Watch Dogs: Legion Review - No you can't hack Big Ben.

By Sam Coles:

Watch Dogs is a franchise that had a rather rocky start to say the least, with its first reveal of the original game back at E3 2012 (god I feel old) showing off some amazing graphics where we were presented with a  game that was still good looking but lacking certain details. Fast forward to 2020 and I honestly feel that the franchise has finally found its footing, balancing its tone with serious and comedic fun. Welcome to London and this is Watch Dogs Legion.

Watch Dogs Legion takes place in modern day London were a rogue hacker group called Zero Day have caused a series of explosions across the city, where they frame Dedsec another nobler hacker group for the event. UK government sees no other option so they hire the not so subtly named Albion private security firm, to patrol the streets of London with their drones, identity scanning checkpoints and armed guards basically putting London under martial law. The story is rather entertaining it can be fun but is not afraid to go into more darker subjects, such as human trafficking and the fine line between humanity and tech as they try to merge dead people’s mind with artificial intelligence (yes really). It knows when to present serious subjects, but at the same time knows when to bring a certain amount of levity.

Gameplay is similar to the first two where it takes inspiration from the Grand Theft Auto series, where you can hijack cars and assault the local law enforcement but with a hacker twist. However this time you no longer follow a singular protagonist as there isn’t one, but instead you take control of several randomised NPCs across the British capital. So there is no central protagonist as Dedsec themselves act as the main characters, where you take control of London one region at a time. It kind of reminds me of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate where you take over London region by region, although this game doesn’t have the laborious street gang fights.

 

In each mission the game this time compared to the first two does encourage a non-lethal approach, as this is London most NPCs don’t tend to carry guns as they are somewhat of a rarity in the UK. Anyway the game lets you scope out the fourth coming area with cameras, cute spider drones, delivery drones as well as body cams. Plus this gives you the chance to mess with the enemy as you can make cars drive themselves, explode barrels, send lewd text messages to distract them or make their technology malfunction and shock them. It gives you a huge amount of tools to utilise without killing anyone, and ultimately feels more satisfying sneaking in, getting the info you need and slipping away like the ghostly hacker you are.

Not to say that you can’t go loud and cause chaos across the London Town, which you can and is it rather fun to get into trouble with local law enforcement especially when playing as an old lady. It is always hilarious seeing an old lady deck a police officer or doing a stealth takedown on an Albion operative, it’s like she is finally taking her frustration out on the youth.

Driving feels good not realistic by any means but it feels fantastic as you nail it around the corner at 90 degrees, where you then tail whip someone with your rear end. I am rather mean in this game so I get endless joy hitting people off their motorcycles, it’s like a moth to a flame I’m instantly drawn to it and no I’m not a dangerous person honest.

Visually the game looks great in terms of its environments and main characters, the streets of London have been recreated beautifully coupled with the slick rain effects on a stormy day. Main characters look really good with excellent attention to detail, however I cannot say the same for the NPCs you will be taking control of. The randomise characters do not look that great, they look washed out and something I would have seen on a mid-gen Xbox 360 game they are not appealing to look at all. Now this is to be expected as you can’t expect every character in the streets to have exquisite detail, no that would be an unrealistic expectation. However it does leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth as they are the characters you are controlling for the majority of the game.

Other issues mostly stem from performance and picture quality, now to preface this part I was playing this on an Xbox One not S or X the old VCR player as some have nicknamed. The game has performance issues on this platform as it seems to be pushing the limits of the system, the game tries to runs at 30 frames per second and it succeeds for the most part. However when things get busy with explosions during firefights, things start to lag and stutter like me after a few drinks and it can be hard on the eyes. Screen tearing is also an issue on this platform, but to be honest this seems to be an issue with Ubisoft games in general and not just this generation of consoles.

Overall Watch Dogs Legion is an enjoyable game, it seems Ubisoft have finally found their feet with the series with both gameplay and tone with its narrative. Exploring the city of London is a joy, coupled with the fun and chaotic gameplay. Yes it does have its issues on the Xbox One (have no say about PS4), but what is here is a fun and entertaining experience.