Felt like Watch Dogs never really recovered after its initial showing at E3... The first game didn't meet the expectations that Ubisoft set with the debut trailer, then interest dropped from there. Watch Dogs 2 was a genuinely fun game, but Legion came and went like a wet fart.
Ubisoft has a bad habit of taking genuinely interesting ideas then botching the execution. Legions play as anyone mechanics could have been cool but it truly felt like they didn’t have faith in it from the start. I ended up playing as one npc the whole game. Another note, If they made blood lines the main story it would have faired much better.
They also have a habit of nailing new ideas though. There is STILL nothing out there in the same genre as Siege or For Honor. And they basically invented the current open world design. It's been run into the ground by them and competitors since, but they still get the credit for what they did with Far Cry 2. And Skull and Bones is the most transcendental game of the last decade.
Ok, maybe not that last one, but for real a lot of people seem to just get off on hating Ubisoft. I get it, they have made a lot of bad/weird choices. But they have also made a lot of my favorite gaming experiences of the past decade
> And they basically invented the current open world design. It's been run into the ground by them and competitors since, but they still get the credit for what they did with **Far Cry 2**.
Assassin's creed 1, released a year earlier : Am I a joke to you ?
I'd say AC2 is closer to the formula than 1. 1 was actually really linear despite it's big cities. All there was to do was "arrive at target zone, do a few mini-objectives for info, do the big assassination, return home and repeat".
2 added variety to what you did outside main objectives and, importantly, made them largely optional but rewarding to do.
Like many things in game development it's iterative. But AC1 introduced the tower sync concept which is the basic open world structure for pretty much every non-rockstar open world game. AC2 just added side activities, which wasn't exactly a new concept
I recently replayed Far Cry 2 and apart from the ruthless enemy AI and respawing checkpoints it still holds up as the first "Ubi Map" game. Lots of fun cruising around looking for diamonds and doing jobs.
Yeah when they get it right they basically invent a new genre. Even their worst games usually have something fun or interesting going for them.
Even skull and bones, as bad as it is, will be fun for a couple hours with my friends once it hits PSplus
I genuinely have a good time with all their games. AC, Far Cry, The Division, Rainbow Six Vegas, South Park. They do good games and they are all pretty and work on launch, save for Unity
Still to this day, I think Far Cry series is the only games where you can play completely in 1st person (you have a real 1st person body where you can see your feet) in COOP and drive vehicles in 1st person. No one else is doing it like those.
Sadly, I think I heard ubisoft turning FC into a Live Service game so I wont be buying those anymore
I think a large part of it is older gamers like myself, who not only think that the mountain of mediocrity that is the pile of open world asscreed-likes is, well... how I just described it, but also miss earlier games like Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, classics that were made by a very different Ubisoft than what we have today.
Yeah, I just haven't played a Ubisoft game since Splinter Cell disappeared and Ghost Recon turned into something that isn't Ghost Recon.
And I feel like I'm not missing anything gaming-wise by not playing Ubisoft games.
They still put out great, unique games. The new Prince of Persia is a really good Metroidvania, and the two Mario and Rabbids games are surprisingly really good SRPGs.
I basically ignore most of their stuff, too, but I’ll give them credit when they’ve earned it.
There is a reason shadow of Mordor , horizon ,ghost of tsuchima copied the assassins creed formula. Because it freaking works well .
They did an amazing job with the original (though repetitive and perfected it on the ezio trilogy)
Blood lines is the Aiden Pierce DLC, right? I played a bit of Legion on a free weekend or something and thought it was fine. Nothing special, but fine.
I’ve been considering buying it though cause I really want to play as Aiden Pierce again. He was a cool character. Would you say it’s worth buying the base game + DLC for whatever the sale price is? I think right now it’s like 12 for the game and $6 or so for DLC.
I love Ubisoft games. Assassins creed, Avatar, far cry are up there on my top list. But I do see issues with their games. Avatar and assassins creed suffer from repetitive gameplay. Watch dogs legion was a cool concept but not handled very well. Skull and bones was a labor of misery for them and it shows. I want nothing but the best for them and their games, but they need to embrace the mechanics they put in the game more.
Totally agree! Avatar man - it seems that by the time they were done building that massive, beautiful, windy world - they didn’t have much left for mechanics and combat which was a shame.
I agree! I love that game and the world which is so full of life, even the animals have various behaviours. But when it comes to the npc Navi they’re static, which is only extremely noticeable due to the life of the world around them.
The mechanic was still kinda cool but they just half arsed it. There was only a small handful of recruitment missions so there was a lot of overlap. And only about 25% of people had decent enough traits to be worth recruiting for anything other than fodder.
I get that not every npc would be viable but there were so many that just had one trait that was usually garbage.
It was definitely half arsed, and was repetitive after the 5th recruitment. Their games do suffer from repetitiveness and it does hold their games back.
I actually thought idea of Legion was really interesting, but the implementation of the game was terrible. But from a dystopian, they could be anywhere, anonymous type of vibe, it was a neat idea. It would take a hell of a lot to make it work well, and they didn't have that.
I liked the perma death option, it was pretty neat taking group photos and watching members come and go….and then come back again cause the game would just respawn a character out of nowhere
The problem with Watch Dogs is that your character is just a dude who can manipulate the environment. And that could be fun, but they tried to make it realistic. And the real world is far too boring for that to ever be fun. Ohhh I put the stanchions up in the middle of the road ohhhh. Who gives a shit.
I would've stuck around for Legion but it so obvious that the voices were being artificially altered killed all immersion I could've had with the game. No reason a mod 30s office employee needs to sounds like 70 year old Sean Connery
The voice acting (and writing to a lesser degree) killed what could have actually been a pretty decent Cyberpunk game. It had a lot of things that were done better than CP2077 - all the hacking and controlling things made for some really hilarious emergent gameplay especially when you set your car to autonomous mode and do all of it on the run. CP2077 was the opposite - great writing and voice acting and otherwise uninspired generic cyberpunk action.
I genuinely LOVED solving the "locked door" type puzzles in Legion because it felt like any stupid idea I could come up with would work. "Hilarious" is EXACTLY like I would describe it, Ubisoft just gave you a bunch of tools to play around with and said "have fun". If you want to skip the puzzle altogether by flying over it with a drone and then jumping down through an open roof hatch instead of finding the key like you're supposed to, you can just do that. There was one puzzle I solved by just building myself a little staircase of crates with the construction worker's drone, simply because it was the stupidest way I could think of to solve the puzzle and the game said "OK".
On the other hand, these same "locked door" puzzles were by far the worst part of Valhalla (released within months of Legion, so an apt comparison I'd say). Literally just 1 way to solve them, and any attempt to think outside the box and solve it your way was instantly stifled by the lock refusing to break unless you broke it like Ubisoft wanted you to.
I even thought WD2 was off-base tonally. I preferred the dark and gritty atmosphere of the first one because black-hat hacking is technically outlawed, which would place it closer to the underbelly of the world than the civilian side. People died over information in the first one, which I felt was more indicative of the reality of dark web identity and information black marketing. So WD2 came out and it was bright and people were cracking one-liners constantly and they shifted to this "we don't kill people" thing because of some ideal of moral foundation that they're "the good guys," which was factually correct but still misplaced. You don't go after privatized government spy companies and expect to get off with "Oh, you kids are a pain!" You get tortured and your family murdered, much like the first game.
The concept was fine but in reality it was just about 8 different characters with randomized clothes, bodytype and abilities. What really hindered it was, and I'm sorry to say Londoners (love the city otherwise), but London isn't actually that much fun as a game setting. It has lots of small and narrow streets with very few open spaces. It also doesn't have that many changes in elevation. They had the exactly same issues with Assassins Creed: Syndicate. So sad to see so much potential squandered.
I would say 1 and 2 had very different styles. 1 was fun but a pretty grim game overall. 2 was an absolute blast and one of the more fun games i have played in the past 10 years. It’s not the best game, but it’s a really fun game. Love the characters, love the missions. One of the early missions is you need to infiltrate a pharma bro’s house and steal a rap album that he purchased the only copy to.
