REVIEW: Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs: Legion is released four years after the release of the first entry in Ubisoft’s open-world tech-themed series. It will be an improvement on Watch Dogs 2, which was seen as a positive step forward. The initial unveiling in 2019 focused on two key elements that would determine Legion's future. These were the new setting of London, and the innovative concept that allows players to control any NPC they wish, effectively creating their own team of hacktivists. Ubisoft fails again to prevent Watch Dogs : Legion from falling into the familiar traps for which the developer is sadly well-known.

After the London sub-division of DedSec, Watch Dogs : Legion immediately kicks off the action with an opening scene detailing a terror attack inside the House of Parliament. DedSec manages to defuse some explosives but a series detonations are caused by Zero-Day, a mysterious terrorist group. This group conveniently blames DedSec and forces the group into secrecy. Albion, a private military group, begins to make deals and eventually take control of the British government. This forces London to its knees, and allows criminal groups to profit from the restrictions. After a period of darkness, DedSec starts to recover and the player is given the task of building a rebel team to take down Albion and other criminal organizations in the city and to restore their reputation.

This story, while serviceable, feels extremely rushed and uninspired. It takes approximately twelve hours to tell the story. Anyone who has ever experienced media in a similar setting to Legion'sdystopian technologically-advanced environment will be disappointed. Each sub-section focuses on one of the four criminal organizations that have risen in power in London and leads to the ultimate goal: taking down Zero-Day and Albion. Although this format is unusual for open-world games it feels outdated for 2020. It is not unlike other open-world games.

Legion heavily relies on the idea of being able control every NPC. Each potential recruit appears to have unique abilities, personalities and approaches to the missions. The idea is that no two players will experience the same experience during their playthrough. These recruits can appear throughout the entire story, including cutscenes. Most recruits have unique personalities. The game is not designed to encourage players to explore this complex mechanic. Many of the characters that can be controlled play the same way. A briefing from your team may suggest that a stealth approach is best for a particular mission. However, you might find yourself in a situation where waves of robotic and human enemies begin to surround the player. If you choose to use stealth-based characters such as the Spy-inspired 007 character that carries a silent pistol, you'll find yourself in a situation where death is your only option. However, if the optional perma–death mode is enabled, your character will be lost forever.

This has the potential for creating a fun and challenging gameplay loop. It will keep players engaged and thinking about how to approach a mission. The perma-death option cannot be switched on after a playthrough is over. If you are looking for more challenge or time, you will have to restart the playthrough. Even though I encountered missions at the end that saw some of my stealthier-based operatives lose their lives (or, in the case with the normal mode, placed in jail), it quickly became apparent that everyone is the same outside of appearances and weaponry. While one character might have a silent pistol, which makes them more adept at quiet infiltration, another character can still use heavy weaponry and a gun-blazing style to sneak past enemies. Every character shares the same basic moves and silent takedown techniques.

The spider-bot gadget is an easy-to-use remote-controlled robot that can do almost all the actions the player can. This allows you to eliminate enemies even if the player is far away. While you may be tempted to use another gadget to address this problem, almost all missions encourage you to stick to the same basic formula. Use the spider-bot hack a server to download data, then leave the area.

Legion has a refreshing London setting, which is a welcome change from the tired cities Ubisoft has retreated to over the years. This is one of its most redeeming features. It is easy to lose yourself in the familiar sights, as many of the landmarks are faithfully recreated, while the architecture has a futuristic feel. It is a great time-sink to explore the city's sprawling streets and cross the famous bridges to reach some of London's most iconic landmarks. This exploration is hampered by the driving, which is a common problem in Watch Dogs : Legion.

Although driving in Legion may not be difficult, it is not an enjoyable experience. You quickly feel less like GTAV, and more like GTAIV's slippery weightlessness. It is easy to feel uninteresting and redundant driving from one point to another in London. You can only drive past landmarks before you start to feel engaged with the fast and easy fast-travel option that takes the player to any London Underground station.

Perhaps it would be more enjoyable to drive around the graphically-impressive game world if the performance of Watch Dogs: Legion was not an absolute catastrophe. The game looks great and London can sometimes look quite amazing, but it is hampered by poor optimization. The sound did not provide a consistent experience, no matter what settings were changed. No matter what was happening in-game the audio would frequently cut out for seconds, which shattered any sense of immersion one might have while playing.

There are many crashes, and the game is often unable to complete the most basic tasks. It has never been so difficult to quit a main menu. One instance was when I returned to the game to recruit a team member. The game reset my progress to the point before the mission ended. This gave me the opportunity to recruit the member again, but this time, I was the one controlling the character. After following the markers and completing the mission, the game locked up completely. These issues are a minor nuisance and never cause any serious game-breaking problems. However, the game crashes so often that it is impossible to continue playing.

Watch Dogs - Legionis a promising step forward for the franchise in many ways. It continues to push away from the over-the top seriousness of the original title. Ubisoft certainly has a goal to offer new opportunities and ways to approach the gameplay. However, mission variations are virtually non-existent and provide the same boring format that plagues the open-world genre. This is combined with the lackluster narrative and poor performance and you have a game that offers very little value for money.