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Watch Dogs (video game)

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Watch Dogs
Developer(s)Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher(s)Ubisoft
Director(s)Jonathan Morin[2]
Producer(s)Dominic Guay[2]
Designer(s)Danny Belanger[2]
Programmer(s)Francis Boivin[3]
Writer(s)Kevin Shortt[4]
Composer(s)Brian Reitzell
Peter Connelly[5]
EngineDisrupt
Havok Physics[6]
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
Xbox 360
Xbox One
Wii U
Release27 May 2014
Wii U
Q4 2014
Genre(s)Action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Watch Dogs (stylized as WATCH_DOGS) is an open world action-adventure stealth video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on 27 May 2014 for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, with a Wii U version planned for release in the fourth quarter of 2014. Set within a fictionalized version of Chicago, Illinois, the single-player story follows a hacker and his efforts to seek revenge after the accidental death of his niece. The open world design lets players freely roam Chicago, which includes the urban city, open countryside, and slums.

The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Players control Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled grey hat hacker who can hack into the CTOS, a centralized system which manages the hyper-connected city of Chicago. Players can choose to play either against the law, or for it—as a criminal or a vigilante. An online multiplayer mode is also provided in the game, allowing up to eight players to engage in both co-operative and competitive gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting.

Gameplay

Watch Dogs is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the open world of Chicago. The world may be fully explored from the beginning of the game without restrictions, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content.

The player character walking through an urban environment, using his smartphone to scan the area for crime. The heads-up display elements are visible on-screen.
Using the in-game smartphone, players have the ability to view if a civilian is about to be involved in a crime.

In the game, players take control of Aiden Pearce, a vigilante who can hack into various electronic devices tied to the city's central operating system (CTOS), allowing various methods for the player to solve numerous objectives.[7] The hacking mechanic in the game is performed directly from Aiden's in-game smartphone, which is equipped with multiple applications, namely the "profiler" and the "crime prevention system"; the former allows the player to access information on any citizen in the city, while the latter notifies the player when a crime is likely to occur in the vicinity. The phone is also equipped with applications that interact directly with the environment around the player; for example, players can hack into NPC's phones to retrieve bank data and steal funds as well as unlock new cars, weapons, and in-game music, or they can hack into traffic lights to cause collisions.[8] Players can also receive information on civilians via augmented reality feeds, providing them with information on demographics, health and potential behaviour. Equipment is also provided by smartphone apps, which can be used to summon cars and weaponry. Players can stop trains, raise security barriers, and black out the entire city and can slow down time to shoot.

The game's combat utilises a combination of stealth components and parkour, along with the mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter.[9] The hacking element of the game can also be used in combat situations to eliminate opponents, create diversions, or create cover. It can also be used as a stealth tool to sneak past guards. In combat, auto-aim and a cover system are available as assistance against enemies. Should players take damage, their health meter will gradually regenerate. If players commit crimes while playing, the police may respond, as indicated by a meter in the head-up display. On the meter, the displayed levels indicates the amount of attention the crime demands; if the player reaches the maximum fifth level, efforts by law enforcement to incapacitate players become very aggressive and increasingly difficult. When players have escaped the officers' line of sight, the level enters a cooldown mode, which recedes when players escape the search area (as displayed on the mini-map).

As the game proceeds, the player can improve Aiden's skills either by expending skill points or earning skills and perks by completing side missions and collecting various items from the in game world, such as finding QRS codes on the sides of buildings or finding CTOS servers collecting information on the citizens of Chicago.

Alongside the single-player mode, Watch Dogs features an asynchronous online multiplayer mode. One element to the multiplayer mode is a one-on-one interaction, in which one player secretly joins the single-player experience of another player and attempts to install a "back-door virus" onto their smartphone.[10] In addition, the game features an eight-player free roam mode[11] Other multiplayer modes include car races, competitive decryption combat, and a CTOS mobile challenge.[a] A mobile application is also available for smartphones and tablets that allows players to challenge another player in-game and use hacks that triggers traps, in an attempt to stop them from succeeding.[13]