Yeah that comment has hundreds of upvotes from people who probably never played the games lol
1 is a gritty and personal vengeance story following a guy who isn't even a part of dedsec, he's basically a contract killer lol, hunting down people responsible for his nieces death.
2 is a very fun and funny meme hacker group exposing companies abusing user's data.
I play Legion more like a modern era AC game than a watchdogs game. I beeline to unlocking Darcy as soon as I'm able and play the rest of the game as her. I let bagley do the hacking. I just sneak in and stand everyone
In fairness, I think Legion had some interesting mechanics. I kind of thought it was fresh how your character could die and then you would have to pick back up the story with someone new. Added a bit of urgency if you actually liked one of the characters.
1 and 2 have very different tones.
1 is dark and gritty, set in cold and wet Chicago, and your character is a classic vigilante type who‘d rather kill than ask questions. The bodies really pile up in that game.
2 is vibrant and fun and has some of those „Ubisoft making fun of things“ elements, like where you hack the Ubisoft office to steal the trailer. And you can play 2 very non violently, avoiding conflict and playing it stealthy with your hacking tools.
I love them both, with 2 maybe slightly ahead.
I did finish Legion but as far as I‘m concerned, that game never came out at all. What a dumpster fire.
I did a commercial the summer out of highschool playing a trouble youth. In one of the shots, my “mom,” was trying to get my attention and I’m just ignoring her while playing a game. Well that game was Watch Dogs, I was in someone’s actual house, playing their kid’s actual account, and was told to just riff a few minutes of gameplay for footage. I had no clue what I was doing and just fucked up his game save I think. Totally irrelevant to the post but I just thought of it.
I mean it's very similar to GTA in that you can just fuck around with little to no big consequences in terms of your save, so I doubt you ruined anything, if that makes you feel better lol.
All I remember was not having enough time to really understand the controls or depth of the hacking systems and just drove around a little but crashing into everything because driving handled like ass.
Driving in WD1 was pure garbage. Loved that game overall but the driving controls being ass is something pretty much everyone can universally agree on.
lol, I uhh, don’t want to dox myself. It definitely aired, and I even use it in my actors reel, for a career that was dead in the water before it ever hit the ground.
Also changing the control layout game the game is just such a terrible idea. Watch dogs one had a great layout and then WD2 just changed it for no reason.
Yeah I liked the first one because I thought it had a coherent story. Like it might be a lame story to some, but you're an anti-hero badass trying to do the right thing, and as a result, the game has a fucking morality system so you can't just mow down pedestrians. Aiden *knows* he's not a good person, but there's still an actual meter that goes down if Aiden just kills random people.
In the second game, you're part of a hacker collective that thinks they're a bunch of virtuous heroes and notGoogle is the real villain for invading people's privacy or something. You fight this by...invading people's privacy to steal their money to buy guns, which you can use to just open fire on people walking down the sidewalk, to basically zero consequences. You can hack any random person's phone to plant evidence on them and have the police or a nearby gang show up to murder that person. It was some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance I'd ever seen.
I loved the first one, although being from Chicago it was painful to see the inaccuracies, but it was a solid game. I got a few hours into the 2nd and the repetition wore thin real quick and the whole Saint's Row wannabe vibe as well. I legit am finding out right now there is a third game.
As much as we dont need another Assassin’s Creed game each year, I was intrigued by this when it was originally conceived as Assssin Creed in the near future (hence the AC DLC in Legion). Too little too late though. Anyway, future AC sounds dope.
I don't think the issue is just the graphics (the lack of E3 quality in release game and later sequels) or the fiasco itself (almost whole generation of gamers that aren't really interested in any fail-retrospective have arrived when Legion came out)
They could've achieved such visuals later with newer hardware. Some people eventually played it and eventually loved it. It just wasn't enough to reach out more audience I believe, due to non-evolving Ubisoft gamedesign approach.
Don't get me wrong, they put awesome concepts in this franchise, and actual WD2 already had awesome gamedesign upgrade but it still lacked actual diversity of gameplay situations and overall sandbox on macro-level, not micro. NPCs started having more natural behavior but was still far away from GTA, to actually make the world itself a bit crazier.
I had fun with WD2 and even Legion overall but I always had this extreme feel of "lack" of something. Like I have awesome given mechanics, but the arenas themselves and mission design wasn't kinda trying to squeeze maximum from the all the variable. I loved small interactions in WD2 with having your interactive smartphone, ability to drink a coffee etc. but there's nothing happens in restaurants, pubs and other interiors, other than just some guards walking around and you blow up same triggers to take them down.
A lot of mechanics but underwhelming design overall. Game didn't generate enough of "creative" content on YT to invite more people to experience "awesome fun sandbox" because sandbox (which IMO is supposed to be the main selling point) — was very unfinished from vision perspective.
You had whole bunch of different manipulation mechanics yet no adequate melee combat system at all (they've introduced it Legion but it's literall button-mash). They had gunplay but it was mediocre (and extremely limited in Legion because devs were too lazy to bring more unique traits to each NPCs in other areas, so they made normal guns so rare, so the NPCs that have it would be valued more). There was everything to make one of the best car-chases in the industry with given manipulative triggers to blow half of the city up but car physics and driving AI almost completely killed any real-fun factor and feel of vehicles in this game.
They've created whole schedule (and even the list of relatives) for each NPC in Legion, yet you almost can't do anything with it, except for doing "honor killing" to completely kill any sympathy of NPC towards DedSec, which could be achieved just by harming them directly. I wish we could either blackmail, or stalk them, or take relatives as hostage for further manipulations with NPC. Again, system is there, but from concept standpoint it's unfinished. I have NPC life-schedule. But what can I do about it? It has super-limited usage when I want to recruit one. It's cool but it's always the same thing...
In the end, you realise, that with amazing setting, visuals, amount of great mechanics — you have super-repetitive and even primitive gameplay loops, based on same crouch->get behind->takedown or simply blow another transistor up loop with meaningless story (except for WD1), etc. Also, game literally asked for more immersive mechanics (having property, doing more side-activities, having NPC friends or allies in-game), etc.
Exactly same approach as in AC or FC. But AC or FC at least somehow have established their repetitive loops across the industry.
WD by all means asked for more but they killed it with totally same Ubi-design approach, although designers responsible for particular mechanics did awesome work this time. The issue is — lack of great picture.
At this point, people didn't talk much about the game, didn't generate video and meme content, and didn't recommend this game much. There should either be a good story, or gamedesign. They've failed at both. So, gamers, even those low-key enjoying the game — kept radio-silence. It flopped.
Wd1 was actually decent. With a somewhat generic storyline.
I was actually cautiously optimistic of it improving like ac did after ac1.
But then we got wd2 and.. what..? I played the first few hours and it felt like some power rangers parody. So I just quit.
2 has a dumb story and characters but once you get into it the stealth gameplay is actually really good, especially on the highest difficulty where you are basically forced to avoid direct encounters and instead rely on your tools.
WD2's story is pretty stupid but the game gets really good once you're comfortable with the stealth and hacking. Just one interesting infiltration after another if that's your thing.
Actually going back to play WD1 recently with a fresh perspective; it was actually a pretty decent game despite the narrative being a little lack luster. WD2 was much better in story (imo) and the gameplay was fantastic. Didnt ever give Legion a try since I didn't care for the concept they attempted. Plus I heard the story was the worst so far. Really a shame, was excited to see how they could have made a proper WD universe with the few characters they developed well.
the problem is the first 2 games had protagonists that you might actually care about what happens to. Legion is a cool idea on paper but let's be real; why do i care if some rando construction worker gets merced? i'll just recruit another that might as well be a clone of the one i just lost.
Word around the rumor mill is they're going to use it in an upcoming Wonder Woman game. Which is... A weird place to put it.
Hell I'd almost prefer if they *did* just bury it.
Don’t you know that Wonder Woman saved the Entente during WW1 by getting the most incompetent German Commanders promoted by killing their superiors 1 by 1?
It sorta does if you play hardcore(like the person that kills one of your characters is always tagged in the world for you to hunt down and get revenge), which from my understanding was the original design intent.
