoft Forward livestream, the publisher gave us another glimpse at Watch Dogs: Legion while completely sidestepping their ??current from-the-top-down executive meltdown (maybe they'll address it later?). Oh, and kic??king off your stream wit??h a misuse of a Holocaust poem which can only amount to a yikes from me dog.

You can watch the "gameplay overvie??w trailer" below,  which shows a lot of stuff we already knew and has taken up roughly 15 minutes of this stream. It's out on October 29 of this year, and coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X at some point.

#BringBackAishaTyler pretty much sums up my thoughts on Ubisoft Forward thus f??ar.

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We almost never had Helen

In today's episode of Impulse, I'm joined once again by my good friend Sam Mui from over at Infinite Backlog to discuss what we took away from the Watch Dogs: Legion developer panel and demo that was showcased at EGLX 2019. From delv??ing into the “play as anyone” hook of the game and discussing permadeath to even learning more about the open-world near-future take on London.

Note that trailer footage was used for the making of this video and keep in mind everything shown so far is still from an alpha build of the game. Watch Dogs: Legion will be releasing in 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox?? One, and Google Stadi??a.

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Overpopulated

Ubisoft's approach to game design for the past decade can most succinctly be summed up as "more is better." More content, more open world, more everything. Sometimes it works out, like with Assassin's Creed Odyssey -- a game that felt justi??fi?ably big. Other times, it's bloat for bloat's sake.

With Watch Dogs: Legion, Ubisoft attempts its m?ore ambitious angle yet: Turn every NPC into a protagonist. I've seen it first-hand. I know it works. But, I'm n?ot convinced it's a good idea.

Things have gone to hell in a handbasket. London is facing its downfall, society is on the brink of collapse, and an authoritarian re?gime rules over everyone. It's bleak. A collective of protesters in a rundown camp are do?ing their best to fight fascism. They don't seem to be making much progress.

There's a less vocal sect doing more damage. DedSec, a group of hacktivists, are using their tech savvy to fight corruption and power. They're destabilizing and dismantling this surveillance state in hopes of giving the common citizen a normal life again. It's Robin Hood by way of Orwell.

In Watch Dogs: Legion, DedSec is, in theory, made up of anyone. Any NPC can be recruited off the streets to join your cause. Everyone ha??s a procedurally-generated backstory, and it usu?ally fixates on some sort of frustration in their life. Maybe they're swimming in bills. Maybe someone's blackmailing them.

Getting them on DedSec's side is as simple as giving them a little help. Go erase their debts or the blackmail materials. It's probably a quick infiltration mission, and you can exponentially improve their lives. More importan??t to our cause, you can expand the DedSec roster.

After bringing someone onboard, they can be outfitted as one of Watch Dogs: Legion's three classes: Enforcer, Hacker, or Infiltrator. They all have their own approach. Enforcers are brutish, relying on heavy weapons and explosive rounds to get the job done. Infiltrators are stealth-?focused, using cloaks and quiet melee to gain access. Hackers use machines, like a crawling spider drone, while controlling everything from a distance.

Additionally, every NPC has their own special stats that might lend a?n edge. For instance, someone's profile might state that they offer +50% non-lethal damage and ??40% longer arrest times. We talked to a Ubisoft representative who confirmed that there isn't really a "god roll" NPC, so to speak; all characters are pretty balanced, and none of them are blatantly overpowered.

Watch Dogs: Legion's developers might be most proud of the permadeath system. After taking enough damage, a prompt pops up asking if you'd like to surrender or keep fighting.? Surrender and that charac?ter goes to the police station, locked away for a while and inaccessible. Keep fighting and you're given a second chance to flee. Fail again and that character is dead for good.

But, in a world where anyone can be your minion, what does one pawn matter? It doesn't seem as if there will be much emotional effect to losing one DedSec member. They level up individually, so you'd probably rather not lose a well-skilled character. In the end, it doesn't really matter. Swap to someone else, carry on like nothing happened. If Watch Dogs: Legion boasts that it has functionally-infinite protagonists, why should we feel an attachment to any one person? They're intercha??ngeable. They're cogs.

Besides, to get the full effect of Watch Dogs: Legion, it seems as if you only need three protagonists -- one to play the role of each class. Then you could write some real stories for these people. As is, it's a bunch of blank slates. In wanting everything, we're sacrificing any semblance of character development. There are five different storylines based on thematic pillars (police state, impact of technology, etc.) and they'll have to do the heavy lifting as far as the narrative is conce?rned.

The near-hour I played Watch Dogs: Legion convinced me that it??'ll be another stylish tech-forward game with plenty of opportunity to approach a problem from multiple angles?. However, it also convinced me that it doesn't need infinite protagonists. One or two or even three would've worked just fine. Given London's entire population at your disposal, chances are you won't find yourself caring about anyone.

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Yeah, that joke's a bit old now, I hear ya

Ubisoft has revealed the contents of an upcoming collector's edition for their not-political open-world adventure Watch Dogs: Legion??. Dedicated anarchists can plonk down almost $200 to bag themselves this par?ticular iteration of the upcoming vigilante adventure.

The Watch Dogs: Legion Collector's Edition will include a copy of the game itself in an exclusive steelbook casing, a set of stickers, a ??double-sided "propaganda" poster and, the centrepiece of this whole shebang, a Lighting DED Coronet mask, which features a colourful neon design and e??ven an animated display, which runs off of a pair of AA batteries. This edition also includes the game's season pass and offers buyers three day early access.

The Watch Dogs: Legion Collector's Edition is available to pre-order on all formats over at the official Ubisoft store. Our own Brett Makedonski got to stomp around a build of the game itself last week, which you can read all about right here.

Watch Dogs: Legion launches Mar??ch 6 2020 on PS4, PC, Xbox One and Stadia.

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'Play as anyone'

The twist got out ahead of E3, but seeing it in action is another thing. Watch Dogs: Legion lets you play as numerous characters. Spot 'em around town, pull up info on their specialties, and recruit them as a DedSec operative, and level them up to make the most of their perks. The idea is to build a resistance on the ground i?n London "one recru??it at a time," and yes, that even includes hacker grandmas.

Ubisoft demoed Watch Dogs: Legion during its E3 press conference, and the highlight, by far, was a spider-drone-controlling grandma. After Far Cry New Dawn, I'm sensing a trend here, people. I want to find her,? play her origin mission, and add her to my roster and ??never, ever let her die.

On that note, permadeath – it's a factor.

The plot centers around a surveillance state, private militaries, and a crime syndicate. Tonally, it seems to be more of the same from Ubisoft, if you catch my drift. (Not that any of us were expecting otherwise.) That said, Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory), is a pleasant surprise.

Watch Dogs: Legion is out March 6, 2020 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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