Games

Here’s what’s new with Watch Dogs 2

This open-world game is still in alpha, but we got a sneak peek and spoke to its senior producer.
By Stephen Farrelly
6 min readPublished on
Enter the hackers' world

Enter the hackers' world

© Ubisoft

Watch Dogs’ debut was one of those surprises no one saw coming. It promised an experience far beyond what we’d had with the likes of Grand Theft Auto as far as open-world games are concerned, and it looked stunning. While the industry was on the cusp of a generation changeover, Watch Dogs stood up as its posterchild for potential.
Much has been written and spoken about since the game proper was released. It might not have delivered on that potential, but the game was still a proof of concept and it became the first chapter in what may well be a long-standing franchise. Which brings us to Watch Dogs 2, a sequel that promises to fully deliver on its potential while remaining true to the foundation and formula of the first game.
That formula is essentially built around hacking, which you utilise for chaos in the open world. In this respect, Watch Dogs 2 follows its predecessor closely. There are new ways to hack, along with new hackable items and more, but fundamentally this is the basic carryover from the first Watch Dogs.
But how does Watch Dogs 2 take the series forward? Well, for one, we’re in a brand-new city with an all-new protagonist, and he’s not a cold-blooded vigilante.
“In Watch Dogs 1, if you didn’t want to play lethally it would become a problem at some point, but in Watch Dogs 2 we tried to move away from that,” explains the game's Senior Producer, Dominic Guay. “The [main] character Marcus, he’s not really a character who goes and shoots everybody, but the player can make the decision between how Marcus would play and how the player wants to play.”  
This city is full of things to do

This city is full of things to do

© Ubisoft

It might seem trivial on the surface, but the simple notion of allowing players to decide on their approach from a passive or aggressive standpoint is actually pretty huge. Mirror’s Edge was one of the first major Triple-A titles to offer a non-lethal path for players, and achieving that by the end of the game was actually far more difficult than just knocking the enemy off. The same applies here for Watch Dogs 2, but it turns out there’s a contextual reason for Marcus’ option for not being a cold-blooded vigilante.
“It started with our research in the [San Francisco] Bay Area and we were trying to get a character that reflected the setting we chose,” says Guay. “So look at Oakland – there’s a big African-American community there, it’s a big part of that city, and then you look at San Francisco and you have kind of that free spirit [vibe], and then you have Silicon Valley which is full of the innovative people there, so we thought we’d take those things and put them into one character. That’s Marcus.
“And because we’re creating a game that’s also about fighting against a corrupt establishment, we thought his perspective on it would be super-interesting,” says Guay. “His background is that he was profiled, and because he’s got a tech background and he’s done some forms of hacking he was unjustly profiled by the ctOS as being responsible for a crime he didn’t commit.”
There’s a refreshing element to this that might be slightly on-the-nose for some, but for others it might be completely relatable. Marcus doesn’t have a violent background, and he’s a part of the quasi-genius Silicon Valley scene -- he’s a hipster hacker, if you will, and colourfully represents that life in San Francisco. In fact, he’s one of two main characters in the game, the other is your stomping ground -- an incredible recreation of the Bay Area which includes San Francisco, Oakland and Marin County. They’ve even included Alcatraz in the game.
Can we feed them? Or hack them?

Can we feed them? Or hack them?

© Ubisoft

“One of the things that brought us to San Francisco, beyond just Silicon Valley, is the fact that there’s a lot of diversity in that area,” Guay tells us of how the team landed on SFO as its playspace. “From the natural preserve of Marin County, which is just on the other side of the Golden Gate [bridge], and then you have San Francisco itself which, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, is just so different with really different vibes.
“Chicago [the first game’s setting] has less of that. I mean firstly, it’s just flatter and it’s more homogenous whereas [San Francisco] has a lot more diversity and we’re really playing to that as a strength.”
In a short hands-on with the game, it was the recreation of San Francisco that stood out to us the most. Everything looked perfectly in place and we know the first thing we’ll be doing is trying to swim from Alcatraz to dry land. The city itself is also alive with life, and the varying actions of NPCs was also another standout – each going about routines and digital lives as if the setting were real. You can profile them again and learn their darkest secrets for exploitation, and bring some of them to sweet justice.  Remote controlling devices and vehicles was another standout, and you can even now hack cars, which proved troublesome for us (we accidentally ran a few Peds over). Sometime later, an ambulance showed up to tend to the wounded of our wayward remote drive, which also meant we could take the ambo, if we wanted to. The possibilities, from simple, emergent actions appear far more dynamic and open this time around, and it’s another aspect that has us excited to know more.
The iconic bridge is brought to life

The iconic bridge is brought to life

© Ubisoft

There’s also more emergent play by way of a new co-op system that allows you to instantly join a friend’s game, or allow a stranger to join yours. In fact, you’ll actually see other players in your game, and this time it’s not for the game hacking competitive mode, though Guay confirmed that is also still a multiplayer option.
“The first thing we said is anything that is not seamless, we cut it out,” he says. “We want to be fresh in what we offer online and we always bring it back into the natural action-adventure experience. So we cut everything that was more of a mode, and we’ve [now] got only seamless experiences.
“We’re bringing back the hacking invasion system and it’s evolving naturally, with a lot of new tools we added to the game, and we have other seamless PvP we’re going to be talking about later on,” he adds. “It’s just fun to play in a sandbox game with friends. But even if you’re not playing co-op, you’re going through the world and you’re going to see other players. That actually has a lot of surprises and [creates] a lot of emergent play – not coded or scripted events. The presence of another player in the world creates a surprise.”
For us it was a nice surprise to see the game, which is still in alpha, looking and playing so well. It’s always difficult to gauge the depth and gameplay breadth of open-world games, especially as they’re now so mature in design. But Watch Dogs 2 is looking mighty fine, and we can’t wait to hack into some more of the game in the future.
Watch Dogs 2 is due November 15 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
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