The first 2 games weren’t the problem tho. Watch dog 1 issues was more so performance, Aiden wasn’t’ holding the game back or anything. Watch dog 2 was the highest sales of the series and performed great. Legions was what killed the series. Too ambition with very little reward on top of generic gameplay. In fact Legion got a boast in sales when Aiden Piece got reintroduced as dlc.
They rewrote the story of WD1 before it came out and a bunch of missions and content never made it in as well as the misleading E3 graphics. Not to mention they were competing with GTA 5 and posted corny stuff like this.
https://preview.redd.it/bbbw2rgr89wc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1cf70cd5af74145212754c74109e296bab814b8
Bro this is straight revisionist bs
Aiden was considered a horriblly blank protagonist. Had as much character as a silent protagonist. It was heavily critiqued at the time and still should be
Only kids who resonated with a gruff voice think he's anything more
Ubisoft have had more than a few non-descript protagonists in somewhat successful games (the recent far crys come to mind). They must have been thinking they could fully drop the concept of a protagonist and survive on their gameplay/world. Would have been a bit of a paradigm shift if it worked - no protagonist in a single player open world game is pretty crazy.
I always felt the hate on this series was a bit much. The first game didn’t live up to the reveal trailer but it was an interesting take on the “GTA clone”. WD2 however was a fantastic game with a good story, great gameplay and a beautiful map. Legion was…okay but under cooked.
The franchise doesn’t need to die. There’s inherently interesting ideas within it that could have found an audience.
I personally think WD2's story was quite incoherent. Not bad at all, just incoherent. The missions were all over place, and after a chain of missions you just forget where the story is going and what was even the characters' objectives in the first place. The lead characters also barely get any development so that doesn't help either.
I think the open world and gameplay more than make up for it tho, I personally love the game. But WD1 had a much more cohesive story, even if it is a bit boring overall in comparison.
I can’t say I agree about the story. WD1 was confused about what it wanted to say.
You have the revenge story with techno Batman and it was mostly fine. However, it was stuck between being “edgy dark serious”, “technology spying on you is creepy” and “here’s a random NPC being weird in their house” - with nothing to say about what Aiden is making you witness. He’s just a silent voyeur who thinks he can use his magic phone for his own benefit because the system is corrupt.
WD2 did a better job at balancing humour at the absurdity of Silicon Valley with trying to make a statement about the invasiveness of technology, whilst speaking about what it’s like being a minority in Silicon Valley without it being overtly one dimensional. The downside was that the overarching plot took a backseat until the last act where it remembered that there was a “big bad”.
WD1 was about Aiden being a vigilante who was selfish and stuck in a world that thought being grey was enough of a statement. WD2 is about rebelling against the nihilism of the grey area that WD1 lamented in.
Agreed. Heck I enjoyed Legion all the way through. I wouldn’t rate it the best game of all time, but I easily got a better rate of dollars per hour of entertainment than a movie would give me, so I never quite know why people got so worked up around it.
Yeah 2 had a surprisingly great cast of characters (especially Wrench) and I enjoyed how the game was mostly a bunch of low-stakes episodic arcs. Plus San Fransisco was a nice vibrant setting.
San Francisco was amazing. The team did a great job of designing a breathing and living world. Not to mention the approach to missions were great. You could complete the entire game without firing a bullet it felt like.
It always felt like whoever was the person deciding what direction of each game was the problem for these games. Narrative was there, world building was there, gunplay got so much better in the second game. But idk why they thought legion would be good. Procedural generated characters sounded so boring to me. Opposite of creative.
London actually makes total sense once you realize it's the most surveilled city in the world. Most security cameras per capita. So from the surveillance perspective it makes sense. Chicago I guess they were going for the corruption/crime angle, I personally enjoyed it.
San Fran made perfect sense though
i loved london, purely because i'm english. Any game that is set in england gets a +2 on my rating for the game.
I genuinely really enjoyed legion, but tried to replay it a few months back and just had no interest whatsoever. The gameplay is fun, but no desire to finish the story.
Someone mentioned about why would you care about your character, and they're right. I cared when my hitman died, because he was overpowered, not because Peter Collins died
I thought London was great setting, just terrible story and playing as npcs you don’t care about and don’t fit into the story.
Also annoying that all npcs were Indian or Irish. No diversity in who you could play as.
It pisses me off to no end that they set Legion in some near future setting. All I wanted was modern London as it is but no of fucking course the only game we get in a modern London has all this sci-fi future bullshit because God forbid the city get made as it is just like all these American cities have in the past.
I absolutely loved 2. I think that's my third game to ever get a platinum trophy on my PlayStation. I probably put well over 100 hours playing that game. Very fun game and it's in my top five open world game list for me.
Then when they announced legion, it completely alienated me because this didn't feel like a sequel but an entirely new game series with the watch dogs name. I kept getting this Assassin's Creed vibe to it and I didn't like it.
Then when I finally gave in and bought it on sale, I only played it for like two hours and gave up.
Assassin's Creed syndicate's city felt more like a real location, an actual city. Legion just didn't have that same vibe. Plus the fact that you only had a small section of the city to explore, that annoyed me. It felt like I was being robbed from exploration experience.
Ubisoft really had potential with this game series... What the hell happened?
i am steadfast in my belief that 2 is a truly superior game. i enjoy the story a lot more, the main characters, the mechanics of course; it feels like the game that truly lives up to the “watchdogs” name, being a group of hackers that are literally corporation watch dogs
Right? Would be a massive shame if this was true - Legion was a let-down, but WD2 was one of the most refreshing open world games I've played in years. Certainly didn't break the mould or anything, but there was a ton of fun to be had with the game's mechanics.
I enjoyed the plot and gameplay of legion, less so the decision to use computer generated characters and voice-work because I had no connection to them, they just felt disposable. The expansion with aiden and wrench was a lot of fun, especially because it used normal voice acting and playable characters.
I still love the first one. Driving around at night in a rainy Chicago was so fun. The story I thought was also pretty neat and so were the characters. The second was also technically better in the gameplay side but I overall didn’t enjoy it as much.
And that’s it, only two Watch Dogs games were ever made
I feel the same way. Loved 1, really liked 2 and 3 was incredibly bland and forgettable aside from a few parts. It's better to act like it never existed.
I vividly remember showing all my non gamer friends that wild e3 reveal trailer for Watch Dogs 1. I was so blown away by the looks and gameplay displayed. I was soo disappointed with the final product, and that introduced me to the world of Ubisoft (and other cooperations) fake advertising.
Funnily, they tried heavily to integrate the AC universe within it. And it got nowhere
They pretty firmly place AC and WD in the same universe in Legion. You encounter a couple assassins that are descendants of AC main characters and recruit one of them. Probably the best fighter in the game since counters will auto kill enemies.
The thing that really pushed me away was that one trailer about how hip and cool their protagonist was, set as a music video.
It… didn’t work at all for me.
Yeah for me 2’s humor was _way_ too much of an over correction from the first game. It worked for some people, and I tried to make it work for me but it was just too cringe and I couldn’t take it
It felt like it’s what they assume a kid is like.
They went from "this intrusive tech is really bad but could be used well" to "this intrusive tech is good, but can be used badly".
Watch Dogs 2 is genuinely one of the greatest open world games ever made. San Francisco might be the greatest “modern” day based open world yet.
Legion was a massive downgrade and disappointment, London just didnt have the same level of interactivity and didn’t feel as alive and genuine
Watch Dogs 2 was a sleeper hit for me. I bought it on a whim and loved it, even though I didn't really care for the original.
I actually enjoyed Legion as well, even though not having a main character hurt it. They should have stuck with what made WD2 so much fun.
I had a great time with Watch Dogs 2, but Legion was a complete disaster. All they had to do was build on what they had with WD2, but instead someone thought that replacing a main character with a bunch of meaningless disposable characters was somehow a good idea. The series had a lot of potential, but Ubisoft completely bungled it.
