Watch Dogs: Legion | Xbox One Review

Ubisoft’s youngest flagship franchise had a rocky start when it first debuted in 2014. It garnered favorable reviews, but wasn’t as highly lauded with praise to the extent of which Ubisoft was hoping for. I adore this series and I wasn’t bothered by the graphical downgrade of Watch Dogs final product versus what was shown at E3. I also truly enjoyed the comical & light-hearted tone of the second game; poking fun at internet meme culture, millennial culture, and the pretentious alternative lifestyles of billionaire tech gurus of Silicon Valley. So, having the next installment be set in an authoritarian future seemed like the next logical step the series could take in terms of trying to outdo itself. Did the people at Ubisoft Toronto succeed? Well, if someone could please hand me my Guy Fawkes mask, I will happily tell you.

Remember, Remember…

Like the previous entries, Watch Dogs: Legion is an open-world, action/adventure stealth shooter. This time taking place in a dystopian, unspecified future London. The underground hacktivist group DedSec has expanded its operations to London, and is framed for a series of coordinated bombings throughout the city by a rival hacker code-named Zero Day. As a result, the British government contracts a private military firm called Albion to restore order to the city. They hunt down all DedSec members and the group is disbanded. The game’s biggest feature, and main selling point, is that you don’t play as just one sole protagonist. Instead, anyone can become a playable character.

When I first learned about this new feature in the months leading up to release, I was wary of this approach, thinking it was too ambitious and felt like it couldn’t be pulled off. One thought I had was perhaps having this “play as anyone” mode would mean we’d have yet another game with silent protagonists. I’m happy to say that I was wrong. Every character, both playable and non-playable is fully voiced. Whatever techniques were used to achieve this, the effect worked. 

The only drawback is that there is no opportunity for any sort of character development or story arcs, nor are there any emotional attachments to these people. You don’t get to know who they are beyond whatever information is randomly generated on the character profiler, the series’ staple mechanic. In fact, off the top of my head, I can’t even tell you the names of any of my operatives.

Anarchy in the UK!

Combat and hacking are the franchise’s bread and butter and are once again present and accounted for. The hacking mechanics this time around work differently than before. Now it requires a brief cooldown before it can be used again. But if you’re playing as a hacker specialist, the cooldown is almost instantaneous. The shooting mechanics for the most part remain relatively unchanged and play like any modern third-person shooter, but a new melee combat system was added. Weapon selection, unfortunately, is locked to the characters who have them.

Team building is crucial, and as I said, is this game’s biggest feature. Your goal is to recruit citizens to your team, doing so first by performing a favor for them. Favors like freeing a hostage from Albion custody, or hacking a server to retrieve condemning information along with many others. These serve as the game’s primary side missions. As you build up your team, each character you recruit will bring with them different useful skills and abilities to fit whatever playstyle you wish. All of the character’s appearances, voices, and abilities are all determined with procedural generation, so except for the scripted characters, no two players will have the same team configuration.

London Calling

Speaking of characters, the biggest and most detailed of all has to be the city of London itself. The streets are populated with sleek, futuristic self-driving vehicles, holographic billboards, high-tech security checkpoints, and drones of all shapes, sizes, and functions flying above. Being able to drive and explore in a highly detailed open-world London gave me plenty of memories harkening back to my days of playing The Getaway on PS2, only more high tech and occupied by an oppressive regime. 

The city itself is divided into six boroughs, each of which needs to be liberated Far Cry style from Albion’s brutal oppression. To liberate a borough, you must complete various objectives, ranging from disrupting Albion propaganda to eliminating high-value targets. Completing each task will rally the citizens to act more defiantly towards Albion, and thus less Albion troops will be in the area. Fully liberating boroughs grants you rewards including money, tech upgrades, and a specialist operative that is automatically recruited to your team. While it helps you out in the long run to liberate each borough, none of it is essential to the story and is just more side missions to complete in that usual Ubisoft formula.

Although the city is not a one-to-one geographically accurate representation, it still captures the city’s essence, featuring all the famous landmarks you’d expect to see. Just like the two games before it, they nailed the look and feel of the city.

Final Thoughts

In short, I had a ton of fun playing Watch Dogs: Legion. Based on my experience with the franchise, I feel this entry will fit in nicely and will be looked upon fondly by gamers and fans alike. It will be remembered as one of the better entries in the series. The developers had an ambitious idea that sounded too good to be true, but they delivered on that ambition exponentially. Unfortunately, that ambitious idea came at a cost, as character development and story took a back seat in this game.

Despite some technical issues, it looks great graphically. I’m especially jealous of some of the online videos I’ve seen of this game playing on high-end PCs. But it looks good on a standard Xbox One, and I would love to see what this game will look like on next-gen consoles. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ve more than likely already bought this game. For those of you on the fence, I recommend you pick this up, especially since it’s already prepped for the new generation.

To hear Chris from the GO Crew talk about Watch Dogs: Legion, be sure to listen to Ep 319 of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 22:54 time stamp.

This review is based on a purchased copy of Watch Dogs: Legion. It is also available on PlayStation 4/5, PC via the Epic Games Store, Amazon Luna, and Google Stadia.