Watch Dogs didn’t get to the best of starts as a franchise, but it’s surely been on the up and up since then. Watch Dogs 2 was a genuinely solid game, and the upcoming Watch Dogs: Legion is promising to be even better. It’s got a lot of great ideas, some that are completely unprecedented in a game of this scale, and fans have been curious to see how they will turn out. Now, after over a year of waiting – which also entailed a pretty sizable delay – Watch Dogs: Legion is almost here, and ahead of its launch, we’re going to talk about some crucial details you should know about the game.
SETTING
After having explored Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area in its first two games, Watch Dogs is now leaving the United States behind. Watch Dogs: Legion is set in a near-future cyberpunk-lite version of London, with the city having become a dystopian mess, combating with excessive surveillance and, in turn, tyranny. And what exactly is all that going on?
PREMISE
As Watch Dogs: Legion begins, things are not going well in London. After a devastating terrorist attack by a group known as Zero Day that explodes a number of bombs across London, DedSec are framed for the attack and blamed for the resulting losses. What happens then is no better, with private military contractor Albion taking over London for its protection. With complete access to the city’s ctOS, by the time the game begins, Albion have effectively turned London into a tyrannical city state. It will fall to DedSec to not only clear their name, but also take back the city from the clutches of Albion.
PLAY AS ANYONE
As you’re fighting against Albion and regaining control of London, you won’t be playing as any one single character. No, instead, you’ll be playing as several. That’s the central hook of Watch Dogs: Legion, of course. Pretty much every single NP you see in the game can be recruited to DedSec, following which they become a playable character- so you’re basically playing Pokemon, but with humans.
RECRUITS
Each recruit you, well, recruit, also has their own unique strengths and weakness. Every character will have certain specializations – many of which stem from their professions and areas of expertise – and you’ll be able to use these unique strengths and abilities to tackle objectives and challenges in unique ways. For instance, you can play as a beekeeper and call in a swarm of nanobees to attack your enemies. Or you can play as a construction worker and fly right over a heavily guarded area perched atop your construction drone. Ubisoft have promised that there’s a ton of variety to the characters and abilities available in the game, so here’s hoping these are used properly as well.
MAP SIZE
Most open world games these days – especially those made by Ubisoft – often get criticized for being too large, pretty much to the point of being bloated. We don’t know just yet whether that will turn out to be an issue in Watch Dogs: Legion– but we can confidently say that it is at least going to be a rather large game. Its developers have said that London is going to be about as large as the San Francisco Bay Area was in Watch Dogs 2. We might not have an exact figure to pin down yet, but we can at least be assured that Watch Dogs: Legion will boast a pretty large map to explore.
INTERIORS
Something else that we see quite regularly in open world games – even those that are the most detailed games out there – is a lack of interior environments, or at least interior environments that stand up to the exteriors in terms of detail and prominence. Watch Dogs: Legion is looking to avoid this issue. Once again, we don’t know the specific details just yet, but the game’s developers have said that there will be a lot more interior environments in the game, including shops, landmarks, and more.
CO-OP
While the single player story is going to be the meat and potatoes in Watch Dogs: Legion, players will be able to dive into some online content as well. Watch Dogs: Legion will allow up to four players to jump into online co-op together. This will entail dedicated online content and missions, as well as various optional activities, boxing, freestyle football, and more.
AIDEN PEARCE
Aiden Pearce isn’t exactly anyone’s favourite character – in fact, he’s pretty much the perfect encapsulation of some of Watch Dogs 1’s biggest weaknesses – but for those who enjoy a healthy dose of nostalgia and also have fond memories of Aiden, Watch Dogs: Legion will have a treat for you. As revealed by Ubisoft not too long ago, he will be added to the game in a post-launch update as a fully playable DLC character, and will also have his own story-centric content for players to enjoy as well.
SEASON PASS
Those who purchase the Gold and Ultimate Editions of Watch Dogs: Legion will get access to its Season Pass- and why exactly should you care? Well, it includes plenty of content. On top of a DedSec car skin, it will also feature plenty of playable content, including three DedSec missions, four unique playable characters, and two post-game story expansions. On top of that, anyone who has the Watch Dogs: Legion season pass will also get Watch Dogs 1 for free.
RTX
As we move into the 9th generation of consoles, ray-tracing will finally become an industry standard- but most AAA releases even these days have ray-tracing. Ubisoft have confirmed that Watch Dogs: Legion will also support ray-tracing on PC. In fact, it is one of the games that Nvidia have used to show off the enhanced ray-tracing capabilities of their new RTX 30 Series.
NEXT-GEN
It’s not just the next-gen of Nvidia that has the full support of Watch Dogs: Legion- so, too, do the upcoming next-gen consoles. Ubisoft have said for a while they the game, like most of their upcoming games in the coming months, is going to be a cross-gen release. In fact, not only is it going to be cross-gen, it’s also going to be a next-gen launch title. Following its October 29 launch on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia, Watch Dogs: Legion will be available on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on day one on November 10, and ditto for PS5 on November 12.
NEXT-GEN ENHANCEMENTS
So what exactly can we expect from Watch Dogs: Legion on the next-gen consoles? Like the PC version, the game will feature hardware-accelerated ray-tracing, in addition to other visual enhancements like high resolution textures and improved shadow quality, and other improvements, such as faster load times. Being a cross-gen game, you shouldn’t expect it to be too much of a leap, but we’re still hoping Ubisoft will leverage the more powerful next-gen hardware as well as they can.
UPGRADE PATH
Ubisoft have so far committed to allowing free next-gen upgrades for pretty much all of their major upcoming cross-gen releases, and Watch Dogs: Legion is going to be no different. If you buy the game on PS4 or Xbox One, you will be able to upgrade it to the PS5 or Xbox Series X / S version for free. Meanwhile, cross-gen saves and cross-gen progression will also be supported.
PC REQUIREMENTS
If you’re playing Watch Dogs: Legion on PC, what exactly are you going to need in your machine? Well, there’s quite a few options. At 1080p on low settings, you’ll require either a GeForce GTX 960 or a Radeon R9 290X alongside either an Intel Core i5-4460 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1400, while at 1080p on high settings, you’ll need either a GeForce GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 480 with either an Intel Core i7-4790 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600. For 1440p gameplay you’ll need either a GeForce RTX 2060S or a Radeon RX 5700 with either an Intel Core i7-7700K or an AMD Ryzen 5 2600, while 4K gameplay will require either a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti or a Radeon VII alongside either an Intel Core i7-9700K or an AMD Ryzen 7 3700K. RAM requirements are 8 GB for both 1080p settings, and 16 GB for 1440p and 4K gameplay.
PC REQUIREMENTS (RTX)
If you want to play with ray-tracing on, you’re going to need a pretty beefy rig. With ray-tracing enabled on high settings at 1080p gameplay, you’ll need GeForce RTX 2070, alongside either an Intel Core i5-9600K or an AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Meanwhile, for 4K gameplay on high settings with RTX enabled, you’ll need GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, alongside either an Intel Core i7-9700K or an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X. RAM requirements are 16 GB for both settings. You’ll require 45 GB of free storage space across all settings, but for 4K gameplay, you’ll also need an additional 20 GB for texture packs.