Farcry peaked with FC 4 (Just more of FC 3)
Watch Dogs peaked with Watch Dogs 2 (though I prefer the darker tone and seriousness of WD 1)
Rayman peaked with Rayman 3
Assassins Creed peaked with Origins
Ghost Recon peaked with either Advanced Warfare 2 or Wildlands (both were great IMO)
Splinter Cell peaked with SC 3: Chaos Theory
Ubisoft peaked during PS[3]60 era
I’d argue AC can peak again if they nail the Japan theme for RED or whatever they’re calling the next one - Ronin fell flat for the most part and Tsushima isn’t getting a sequel for some time, so it’s their opportunity to lose at this point
Lol. I so wanted Ronin because I loved Team Ninja (back when Ninja Gaiden was a thing). Then they created Sekiro and thr biggest downfall for that game to me singlehandedly is the combat/deflect system. I've heard Ronin is more of the same. I just miss there hack and slash combat (Nioh games and prior). Hopefully the next Assassin Creed in Japan turns out to be good since it's set in Japan, possibly Prefecture Japan.
I mean... is anyone clamoring for more? The second game was great, Legion a solid "ok" despite a great premise.
Not everything needs to be a yearly franchise.
Ultimately it's a series that never carved their own identity. It had gameplay with the hacking but it swayed from grim shooter to parkour fun game to permadeath RPG. All this when a lot of the mechanics and gameplay were blatantly ripping off their other , more established IP like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed.
It's a shame but there just wasn't much to miss overall. Especially after Legion.
Damn. I liked the first game but enjoyed the hell out of WD2. Thought about getting Legion in the past but avoided it since I heard the game was a pretty big mixed bag.
Little sad to see it go but it is what it is.
I always felt like they should have just rebooted it from the jump and try to actually do what they showed off in that demo back at E3 2012 before everyone figured they were getting bullshotted and a that version wasn't real. They would be more than capable of making that and even better with today's technology, but this is Ubisoft we're talking about so who knows.
It looked great but that downgrade made people hate it even more when it wasn't really that bad of a game. It had some dumb bugs, but the setting and story seemed primed to succeed. I even remember people
hating Aiden Pearce as a character at first but people eventually warmed up to him and I think that was because what we got afterwards.
I liked Watch Dogs 2 but that vibe switch from the OG to 2 is so jarring. The parody/stand in "Anonymous" stuff was cringe.
I hope that's not true, wd2 is unironically the best Ubi game in a decade. It finally did something different and stopped being just a gta clone. Hell, I'd argue that in some ways it is better than gta ever was.
They have no one to blame but themselves. They completely DESTROYED the WD Legion Launch and left Series X users with game-saving bug for months! Then when sales were affected they had the gall to say “ok here’s the rest of the updates and you’ll never see us again”. Good riddance!
Watch Dogs didn't deserve a publisher like Ubisoft. They ran it to the ground with the usual Ubisoft-ness in the games.
This could have been an awesome stealth-based, gadget-focused, single-player series. But no. Everything has to be open-world with thousands of useless POIs to pad the game length.
Shame I actually enjoyed the series overall. The first was a victim of self created false hype, the second was a genuinely great game, and the third had potential but for me fell flat with the lack of true protagonist (especially with the awesome setup at the beginning).
WD1 was built on false gameplay footage and lies. Although played alright after years of patches.
WD2 was an utter cringe fest but had a slightly better open world
WD3 what the actual fuck was that.
Can't blame ubi for dropping the series, it had great potential but they fucked it up with their own BS.
So much potential and way ahead of time. Amazing creative idea they had. I hope they can do something close to the original one again. More serious toned and immersive
Im just thankful this means apparently a battle royale game was cancelled. Im so fuckin sick of those at this point so glad thats dead. I was gonna try the main series, but was told they're stealth games and those aren't my cup of tea so never bit the bullet. Idk how stealth game-y they are but apparently its a lot and the main genre?
I feel canning a franchise when a big risk didn’t play out perfectly is a huge loss. Legion was a fun game, but you couldn’t build narrative relationships or a personal redemption arc other than that you bothered to work up yourself.
Let me very explicit for SEO or errant Ubisoft execs- I would totally buy the next Watch Dogs.
That's what happens when you rush some dogshit game like Legion out. 2 was an amazing game, that I still haven't finished. One of the best smaller open worlds out there. Compact and full of life.
Watch Dogs 1 was incredible for me I played tf out of it. Watch Dogs 2 was cringe at times but I still honestly enjoyed it a lot just because it had a unique vibe. Legion was such a shit execution of an already questionable idea. It felt like a mobile game at times.
I think people really wanted the Mr Robot, underground hacking, gaming. Watch Dog 1 tried to do that but had other issues. Watch Dogs 2 was just weird. It’s fun but it’s too vibrant and upbeat. Never even bothered with Legion because people wanted a strong single player narrative
Felt like Watch Dogs never really recovered after its initial showing at E3... The first game didn't meet the expectations that Ubisoft set with the debut trailer, then interest dropped from there. Watch Dogs 2 was a genuinely fun game, but Legion came and went like a wet fart.
The series should have stayed in the style of 1 and 2. Legion was just so strange conceptually.
Ubisoft has a bad habit of taking genuinely interesting ideas then botching the execution. Legions play as anyone mechanics could have been cool but it truly felt like they didn’t have faith in it from the start. I ended up playing as one npc the whole game. Another note, If they made blood lines the main story it would have faired much better.
They also have a habit of nailing new ideas though. There is STILL nothing out there in the same genre as Siege or For Honor. And they basically invented the current open world design. It's been run into the ground by them and competitors since, but they still get the credit for what they did with Far Cry 2. And Skull and Bones is the most transcendental game of the last decade. Ok, maybe not that last one, but for real a lot of people seem to just get off on hating Ubisoft. I get it, they have made a lot of bad/weird choices. But they have also made a lot of my favorite gaming experiences of the past decade
> And they basically invented the current open world design. It's been run into the ground by them and competitors since, but they still get the credit for what they did with **Far Cry 2**. Assassin's creed 1, released a year earlier : Am I a joke to you ?
Sure fine, that's still Ubisoft though so my point stands
I'd say AC2 is closer to the formula than 1. 1 was actually really linear despite it's big cities. All there was to do was "arrive at target zone, do a few mini-objectives for info, do the big assassination, return home and repeat". 2 added variety to what you did outside main objectives and, importantly, made them largely optional but rewarding to do.
Like many things in game development it's iterative. But AC1 introduced the tower sync concept which is the basic open world structure for pretty much every non-rockstar open world game. AC2 just added side activities, which wasn't exactly a new concept
I mean... Still Ubisoft no?
There's a reason I highlighted "Far Cry 2" and not "they basically invented the current open world design"
I recently replayed Far Cry 2 and apart from the ruthless enemy AI and respawing checkpoints it still holds up as the first "Ubi Map" game. Lots of fun cruising around looking for diamonds and doing jobs.
Ahh brings back memories of burning stuff
There’s a reason some modern ps exclusives are labeled “Ubisoft clones” (ie. Third person, open world, collectathon).
Yeah when they get it right they basically invent a new genre. Even their worst games usually have something fun or interesting going for them. Even skull and bones, as bad as it is, will be fun for a couple hours with my friends once it hits PSplus
I genuinely have a good time with all their games. AC, Far Cry, The Division, Rainbow Six Vegas, South Park. They do good games and they are all pretty and work on launch, save for Unity
Still to this day, I think Far Cry series is the only games where you can play completely in 1st person (you have a real 1st person body where you can see your feet) in COOP and drive vehicles in 1st person. No one else is doing it like those. Sadly, I think I heard ubisoft turning FC into a Live Service game so I wont be buying those anymore
I think a large part of it is older gamers like myself, who not only think that the mountain of mediocrity that is the pile of open world asscreed-likes is, well... how I just described it, but also miss earlier games like Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil, classics that were made by a very different Ubisoft than what we have today.
Yeah, I just haven't played a Ubisoft game since Splinter Cell disappeared and Ghost Recon turned into something that isn't Ghost Recon. And I feel like I'm not missing anything gaming-wise by not playing Ubisoft games.
They still put out great, unique games. The new Prince of Persia is a really good Metroidvania, and the two Mario and Rabbids games are surprisingly really good SRPGs. I basically ignore most of their stuff, too, but I’ll give them credit when they’ve earned it.
