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‘Watch Dogs’ as presented by Ubisoft at E3

They kept it a secret until some days ago. I am not closely following the coverage of this year’s E3, but from what I read it seems that a lot of the major players in the industry put some disappointing shows on the floor. Not so Ubisoft—here I have to admit that since Far Cry 2 I am a regular fanboy—they stunned the audience by presenting Watch Dogs,’ which is heavily cyberpunk-drenched, truly just twenty minutes into the future, at the most. Gamezone was the first to sum the available information up, but meanwhile Wikipedia has a fine summing-up of gameplay and plot, as far as we know about it today:

The main gameplay mechanic of Watch Dogs is the use of hacking and surveillance—as the game’s protagonist Aiden Pierce can use any device tied to the city’s computer system as a weapon against it. During the gameplay demonstration, Aiden is seen jamming cellphones to serve as a distraction as he enters a vanity art exhibit, tapping a phone call to retrieve information about his target, and manipulating traffic lights to cause a large pileup designed to trap the target and his thugs. The player can also access information from the ctOS on the NPCs they encounter, including information on demographics, health, and their probability of violence. Combat utilizes a combination of stealth components, along with the mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter. The E3 demo also demonstrated co-op play, as focus shifted to a second character referred to as ”Bixxel_44″ (controlled by another player) following Aiden’s successful murder, who was given orders to protect Aiden by intercepting the police trying to catch him.
    The storyline of Watch Dogs is built around the concept of Information warfare, data being interconnected, and the world’s increasing use of technology—questioning who exactly runs the computers they depend on. Set in a version of Chicago, Illinois simply referred to as just the “Windy City”, it is one of many cities to feature a supercomputer known as a “ctOS” (Central Operating System). The system controls almost every piece of technology in the city, and contains information on all of the city’s residents and activities which can be used for various purposes. The game will follow an anti-hero named Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled hacker described as a person who uses both “fists and wits.” The gameplay demo shown at E3 centered on Aiden’s attempt to assassinate a media mogul named Joesph DeMarco, who had been wrongly acquitted on charges of murder.

So, rumour has it that ‘Watch Dogs’ is multiplayer and it may feature an ARG-like component via an iPad app. After you’ve seen the official trailer above, delivering the background history, here’s the actual gameplay:

  • 風露 Friday, 8th June 2012 at 15:18

    This sounds really good. I’m curios to see the final product, respectively its copy protection :D

    • zephyrin_xirdal Saturday, 9th June 2012 at 13:23

      Ha ha ha—you’re the second one in two days who, after I mentioned Ubisoft, immediately had the DRM-association. The really bad thing was with ‘Assassin’s Creed II,’ wasn’t it? Astounding how long-lasting a company, which otherwise shells out top-notch products, can harm its own reputation.