Plot

Eleven months after a failed robbery at the Merlaut Hotel that led to the unintentional murder of his niece instead of him, grey hat hacker and vigilante Aiden Pearce (Noam Jenkins) is seeking revenge on those responsible. Using a backdoor into Chicago's central operating system (CTOS), Aiden is able to hack into the electrical infrastructure in the city, allowing him to discover information about its citizens using his smartphone.[14] The hitman, Maurice Vega (Christopher Jacot), does not give Aiden any information about the contractor of the murder, so he is kept detained by Aiden's fixer partner Jordi Chin (Aaron Douglas) while Aiden investigates further.[15] When Aiden declines a request from his former partner Damien Brenks (Daniel Kash) to track down the hacker who ruined the Merlaut robbery, Damien kidnaps Aiden's sister Nicole (Anne Hopkins). To save his sister, Aiden complies with Damien's demands.[16]

With the help of fellow hacker Clara Lille (Isabelle Blais), Aiden tracks down the second hacker: Anthony "Iraq" Wade (Jerod Hayes), leader of the Black Viceroys gang.[17] Aiden obtains the electronic key to Iraq's sever room[18] and obtains a sample of the data from his servers. By doing this, he discovers that the servers contain secrets on almost every citizen of Chicago, and that Iraq has plans to blackmail the entire city.[19] Unable to decrypt the code himself, Aiden seeks help from its creator, Raymond Kenney (John Trench), who has gone into hiding.[20] Clara and Aiden eventually track him down, and discover that he's using the alias "T-Bone".[21] After Aiden completes some tasks for him, T-Bone agrees to help unlock the decryption.[22]

Aiden mounts an assault on Iraq's compound, making it to his server room. After Aiden downloads the server data, Iraq confronts him; Aiden kills him and leaves the compound.[23] While browsing the server information, another hacker infiltrates their system and steals the information before deleting it from their servers. The hacker also leaves a recording that reveals Clara helped locate Aiden and Damien eleven months prior, which ultimately led to his niece's death.[24] Angered, Aiden demands Clara to leave. Later, when Aiden confronts Damien about the loss of the server data, Damien publicizes Aiden's vigilantism, alerting the authorities of his identity.[25]

Eventually, Aiden and T-Bone locate and take down the hacker who stole their data, JB "Defalt" Marcowics, and retrieve the data again.[26] Meanwhile, Aiden discovers where Nicole is being kept, and frees her.[27] Along with Nicole's son Jackson (Nicholas Bode), Aiden drives the two out of town to keep them safe.[28] Examining the server information, T-Bone discovers the contractor who ordered the hit that killed Aiden's niece: Dermot "Lucky" Quinn (Myron Natwick), leader of the Chicago South Club and owner of the Merlaut Hotel.

Aiden tracks down and confronts Lucky, shutting off his pacemaker. In his dying moments, Lucky reveals that he ordered the hit because he thought that Aiden was searching for blackmail footage of the mayor, whom Lucky is closely associated with. After Lucky finally dies, Aiden races to Clara, who is ambushed and killed by Damien's men.[29] During Aiden's attempts to track down Damien, he discovers that Damien has unlocked CTOS, allowing him access to the entire city. In order to find him, Aiden uploads a virus into CTOS and shuts down the entire system, blacking out the city. By doing this, Aiden is able to locate Damien, and kill him. During the credits, Aiden returns to Maurice, and chooses to either kill him or spare him.[30]

Development

Ubisoft Montreal began development work on Watch Dogs in 2009.[31] Ubisoft Montreal's creative director Jonathan Morin noted that Watch Dogs is designed to "go beyond the limits of today's open world games", referencing both its use of information as a plot point, and allowing players to control the entire city through its hacking mechanics.

Two images showing the Willis Tower from the same location, looking up at the building. The top image is a screenshot from Watch Dogs, and the second image is an image of the tower in real life Chicago.
For Watch Dogs (top), the development team reproduced various landmarks from the city of Chicago, such as the Willis Tower (bottom).