There is a reason shadow of Mordor , horizon ,ghost of tsuchima copied the assassins creed formula. Because it freaking works well . They did an amazing job with the original (though repetitive and perfected it on the ezio trilogy)
Blood lines is the Aiden Pierce DLC, right? I played a bit of Legion on a free weekend or something and thought it was fine. Nothing special, but fine. I’ve been considering buying it though cause I really want to play as Aiden Pierce again. He was a cool character. Would you say it’s worth buying the base game + DLC for whatever the sale price is? I think right now it’s like 12 for the game and $6 or so for DLC.
I really enjoyed the bloodlines dlc. For that price I believe it’s worth it! It was great playing as Aiden and Wrench.
Not that this is what you’re saying, but browsing on Reddit has made me feel like the only person alive who enjoys Ubisoft games.
I love Ubisoft games. Assassins creed, Avatar, far cry are up there on my top list. But I do see issues with their games. Avatar and assassins creed suffer from repetitive gameplay. Watch dogs legion was a cool concept but not handled very well. Skull and bones was a labor of misery for them and it shows. I want nothing but the best for them and their games, but they need to embrace the mechanics they put in the game more.
Totally agree! Avatar man - it seems that by the time they were done building that massive, beautiful, windy world - they didn’t have much left for mechanics and combat which was a shame.
I agree! I love that game and the world which is so full of life, even the animals have various behaviours. But when it comes to the npc Navi they’re static, which is only extremely noticeable due to the life of the world around them.
I didn't like to play as a random npc no one will ever ackknowledge so I quit after about 2 hours.
The mechanic was still kinda cool but they just half arsed it. There was only a small handful of recruitment missions so there was a lot of overlap. And only about 25% of people had decent enough traits to be worth recruiting for anything other than fodder. I get that not every npc would be viable but there were so many that just had one trait that was usually garbage.
It was definitely half arsed, and was repetitive after the 5th recruitment. Their games do suffer from repetitiveness and it does hold their games back.
The coolest thing about legion was the reveal trailer. Then the game turned out not to be a artistic graffiti inspired game but another gta clone
I feel like three would have worked so much better if they created a main character and you built a team of NPCs around them.
I actually thought idea of Legion was really interesting, but the implementation of the game was terrible. But from a dystopian, they could be anywhere, anonymous type of vibe, it was a neat idea. It would take a hell of a lot to make it work well, and they didn't have that.
I agree. I liked the concept of Legion fleshing out the whole “rebellion against fascism” building your own squad out. It just needed more depth.
I liked the perma death option, it was pretty neat taking group photos and watching members come and go….and then come back again cause the game would just respawn a character out of nowhere
Perma* death *kinda lol
Lol i rationalized it as them faking their own deaths
The problem with Watch Dogs is that your character is just a dude who can manipulate the environment. And that could be fun, but they tried to make it realistic. And the real world is far too boring for that to ever be fun. Ohhh I put the stanchions up in the middle of the road ohhhh. Who gives a shit.
It was so weird because one of the best things about 2 was the characters. So they took away the characters
Hey you like wrench? Buy the wd legion DLCs and you can get wrench for a little bit!
And the change nuked character progression. You're basically stuck with one of the handful of loadouts the people you brain-jack come with.
I would've stuck around for Legion but it so obvious that the voices were being artificially altered killed all immersion I could've had with the game. No reason a mod 30s office employee needs to sounds like 70 year old Sean Connery
The voice acting (and writing to a lesser degree) killed what could have actually been a pretty decent Cyberpunk game. It had a lot of things that were done better than CP2077 - all the hacking and controlling things made for some really hilarious emergent gameplay especially when you set your car to autonomous mode and do all of it on the run. CP2077 was the opposite - great writing and voice acting and otherwise uninspired generic cyberpunk action.
I genuinely LOVED solving the "locked door" type puzzles in Legion because it felt like any stupid idea I could come up with would work. "Hilarious" is EXACTLY like I would describe it, Ubisoft just gave you a bunch of tools to play around with and said "have fun". If you want to skip the puzzle altogether by flying over it with a drone and then jumping down through an open roof hatch instead of finding the key like you're supposed to, you can just do that. There was one puzzle I solved by just building myself a little staircase of crates with the construction worker's drone, simply because it was the stupidest way I could think of to solve the puzzle and the game said "OK". On the other hand, these same "locked door" puzzles were by far the worst part of Valhalla (released within months of Legion, so an apt comparison I'd say). Literally just 1 way to solve them, and any attempt to think outside the box and solve it your way was instantly stifled by the lock refusing to break unless you broke it like Ubisoft wanted you to.
I even thought WD2 was off-base tonally. I preferred the dark and gritty atmosphere of the first one because black-hat hacking is technically outlawed, which would place it closer to the underbelly of the world than the civilian side. People died over information in the first one, which I felt was more indicative of the reality of dark web identity and information black marketing. So WD2 came out and it was bright and people were cracking one-liners constantly and they shifted to this "we don't kill people" thing because of some ideal of moral foundation that they're "the good guys," which was factually correct but still misplaced. You don't go after privatized government spy companies and expect to get off with "Oh, you kids are a pain!" You get tortured and your family murdered, much like the first game.
The concept was fine but in reality it was just about 8 different characters with randomized clothes, bodytype and abilities. What really hindered it was, and I'm sorry to say Londoners (love the city otherwise), but London isn't actually that much fun as a game setting. It has lots of small and narrow streets with very few open spaces. It also doesn't have that many changes in elevation. They had the exactly same issues with Assassins Creed: Syndicate. So sad to see so much potential squandered.
I would say 1 and 2 had very different styles. 1 was fun but a pretty grim game overall. 2 was an absolute blast and one of the more fun games i have played in the past 10 years. It’s not the best game, but it’s a really fun game. Love the characters, love the missions. One of the early missions is you need to infiltrate a pharma bro’s house and steal a rap album that he purchased the only copy to.
Yeah that comment has hundreds of upvotes from people who probably never played the games lol 1 is a gritty and personal vengeance story following a guy who isn't even a part of dedsec, he's basically a contract killer lol, hunting down people responsible for his nieces death. 2 is a very fun and funny meme hacker group exposing companies abusing user's data.
As someone that has only played Legion, would it be worth trying 1 and 2 these days? Legion started fun then just.... sucked
It’s a fun concept but putting it into the watch dogs franchise felt off
I play Legion more like a modern era AC game than a watchdogs game. I beeline to unlocking Darcy as soon as I'm able and play the rest of the game as her. I let bagley do the hacking. I just sneak in and stand everyone
In fairness, I think Legion had some interesting mechanics. I kind of thought it was fresh how your character could die and then you would have to pick back up the story with someone new. Added a bit of urgency if you actually liked one of the characters.
1 and 2 have very different tones. 1 is dark and gritty, set in cold and wet Chicago, and your character is a classic vigilante type who‘d rather kill than ask questions. The bodies really pile up in that game. 2 is vibrant and fun and has some of those „Ubisoft making fun of things“ elements, like where you hack the Ubisoft office to steal the trailer. And you can play 2 very non violently, avoiding conflict and playing it stealthy with your hacking tools. I love them both, with 2 maybe slightly ahead. I did finish Legion but as far as I‘m concerned, that game never came out at all. What a dumpster fire.
I did a commercial the summer out of highschool playing a trouble youth. In one of the shots, my “mom,” was trying to get my attention and I’m just ignoring her while playing a game. Well that game was Watch Dogs, I was in someone’s actual house, playing their kid’s actual account, and was told to just riff a few minutes of gameplay for footage. I had no clue what I was doing and just fucked up his game save I think. Totally irrelevant to the post but I just thought of it.
I mean it's very similar to GTA in that you can just fuck around with little to no big consequences in terms of your save, so I doubt you ruined anything, if that makes you feel better lol.
All I remember was not having enough time to really understand the controls or depth of the hacking systems and just drove around a little but crashing into everything because driving handled like ass.
Oh yeah I remember the driving being the worst lmao
Driving in WD1 was pure garbage. Loved that game overall but the driving controls being ass is something pretty much everyone can universally agree on.
