Watch Dogs: Legion is an epic game that follows on the heels of previous Watch Dogs releases, with promises of its thrill and uniqueness. Set in a London-to-come, the story revolves around setting the people free from mass surveillance and uncovering the city’s terrorists. Players can recruit and control several characters throughout the game. 

An interesting feature of the game is permadeath, which allows a character to die permanently during gameplay. This feature adds to the intrigue and dynamics of the game. You know that as you go through the thick and thin of this epic adventure, there’s a huge risk of being totally eliminated. The adrenaline rush that comes with that is incomparable. 

Playing the demo version of the game reveals that it has some great potential, with only a few loopholes the developers can easily fill.

A Colorful Story

Britain is anything but booming: unemployment on the rise, and crime is climbing the same ladder. With automation finding more use cases in the workplace, the situation is a mere ripple effect. However, there’s even bigger darkness about to befall the country. A terrorist organization, Zero Day, plans to decimate the city of London with bombs.  DedSec discovers the plot and plans to stop it.

There’s no better operative to undertake the task than the highly-efficient Dalton Wolfe. He finds his way into Zero Day’s building and finds more than he bargained for. The group was impersonating his organization, DedSec. Now, he has even more reason to stop the bombings, but the group is several steps faster. They go ahead to bomb other locations across London, throwing the city into an uproar. Dalton manages to gather evidence of the group’s activities, but his plan never sees the light of the day as he is assassinated.

With the country in total disarray, the government turns to a private security firm to keep London from plunging into anarchy. This company, Albion, does quench the burning fire of chaos, but not without kicking DedSec out of the city. To keep London as peaceful as possible, Albion turns the city into a surveillance city. The last thing the inhabitants have is their freedom, with every one of their activities under the lens of the security company. 

In the meantime, DedSec refuses to fade away. The group begins a rebuild, with new members joining the reinvigorated mission. Soon, they get to work, trying to uncover the perpetrators of the city’s bombings. But that is not their only objective – kicking Albion out and restoring the people’s liberties sits on top of the list.

A Gameplay with Multiple Side-Kicks

Watch Dogs: Legion takes players on a fast-paced adventure filled with enthralling physical challenges. Despite being set in futuristic London, it retains the city’s most iconic places and culture.  Players take a third-person viewpoint, which is characteristic of action-adventure games. The game has several missions that drive the storyline, but players can undertake these missions at their own pace.

The missions encompass combats with opponents, locating objects with the camera, evading enemies, or creating traps. Players can move on foot or use any of London’s many underground stations. There’s a big focus on hand-to-hand combat, although players can always whip out firearms to defeat the enemies. When in hot pursuit by enemies, players can escape using drones. 

Watch Dogs: Legion lets players recruit characters into the revamped DedSec. Players can use these characters to fulfill different objectives during a playthrough and switch them with others at will. Each character brings its own uniqueness and skillset to your missions, and being able to maximize their abilities will contribute to successful gameplay. Characters like a drone expert can do so much for your team, considering you may soon need drones to evade capture. To take things one step further, the game allows you to customize the appearance of the characters you add to your team.

Being able to play as different characters is likely the most exciting thing about Watch Dogs: Legion. But like every satisfying element, you get to the point of diminishing returns when the game begins to drag. The gameplay is set in stone, and dialogue hurried and blank. Imagine recruiting someone to join a hacker group for a critical mission with no prep-up information. Such ridiculousness suggests the developers may have paid more attention to creating a breathtaking London.

Between missions, players can explore other aspects of the game, such as mini-games, city tours, or discovery. They also have the option of joining cooperative gameplay that involves three other real players. Together, they engage in missions and share the rewards.

Although Watch Dogs: Legion comes with commendable additions, the story is a lazy adaption of previous installments, especially Watch Dogs 2. Having such a predictable storyline means there’s very little to keep you at the edge of your seat. Also, no particular improvement was made to the game’s graphics and mechanics.

So Many Jobless Side Characters

People are out of job in fictionalized London, so are many of your recruits. Watch Dogs: Legion lets you recruit many characters is a thrilling addition, but not without a downside. You’re likely to recruit more Londoners than you’ll ever use for your missions. In the demo, I was in a fix: either use all the characters on my list or focus on using a few to ensure character development. 

A way around this is to set permadeath. That way, some characters can disappear into thin air after fulfilling their objectives. But that’s also not without its problem. What if your favorite character dies?

Conclusion

Watch Dogs: Legions gives you a fantastic London experience, even if you’ve never been there. The novelty of controlling different characters does set the game as an inviting one. However, the game could use a lot of improvements. First, the dialogue should be more robust, especially when recruiting characters. Also, gameplay can be more dynamic and swifter.