Watch Dogs: Legion starts with a bang, as the entire city of London erupts into a chaotic blast that sets the tone of the game. The game carries much of the elements from the earlier games and these elements are core to the gameplay of the hacking-based adventure that we’ve come to adore over the years.
It turns the tables and takes you across the pond from Chicago and San Francisco to London. Here instead of gun violence and rampart firearm use, players are introduced to a much quieter and lethal form of attacks, i.e. bare-knuckle fights. Melee attacks are your next best options if you cannot find a gun in Watch Dogs: Legion and somehow this helps to bring in the immersiveness of London to the game.
Watch Dogs: Legion is diverse and challenging. It efficaciously maintains the core gameplay mechanism serving combat, exploration, customization, and hacking on a single plate. This game is more than a weekend killer, for fans of Watch Dogs, a visit back to the memory lane where the entire world is hackable. With some hiccups and lots of excitement, we begin our Watch Dogs: Legion Game review.
Watch Dogs: Legion keeps the main spirit of the franchise intact while exploring additional ways and defying odds to overcome them. It feels like a natural progression from over the years and I loved every bit of it.
Gameplay – Riveting and Provocative
Another great addition in our opinion is the ability to recruit almost anyone from the streets of London for your cause, they will have their agenda before they join you and it makes the game feel livelier.
Watch Dogs: Legion works as a living thing and every NPC has something to offer to you, it is your job to recruit members that fit perfectly according to your plans and with the help of the masses you can and will overthrow the oppressors in the game.
The streets of London have been mapped carefully to show the vibrancy of the city. Being a cultural hub, you get to see all the small details of everyone who lives there. The posh societies stand out differently from the crime-filled streets making a stark contrast in how you perceive the entire game differently.
Ubisoft has been masters of recreating picture-perfect towns and cities in their videogames and Watch Dogs: Legion seems to be their best work yet. Apart from that, I loved to see that people were forced to drive on the left side of the road in the game. This shows that attention to detail also goes into things that most people will look over like how the driver is placed on the right side of the car according to the British Laws as compared to the left in the rest of the world.
One thing that bugged me and for what I am thankful for are the puzzles, they can have you travel all over the place to solve them but what they do is open up new avenues for you to think when you’re trying to solve another puzzle.
Drones and other electronics are your friends so you will spend a lot of time using either your trusty spider bot or the drones that you hack infinite times throughout the game. They will provide you to play the game like never before.
Attacking spaces and exploring things that your human character won’t be possible to. Hacking enemies and getting an edge is also great and can be done millions of times or so. I lost count but it once again will help you if you just remember to use everything in the environment to your advantage.
Watch Dogs: Legion keeps the main spirit of the franchise intact while exploring additional ways and defying odds to overcome them. It feels like a natural progression from over the years and I loved every bit of it.
Graphics – A Visually Stunning Game!
Everything in Watch Dogs: Legion looks crisp and tailormade for the narrative of the game.
This is where a few issues came up during our testing of Watch Dogs: Legion, while there were a few screens tearing issues that we discovered while playing the game. They weren’t persistent and neither did they disrupt the joy of playing the game. These issues probably will be ironed out with the day-one patch.
Our testing showed that with DLSS and RTX on Watch Dogs: Legion struggled to keep up with the 60 FPS mark while I was unable to determine the cause of this, I found out that I got around 55 FPS on an average and never falling below 50 even in highly intensive moments.
On the flip side, everything in Watch Dogs: Legion looks crisp and tailormade for the narrative of the game. Not only does London look like it should, but small details like graffiti on the walls, or the people and what they wear depending on the time of the day also seem perfect.
Each character looks different and polished, and with each NPC having an identity of their own it makes sense that Ubisoft paid so much attention to detail. Every corner of the game is lit according to its surroundings, meaning that even though you may enter a duct or a dark alleyway, the glow from other objects brings out the details in these places.
Story Not So Different:
Watch Dogs: Legion does not feel rushed or even as if there’s a direct comparison with any other game. It stands apart from the rest giving you a look at the possibly bleak future that we’re heading into.
Watch Dogs Legion plot revolves around the infamous hacking group who are serving for good. Characters of this series had made their mark on fans, and this time Legion is faceless. Ubisoft broke the limit of linear storyline keeping one character in focus, by offering a chance to the entire city to fight against dictatorship indistinctive to their race, age, status, etc.
You play as a DedSec operative when the game starts and like many other popular stories you start off being blamed for the explosions. Your job is to uncover who is carrying out these attacks and at the same time defend the people of London from being oppressed.
The game’s storyline will offer you a ton of twists and turns as you dig deep to understand the people responsible and bring DedSec back to glory. Along with it, you will find a lot of foes turn friendly and vice versa. There are moments in the game that cannot be predicted and with the pacing and narrative quality, it always comes as a surprise.
Notably, Watch Dogs: Legion does not feel rushed or even as if there’s a direct comparison with any other game. It stands apart from the rest giving you a look at the possibly bleak future that we’re heading into. There’s a lot to read between the lines in Watch Dogs: Legion as things that are means to protect people can easily be turned into oppression tools giving us a reminder of what George Orwell said in 1984.
Driving can be better & so can Shooting!
Gun shooting and gameplay seems a bit off. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but from a company that has been mastering gun violence with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six maybe I expected a bit more.
Two points have been going around in my mind and while there is a fix for one of them, the second one feels more like it should’ve been different. The first point is the driving in the game. It does not feel reactive as you’d like it to be.
Ubisoft has the likes of The Crew franchise from which they could get bring the driving mechanics, but Watch Dogs: Legion lets players determine how they wish the car to behave as you will find a sensitivity meter in the settings.
Secondly, the gun shooting and gameplay seems a bit off. There’s nothing wrong with it per se, but from a company that has been mastering gun violence with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six maybe I expected a bit more.
Each character, though, has a style, and it is easy to determine the style of these characters by just looking at them. Once you recruit them, you get to know more about the people around you and this allows you to bring the best out of them.
Verdict
Watch Dogs: Legion is a ton of fun. While I was impressed with the game, it feels like something close to perfection that humanizes itself with a few flaws making it feel less manufactured and more crafted. The game does bring up questions and thoughts that have been giving anxiety to security experts all over the world. While the game feels non-stop, there’s also the option to sit back and breathe in the air of London and admire the architecture and aesthetics.
Apart from a few niggles here and there, Watch Dogs: Legion delivers on every promise it made before launch. It is a great game for you to sit down and invest yourself over the weekend while dwelling on conspiracy theories on the internet once you finish the campaign.
The online mode and season pass with past characters will be released post-launch and I absolutely cannot wait to see what more Watch Dogs: Legion can offer.