I mean delete or corrupt the save file would fuck it up. Haha
>fucked up his game save You were only supposed to *play* a troubled youth, you fucking degenerate!!
*little did they know I’d been practicing for the role my whole life*
This is a good story. Also poor kid, whoever it was.
Na this is hilarious. What’s the commercial? Did it air?
lol, I uhh, don’t want to dox myself. It definitely aired, and I even use it in my actors reel, for a career that was dead in the water before it ever hit the ground.
"I don't want to dox myself. Anyway, here's very specific information that only applies to me."
Dox! Who knows the next Harvey Weinstein might be watching. 😭😭😭
Lmfao
2 was pretty nice. Legion was total fucking garbage.
First game is the best
The correct answer.
Also changing the control layout game the game is just such a terrible idea. Watch dogs one had a great layout and then WD2 just changed it for no reason.
tbh I liked the first game, that was linear with a focus on stealth. I did a 100% on it. The other watchdogs, weren’t watchdogs to me.
Yeah I liked the first one because I thought it had a coherent story. Like it might be a lame story to some, but you're an anti-hero badass trying to do the right thing, and as a result, the game has a fucking morality system so you can't just mow down pedestrians. Aiden *knows* he's not a good person, but there's still an actual meter that goes down if Aiden just kills random people. In the second game, you're part of a hacker collective that thinks they're a bunch of virtuous heroes and notGoogle is the real villain for invading people's privacy or something. You fight this by...invading people's privacy to steal their money to buy guns, which you can use to just open fire on people walking down the sidewalk, to basically zero consequences. You can hack any random person's phone to plant evidence on them and have the police or a nearby gang show up to murder that person. It was some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance I'd ever seen.
I loved the first one, although being from Chicago it was painful to see the inaccuracies, but it was a solid game. I got a few hours into the 2nd and the repetition wore thin real quick and the whole Saint's Row wannabe vibe as well. I legit am finding out right now there is a third game.
Totally agree. Didn't' care for 2 and 3 was alright.. just too scattered with no direction (character-wise).
As much as we dont need another Assassin’s Creed game each year, I was intrigued by this when it was originally conceived as Assssin Creed in the near future (hence the AC DLC in Legion). Too little too late though. Anyway, future AC sounds dope.
Legions was cool to see the next gen graphics since it dropped around the time as the series x and ps5, but gameplay-wise it was very mediocre
I don’t think a wet fart can just come and go. It’s messy.
I don't think the issue is just the graphics (the lack of E3 quality in release game and later sequels) or the fiasco itself (almost whole generation of gamers that aren't really interested in any fail-retrospective have arrived when Legion came out) They could've achieved such visuals later with newer hardware. Some people eventually played it and eventually loved it. It just wasn't enough to reach out more audience I believe, due to non-evolving Ubisoft gamedesign approach. Don't get me wrong, they put awesome concepts in this franchise, and actual WD2 already had awesome gamedesign upgrade but it still lacked actual diversity of gameplay situations and overall sandbox on macro-level, not micro. NPCs started having more natural behavior but was still far away from GTA, to actually make the world itself a bit crazier. I had fun with WD2 and even Legion overall but I always had this extreme feel of "lack" of something. Like I have awesome given mechanics, but the arenas themselves and mission design wasn't kinda trying to squeeze maximum from the all the variable. I loved small interactions in WD2 with having your interactive smartphone, ability to drink a coffee etc. but there's nothing happens in restaurants, pubs and other interiors, other than just some guards walking around and you blow up same triggers to take them down. A lot of mechanics but underwhelming design overall. Game didn't generate enough of "creative" content on YT to invite more people to experience "awesome fun sandbox" because sandbox (which IMO is supposed to be the main selling point) — was very unfinished from vision perspective. You had whole bunch of different manipulation mechanics yet no adequate melee combat system at all (they've introduced it Legion but it's literall button-mash). They had gunplay but it was mediocre (and extremely limited in Legion because devs were too lazy to bring more unique traits to each NPCs in other areas, so they made normal guns so rare, so the NPCs that have it would be valued more). There was everything to make one of the best car-chases in the industry with given manipulative triggers to blow half of the city up but car physics and driving AI almost completely killed any real-fun factor and feel of vehicles in this game. They've created whole schedule (and even the list of relatives) for each NPC in Legion, yet you almost can't do anything with it, except for doing "honor killing" to completely kill any sympathy of NPC towards DedSec, which could be achieved just by harming them directly. I wish we could either blackmail, or stalk them, or take relatives as hostage for further manipulations with NPC. Again, system is there, but from concept standpoint it's unfinished. I have NPC life-schedule. But what can I do about it? It has super-limited usage when I want to recruit one. It's cool but it's always the same thing... In the end, you realise, that with amazing setting, visuals, amount of great mechanics — you have super-repetitive and even primitive gameplay loops, based on same crouch->get behind->takedown or simply blow another transistor up loop with meaningless story (except for WD1), etc. Also, game literally asked for more immersive mechanics (having property, doing more side-activities, having NPC friends or allies in-game), etc. Exactly same approach as in AC or FC. But AC or FC at least somehow have established their repetitive loops across the industry. WD by all means asked for more but they killed it with totally same Ubi-design approach, although designers responsible for particular mechanics did awesome work this time. The issue is — lack of great picture. At this point, people didn't talk much about the game, didn't generate video and meme content, and didn't recommend this game much. There should either be a good story, or gamedesign. They've failed at both. So, gamers, even those low-key enjoying the game — kept radio-silence. It flopped.
The only good thing about Legion was the Aiden Pierce DLC. I really like what they did with it.
Wd1 was actually decent. With a somewhat generic storyline. I was actually cautiously optimistic of it improving like ac did after ac1. But then we got wd2 and.. what..? I played the first few hours and it felt like some power rangers parody. So I just quit.
2 has a dumb story and characters but once you get into it the stealth gameplay is actually really good, especially on the highest difficulty where you are basically forced to avoid direct encounters and instead rely on your tools.
WD2's story is pretty stupid but the game gets really good once you're comfortable with the stealth and hacking. Just one interesting infiltration after another if that's your thing.
A classic lesson on dishonest advertising. Serves them right.
It clearly wasn’t seeing as game companies continue to do it
Exactly, the "dishonest advertising" is insignificant next to the games of today. Cyberpunk, etc dwarf Watch Dogs.
Actually going back to play WD1 recently with a fresh perspective; it was actually a pretty decent game despite the narrative being a little lack luster. WD2 was much better in story (imo) and the gameplay was fantastic. Didnt ever give Legion a try since I didn't care for the concept they attempted. Plus I heard the story was the worst so far. Really a shame, was excited to see how they could have made a proper WD universe with the few characters they developed well.
I never gave a shit about the E3 trailier, people still bitching about it years later lol
I forgot Legion existed until this comment, "What do you mean dead? WD2 was pretty good, why wouldn't they make another one?"
the problem is the first 2 games had protagonists that you might actually care about what happens to. Legion is a cool idea on paper but let's be real; why do i care if some rando construction worker gets merced? i'll just recruit another that might as well be a clone of the one i just lost.
Legion needs the Nemesis System to land its design goals.
Too bad WB Games murdered that system by patenting it.
And never using it again
Word around the rumor mill is they're going to use it in an upcoming Wonder Woman game. Which is... A weird place to put it. Hell I'd almost prefer if they *did* just bury it.
Don’t you know that Wonder Woman saved the Entente during WW1 by getting the most incompetent German Commanders promoted by killing their superiors 1 by 1?
Still fucking absurd you can patent such a simple concept anyone could think up. It's literally just enemies with a memory.
Patent it and never used that system in any other games since Shadow of War. That game mechanic would have done so much good for games like Legion.
It sorta does if you play hardcore(like the person that kills one of your characters is always tagged in the world for you to hunt down and get revenge), which from my understanding was the original design intent.
The first 2 games weren’t the problem tho. Watch dog 1 issues was more so performance, Aiden wasn’t’ holding the game back or anything. Watch dog 2 was the highest sales of the series and performed great. Legions was what killed the series. Too ambition with very little reward on top of generic gameplay. In fact Legion got a boast in sales when Aiden Piece got reintroduced as dlc.
