Random Video Game Review - Watch_Dogs: Legion

 

It's strange to think that when this first came out, many believed it to be what Britain could look like post-Brexit. Then came the coronavirus, and now I'm not so sure what to think about the setting. Sure, it may as well be what the future looks like in a few years from now, but as with most things, it's not set into motion. Been a long time since I last played a Watch_Dogs game, and I've always enjoyed them for the whole idea of hacking things in a game that is on par with the other Ubisoft open world franchises, Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. This third game looks like it wants to change everything, so let's take a look:

Set in a near future looking London, DedSec's London branch detects armed intruders planning to blow up the Houses of Parliament. A DedSec agent called Dalton Wolfe (voiced by Warren Brown) is sent to defuse the bombs, but despite being successful, he gets gunned down by a mysterious group called Zero Day who then go about bombing other key buildings in London. With the city blaming DedSec for the crisis, the London branch leader Sabine (voiced by Olivia Morgan) is forced to move out of the city and shut down the AI called Bagley (voiced by Pascal Langdale). Months later, London has become a surveillance state thanks to an organization called Albion which causes consistent social and political unrest in the city. This means that DedSec must return with an army if they are to free London from this mess. Like the last two games, this one is also open world from a third-person perspective with parkour moves and ways of getting around London. The game has a wide variety of missions that largely involve recruiting new agents to DedSec (each with their own unique set of skills) and slowly but steadily retake the city. The game is played in a non-linear way, which allows some freedom in terms of what you can do and in which order to do things in. This also applies to each mission, in which you can do them in whatever way you fancy, whether it be all guns blazing or a more stealthy approach. Of course there is the hacking approach because well this is a game where that is its main selling point. Something that is played out much better this time around is combat which can be guns or hand-to-hand and honestly, it looks much better than before. As I mentioned earlier, DedSec needs an army, which means that for the first time in this series, you can play as anyone. You initially start with three people at first, but more become part of DedSec over time through various missions. But be warned, if certain elements are enabled, each character can and will die and can't be used from that point on. So always make sure you have plenty of agents on hand.

While the idea of training up each agent you recruit may sound frustrating, there is the reward that you can save them for a particular mission. As the third and most ambitious game so far in the series, it's alright. London is a great open world and one that Ubisoft have used once before, though the scenario does sound similar to the other game where London was used (that being Assassin's Creed: Syndicate). It's not the most perfect of games given the nature of the franchise, but it's great that Ubisoft gave us this game not just to keep the franchise alive, but to give us a possible idea of what the near future could look like. Some more work could have been done to make this game less frustrating, but for what it is, it's alright. Not quite as good as previous games, but not too bad. 8/10