As a big AAA open world game, there’s plenty going on in Watch Dogs: Legion as it is. Add to that the game’s “play as anyone” mechanic and the intricate systems it creates, and Watch Dogs: Legion becomes a game with much more complexity than you’d expect. As you begin your fight to liberate London and help its people rise up in a resistance, going in with some prior knowledge will help make the early goings a little smoother for you. To that effect, in this feature, we’ll be talking about some basic tips and tricks to keep in mind while playing Watch Dogs: Legion.
KEEP SCANNING
This should be a thumb rule for you throughout the game. Every single character you see in Watch Dogs: Legion’s world can be recruited and played as, and you never know who you might run into in its open world. As such, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re regularly scanning people around you- you might just find your next great DedSec operative in the process.
UNLOCK THE DEEP PROFILER
In Watch Dogs: Legion’s central loop of identifying and recruiting new DedSec members, the Deep Profiler is perhaps the most useful tool you will have at your disposal. Depending you your actions in gameplay, you may end up influencing the way a character thinks of DedSec, which means you might often end up identifying potential recruits who’re not exactly the friendliest towards your organization. That’s where the Deep Profiler comes in, because not only does it show you the detailed daily schedules of characters, it also tells you about potential recruitment opportunities that might make that character more sympathetic to DedSec. So a) unlock the Deep Profiler upgrade as soon as possible, and b) make sure you leverage it well, because it’s an incredibly useful tool.
CONTACTS
From where a person will be at a certain time of the day to their interests and hobbies to any conflicts that they might be embroiled in, there’s a lot to be learnt about every character from the Deep Profiler. One of the most crucial things it details, however, is every character’s known contacts, which can be anything from a sibling to a parole officer to a business associate to a fierce competitor. Following up on these contacts is often a great way to convince a character to join your cause- for instance, help someone’s sister out of a spot, or sabotage their competitor, and they’ll suddenly like DedSec a lot more.
TECH POINTS
There may not be any single protagonist in Watch Dogs: Legion, but there is a skill tree that applies to your entire roster. The currency you spend on that tree is Tech Points, which are essentially scattered all throughout the map. Always keep an eye out for these- from inside vents to under stairs to roofs of tall buildings and more, Tech Points are hidden all over the place, and not always the easiest to reach.
SPIDERBOT
So what exactly should you spend your Tech Points on? We’ve already spoken about the Deep Profiler unlock, but there’s other crucial weapons and hacks to unlock nd upgrade as well. There’s the incredibly versatile and constantly useful Spiderbot, which should definitely be one of our first unlocks (if not the very first). Additionally, you should also make sure that you unlock the Spiderbot’s double jump and sprint abilities as quickly as possible, because that really helps with maneuverability later on.
SHROUD
Here’s another incredibly useful hack that should be one of your first unlocks. Shroud, as its name suggests, makes enemies that are dead or knocked out on the ground invisible. Enemies in Watch Dogs: Legion will often get alerted by corpses, so having a gadget that avoids risking detection once you’ve downed a foe will be a huge deal.
CARGO DRONES ARE OP
This is something that you’ll probably discover pretty early in the game by yourself- cargo drones are ridiculously useful. You can jump on top of them and essentially fly all across the map, which means these drones are great to scope out enemy bases from a bird’s eye view, and even better if you manage to get your hands on a long-range weapons. Cargo boards also come in quite handy when looking for Tech Points, because quite often their caches are found on roofs, where most of the challenge is about finding the right way up there. With a cargo drone, all of that is eliminated. If you have a construction worker in your team (which you will pretty soon into the story) you can also summon a cargo drone at any time, which makes construction workers great for scouting and recon (and, you know, getting Tech Points).
FIRST OPERATIVE
After the game’s prologue is over, Watch Dogs: Legion will ask you to pick the very first operative you want to recruit to DedSec. This will be your first playable character of the game (outside of the prologue), the spark that will light the fires of DedSec’s resistance. With all of that said, it’s best not too stress too much about who your first operative is going to be. Given how quickly you rack up new recruits and how often you’ll be swapping between then, it’s unlikely that you’ll get too attached to or even spend a great deal of time with your very first operative.
UNIFORMED ACCESS RECRUITS
Going forward into the game, it goes without saying that some characters are more useful than others, which means recruiting them should be kept on a priority. For instance, characters that get you uniformed access into otherwise restricted areas. From police officers to Albion contractors to Clan Kelley members to construction workers, there’s various different kinds of uniformed characters who will let you easily walk right into different restricted locations.
RECRUIT A COP AND A DOCTOR
This should be high on your list of priorities as well. It doesn’t even matter what their attributes or traits are- just as long as they’re a doctor (and a cop)- because both will provide incredibly useful buffs for your entire team. Having a person on the police department will mean a a shorter cooldown before you can use them after an arrest. Similarly, having a doctor on the team allows your injured operatives to heal faster.
RECRUIT A SPY
Of all the dozens of different types of characters you can play as in Watch Dogs: Legion, a spy is one of the best and most fun to play as. When it comes to stealth, there’s nothing quite like a spy (obviously). In addition to having a car that can drive real fast, become temporarily invisible, and fire missiles, a spy also has a spy watch, which you can use to send out an EMP pulse to fry anything in your vicinity for a few seconds. On top of that, a spy’s default weapon is a silenced pistol, which makes quietly dispatching enemies with quick headshots quite easy. In short: find and recruit a spy.
SKILLED RECRUITS
Given just how many recruitable and playable characters there are in Watch Dogs: Legion, it goes without saying that not every single one is a champion- quite a few of them are unremarkable and ordinary, and don’t really bring a lot of value to your roster. However, every now and then, the game will mark certain skilled recruits on your screen with a yellow dot on top of them. This signifies that they’re basically specialists at what they do, and usually come with either unique abilities or unique weapons, if not both. Keep an eye out for these skilled recruits then, because they might just end up being the stars of your team.