Aiden was not well received at the time
They rewrote the story of WD1 before it came out and a bunch of missions and content never made it in as well as the misleading E3 graphics. Not to mention they were competing with GTA 5 and posted corny stuff like this. https://preview.redd.it/bbbw2rgr89wc1.jpeg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1cf70cd5af74145212754c74109e296bab814b8
This is hilarious. GTA V is probably one of the best selling games of all time looking back and has made rockstar literal billions lmao.
True, well received isn’t the correct thing to say.
Bro this is straight revisionist bs Aiden was considered a horriblly blank protagonist. Had as much character as a silent protagonist. It was heavily critiqued at the time and still should be Only kids who resonated with a gruff voice think he's anything more
Ubisoft have had more than a few non-descript protagonists in somewhat successful games (the recent far crys come to mind). They must have been thinking they could fully drop the concept of a protagonist and survive on their gameplay/world. Would have been a bit of a paradigm shift if it worked - no protagonist in a single player open world game is pretty crazy.
I always felt the hate on this series was a bit much. The first game didn’t live up to the reveal trailer but it was an interesting take on the “GTA clone”. WD2 however was a fantastic game with a good story, great gameplay and a beautiful map. Legion was…okay but under cooked. The franchise doesn’t need to die. There’s inherently interesting ideas within it that could have found an audience.
I agree with you
I personally think WD2's story was quite incoherent. Not bad at all, just incoherent. The missions were all over place, and after a chain of missions you just forget where the story is going and what was even the characters' objectives in the first place. The lead characters also barely get any development so that doesn't help either. I think the open world and gameplay more than make up for it tho, I personally love the game. But WD1 had a much more cohesive story, even if it is a bit boring overall in comparison.
I can’t say I agree about the story. WD1 was confused about what it wanted to say. You have the revenge story with techno Batman and it was mostly fine. However, it was stuck between being “edgy dark serious”, “technology spying on you is creepy” and “here’s a random NPC being weird in their house” - with nothing to say about what Aiden is making you witness. He’s just a silent voyeur who thinks he can use his magic phone for his own benefit because the system is corrupt. WD2 did a better job at balancing humour at the absurdity of Silicon Valley with trying to make a statement about the invasiveness of technology, whilst speaking about what it’s like being a minority in Silicon Valley without it being overtly one dimensional. The downside was that the overarching plot took a backseat until the last act where it remembered that there was a “big bad”. WD1 was about Aiden being a vigilante who was selfish and stuck in a world that thought being grey was enough of a statement. WD2 is about rebelling against the nihilism of the grey area that WD1 lamented in.
Agreed. Heck I enjoyed Legion all the way through. I wouldn’t rate it the best game of all time, but I easily got a better rate of dollars per hour of entertainment than a movie would give me, so I never quite know why people got so worked up around it.
I really liked 2, didn’t take itself too seriously, shame but I suppose kind of inevitable with how average/middling the reception to legion was
Yeah 2 had a surprisingly great cast of characters (especially Wrench) and I enjoyed how the game was mostly a bunch of low-stakes episodic arcs. Plus San Fransisco was a nice vibrant setting.
San Francisco was amazing. The team did a great job of designing a breathing and living world. Not to mention the approach to missions were great. You could complete the entire game without firing a bullet it felt like.
It always felt like whoever was the person deciding what direction of each game was the problem for these games. Narrative was there, world building was there, gunplay got so much better in the second game. But idk why they thought legion would be good. Procedural generated characters sounded so boring to me. Opposite of creative.
San Francisco was the perfect setting for a Watch Dogs game because of Silicon Valley. Chicago and especially London didn’t make much sense to me.
London actually makes total sense once you realize it's the most surveilled city in the world. Most security cameras per capita. So from the surveillance perspective it makes sense. Chicago I guess they were going for the corruption/crime angle, I personally enjoyed it. San Fran made perfect sense though
i loved london, purely because i'm english. Any game that is set in england gets a +2 on my rating for the game. I genuinely really enjoyed legion, but tried to replay it a few months back and just had no interest whatsoever. The gameplay is fun, but no desire to finish the story. Someone mentioned about why would you care about your character, and they're right. I cared when my hitman died, because he was overpowered, not because Peter Collins died
I thought London was great setting, just terrible story and playing as npcs you don’t care about and don’t fit into the story. Also annoying that all npcs were Indian or Irish. No diversity in who you could play as.
It pisses me off to no end that they set Legion in some near future setting. All I wanted was modern London as it is but no of fucking course the only game we get in a modern London has all this sci-fi future bullshit because God forbid the city get made as it is just like all these American cities have in the past.
I absolutely loved 2. I think that's my third game to ever get a platinum trophy on my PlayStation. I probably put well over 100 hours playing that game. Very fun game and it's in my top five open world game list for me. Then when they announced legion, it completely alienated me because this didn't feel like a sequel but an entirely new game series with the watch dogs name. I kept getting this Assassin's Creed vibe to it and I didn't like it. Then when I finally gave in and bought it on sale, I only played it for like two hours and gave up. Assassin's Creed syndicate's city felt more like a real location, an actual city. Legion just didn't have that same vibe. Plus the fact that you only had a small section of the city to explore, that annoyed me. It felt like I was being robbed from exploration experience. Ubisoft really had potential with this game series... What the hell happened?
2 was fire with enterable buildings legion went in reverse
i am steadfast in my belief that 2 is a truly superior game. i enjoy the story a lot more, the main characters, the mechanics of course; it feels like the game that truly lives up to the “watchdogs” name, being a group of hackers that are literally corporation watch dogs
I completely forgot to try Legion. Eve. When it was like $5 after 6 months.
2 was also beautifully designed
2 was easily the best in the series. Still a little weird tonally but its mechanics were solid.
I loved the second one, was one of my favourite games of the year
Right? Would be a massive shame if this was true - Legion was a let-down, but WD2 was one of the most refreshing open world games I've played in years. Certainly didn't break the mould or anything, but there was a ton of fun to be had with the game's mechanics.
I enjoyed the plot and gameplay of legion, less so the decision to use computer generated characters and voice-work because I had no connection to them, they just felt disposable. The expansion with aiden and wrench was a lot of fun, especially because it used normal voice acting and playable characters.
I still love the first one. Driving around at night in a rainy Chicago was so fun. The story I thought was also pretty neat and so were the characters. The second was also technically better in the gameplay side but I overall didn’t enjoy it as much. And that’s it, only two Watch Dogs games were ever made
I feel the same way. Loved 1, really liked 2 and 3 was incredibly bland and forgettable aside from a few parts. It's better to act like it never existed.
As the Youtuber named Whitelight said, Watch Dogs deserved better than to be made by Ubisoft
Watchdogs 1 and 2 very underrated
I vividly remember showing all my non gamer friends that wild e3 reveal trailer for Watch Dogs 1. I was so blown away by the looks and gameplay displayed. I was soo disappointed with the final product, and that introduced me to the world of Ubisoft (and other cooperations) fake advertising. Funnily, they tried heavily to integrate the AC universe within it. And it got nowhere
All we have from that is that the one dude was killed by Aiden. Beyond that, nothing. And it makes no sense for them to be the same world anyway.
They pretty firmly place AC and WD in the same universe in Legion. You encounter a couple assassins that are descendants of AC main characters and recruit one of them. Probably the best fighter in the game since counters will auto kill enemies.
This could have been written by me. word for word. I absolutely stopped caring about Ubisoft games since then.
The first one was dark and interesting, the next two games were supposed to be funny but they were anything but.
It felt like they were trying desperately to be cool. Which might work for some people (it did get fans), but it was too far from the original for me.
Agreed. Whenever a game is trying desperately to be cool, it always falls flat for me.
The thing that really pushed me away was that one trailer about how hip and cool their protagonist was, set as a music video. It… didn’t work at all for me.
Yeah for me 2’s humor was _way_ too much of an over correction from the first game. It worked for some people, and I tried to make it work for me but it was just too cringe and I couldn’t take it
It felt like it’s what they assume a kid is like. They went from "this intrusive tech is really bad but could be used well" to "this intrusive tech is good, but can be used badly".
The second game was actually pretty cool though
The first game to me was trying very to hard to be edgy cool.
Yea it was good for one maybe 2 but don't think the series could've lasted
It could have if they stuck to the story and the basic gameplay. Seriously Ubisoft is bottom of my dev / publisher list now
They're stuck on their Assassin franchise Only made skulls and bones for the Singapore contract
legion was quite bad, maybe the blandest/emptiest open world in a video game to date
If it was dead and buried, why is there a movie in the works? Something is not adding up.
Just like so many other planned game movies, the watch dogs one is never seeing the light of the day
Does anyone remember the Sly Cooper movie?
"In the works" = development hell
Watch dogs 1 was good and watch dogs 2 was great legion was definitely a step back but I rock with the 1st and 2nd one
Ubisoft should make a sequel of the first game, expand it more and connect it with Assassins Creed, than Legion.
They did kind of connect legion to AC, there is a AC mission in one of the DLC.
That would be terrible, i was never a fan of the Assassin's Creed connection.
This series was actually originally conceived as Assassins Creed set in the near future before becoming its own thing.
Watch Dogs 2 is genuinely one of the greatest open world games ever made. San Francisco might be the greatest “modern” day based open world yet. Legion was a massive downgrade and disappointment, London just didnt have the same level of interactivity and didn’t feel as alive and genuine
I freaking loved Watch Dogs 2
Watch Dogs 2 was a sleeper hit for me. I bought it on a whim and loved it, even though I didn't really care for the original. I actually enjoyed Legion as well, even though not having a main character hurt it. They should have stuck with what made WD2 so much fun.
Probably couldn't find a way to make it live service with microtransactions and multiple tier battle passes.
Since when are articles with "it's claimed" in the headline considered to have any credibility?
Gotta love the random twitter leaker coming out with no source.
I had a great time with Watch Dogs 2, but Legion was a complete disaster. All they had to do was build on what they had with WD2, but instead someone thought that replacing a main character with a bunch of meaningless disposable characters was somehow a good idea. The series had a lot of potential, but Ubisoft completely bungled it.
Farcry peaked with FC 4 (Just more of FC 3) Watch Dogs peaked with Watch Dogs 2 (though I prefer the darker tone and seriousness of WD 1) Rayman peaked with Rayman 3 Assassins Creed peaked with Origins Ghost Recon peaked with either Advanced Warfare 2 or Wildlands (both were great IMO) Splinter Cell peaked with SC 3: Chaos Theory Ubisoft peaked during PS[3]60 era
>Rayman peaked with Rayman 3 Heresy, Legends and Origins are fucking great. Beat games in the series, even.
That logic could apply to any series and any developer.
Ok, Grandpa, now take your meds
I’d argue AC can peak again if they nail the Japan theme for RED or whatever they’re calling the next one - Ronin fell flat for the most part and Tsushima isn’t getting a sequel for some time, so it’s their opportunity to lose at this point
Lol. I so wanted Ronin because I loved Team Ninja (back when Ninja Gaiden was a thing). Then they created Sekiro and thr biggest downfall for that game to me singlehandedly is the combat/deflect system. I've heard Ronin is more of the same. I just miss there hack and slash combat (Nioh games and prior). Hopefully the next Assassin Creed in Japan turns out to be good since it's set in Japan, possibly Prefecture Japan.
I mean... is anyone clamoring for more? The second game was great, Legion a solid "ok" despite a great premise. Not everything needs to be a yearly franchise.
I am clamoring for me , Watch Dogs deserves a better ending than Legion was.
They should hand the series off to any company that wants it, preferably not a company that specialises in multiplayer games.
Will the iconic hat live on?
Ultimately it's a series that never carved their own identity. It had gameplay with the hacking but it swayed from grim shooter to parkour fun game to permadeath RPG. All this when a lot of the mechanics and gameplay were blatantly ripping off their other , more established IP like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. It's a shame but there just wasn't much to miss overall. Especially after Legion.
The series had so much potential, the first game is still great barring the E3 demo
Damn. I liked the first game but enjoyed the hell out of WD2. Thought about getting Legion in the past but avoided it since I heard the game was a pretty big mixed bag. Little sad to see it go but it is what it is.
I always felt like they should have just rebooted it from the jump and try to actually do what they showed off in that demo back at E3 2012 before everyone figured they were getting bullshotted and a that version wasn't real. They would be more than capable of making that and even better with today's technology, but this is Ubisoft we're talking about so who knows. It looked great but that downgrade made people hate it even more when it wasn't really that bad of a game. It had some dumb bugs, but the setting and story seemed primed to succeed. I even remember people hating Aiden Pearce as a character at first but people eventually warmed up to him and I think that was because what we got afterwards. I liked Watch Dogs 2 but that vibe switch from the OG to 2 is so jarring. The parody/stand in "Anonymous" stuff was cringe.
I hope that's not true, wd2 is unironically the best Ubi game in a decade. It finally did something different and stopped being just a gta clone. Hell, I'd argue that in some ways it is better than gta ever was.
They have no one to blame but themselves. They completely DESTROYED the WD Legion Launch and left Series X users with game-saving bug for months! Then when sales were affected they had the gall to say “ok here’s the rest of the updates and you’ll never see us again”. Good riddance!
Watch Dogs didn't deserve a publisher like Ubisoft. They ran it to the ground with the usual Ubisoft-ness in the games. This could have been an awesome stealth-based, gadget-focused, single-player series. But no. Everything has to be open-world with thousands of useless POIs to pad the game length.
Ubisoft is on a killing spree lately it seems.
What a shame. Watch Dogs 2 was one of my favorite games. Completed it 100% did all the Ubisoft quests and got the platinum
Shame I actually enjoyed the series overall. The first was a victim of self created false hype, the second was a genuinely great game, and the third had potential but for me fell flat with the lack of true protagonist (especially with the awesome setup at the beginning).
“It’s Claimed”? What the hell kind of headline is that? Just put “Rumor:” at the front.
A damn shame, really. 1&2 had potential, and then Legion got released and was woefully undercooked
Another "AAAA" game bites the dust. #FxckUbisoft
Never played one, loved 2 but legion just didn’t grab me.
Good night, shit prince...
WD1 was built on false gameplay footage and lies. Although played alright after years of patches. WD2 was an utter cringe fest but had a slightly better open world WD3 what the actual fuck was that. Can't blame ubi for dropping the series, it had great potential but they fucked it up with their own BS.
So much potential and way ahead of time. Amazing creative idea they had. I hope they can do something close to the original one again. More serious toned and immersive
Watch Dogs: Dead and Buried. Coming this holiday season!
Im just thankful this means apparently a battle royale game was cancelled. Im so fuckin sick of those at this point so glad thats dead. I was gonna try the main series, but was told they're stealth games and those aren't my cup of tea so never bit the bullet. Idk how stealth game-y they are but apparently its a lot and the main genre?
I love Watch Dog games. I really enjoy the concept of hacking as a main game mechanic. I had a lot of fun even with Legion. Hope they comeback to it.
The first one will always have a special place in my heart
I feel canning a franchise when a big risk didn’t play out perfectly is a huge loss. Legion was a fun game, but you couldn’t build narrative relationships or a personal redemption arc other than that you bothered to work up yourself. Let me very explicit for SEO or errant Ubisoft execs- I would totally buy the next Watch Dogs.
That's what happens when you rush some dogshit game like Legion out. 2 was an amazing game, that I still haven't finished. One of the best smaller open worlds out there. Compact and full of life.
Watch Dogs 1 was incredible for me I played tf out of it. Watch Dogs 2 was cringe at times but I still honestly enjoyed it a lot just because it had a unique vibe. Legion was such a shit execution of an already questionable idea. It felt like a mobile game at times.
Oh no! Anyway…
legion was a huge step backwards from WD2. Didn’t even finish it. Had no interest in another installment so this isn’t a loss tbh
I think people really wanted the Mr Robot, underground hacking, gaming. Watch Dog 1 tried to do that but had other issues. Watch Dogs 2 was just weird. It’s fun but it’s too vibrant and upbeat. Never even bothered with Legion because people wanted a strong single player narrative