For Watch Dogs, Ubisoft Montreal built a new game engine called Disrupt.[32] The engine was originally intended for a different game focused on driving. Ubisoft North American president Laurent Detoc explained that the team working on the project realized an open-world game was a better fit than their original vision. [33] Watch Dogs runs in 900p on PlayStation 4 and 792p on Xbox One both versions of the game run at 30fps. Creative director Jonathan Morin explained that he's more concerned with the overall experience rather than the technical minutiae. Morin added that the people tend to forget that achieving higher fidelity visuals is easier for corridor shooters than it is for open-world games. [34]

In order to achieve realism in the game's hacking mechanic, the game production team worked with Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab. The developers sent some of the game designs to Kaspersky, who then gave feedback. "Sometimes they say, 'Yeah, that's possible, but change that word,' or, 'That's not the way it works'," said senior producer Dominic Guay.[35] When developing the hacking mechanic, the team focused on reducing it to one button; "You want to have one button, so that people don't have to swallow 'how' on top of 'when' and 'why' to use those things," said Morin.[36]

When developing the game, Ubisoft prioritised development for the eighth generation consoles and PC.[37] Guay stated that the Wii U GamePad is considered a "natural" fit for Watch Dogs.[38]

The team travelled to Chicago during development to record NPC dialogue, to achieve the distinct accent. To record the dialogue, two studios ran simultaneously in Chicago for about six weeks. "You will never see exactly the same profile on any NPC anywhere in the game," said lead story designer Kevin Shortt.[39]

Watch Dogs was officially unveiled by Ubisoft during their press conference at E3 2012. They released its debut trailer on the same day[40][41] The game missed its original projected 19 November 2013 release date, pushed back to early 2014 to allow for further polishing.[42] The release date was later confirmed as 27 May 2014 for all platforms except Wii U,[43] which was delayed to the fourth quarter of 2014.[44][45]

On 15 February 2013, a leaked promotional image suggested that Watch Dogs would launch in December 2013 for "all home consoles",[46] which led to speculation about whether the game would launch on eighth generation consoles.[47][48][49] During the Sony press conference on 20 February 2013, Watch Dogs was confirmed to be coming to the PlayStation 4.[50] Shortly afterwards, Ubisoft confirmed that the game would also be released for the Wii U,[51] after some retailers had listed it for pre-order.[52] On 21 May 2013, Ubisoft revealed that an Xbox One version of Watch Dogs was also in development.[53]

On October 15, 2013, Ubisoft announced that the game had been delayed until 2014, for extra "polish".[54] Ubisoft later confirmed that the game would be released on 27 May 2014.[55] On May 14, 2014, Ubisoft announced that Watch Dogs had "gone gold", and was officially sent off to manufacturing.[56] To encourage pre-order sales for the game, Ubisoft collaborated with several retail outlets to provide special edition versions of the game. The "Dedsec Edition", for example, includes a unique case packaging for the game, a game map, a figurine of Aiden Pearce and unlock codes for additional content for use in the game.[57]

The exclusive GameStop pre-order poster for the game was created by illustrator Alex Ross, a native of Chicago, where the game is set. Ross emphasized that setting in the image by placing the Willis Tower and the elevated train tracks in the background.[58]

Soundtrack

The official soundtrack for the game was composed by Brian Reitzell.[59]

Watch Dogs Soundtrack
No.TitleLength
1."The Loop"4:40
2."Ded Sec"1:31
3."Creepy Caller"1:13
4."Donovan"3:45
5."Revelation Number 3"2:51
6."Computer Underground"3:13
7."Elevated Trains"1:25
8."IP Tracking"3:28
9."Vigilante"8:59
10."Ghosts of the Past"3:12
11."On the Lake"2:01
12."Hackers"6:10
13."Escape From Chicago"2:59
Total length:45:27

Reception

Critical reception

Watch Dogs received generally positive reviews. Among its strengths, reviews cited its hacking elements, mission variety and online multiplayer mode. Review aggregators GameRankings and Metacritic respectively gave the PlayStation 4 version 83% and 82/100,[60][64] the Xbox One version 78% and 78/100,[61][66] and the Microsoft Windows version 77% and 81/100.[62][65] Average review scores for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game have currently not been assigned.[77][78][63][79]

Reviewers praised the hacking elements of the game. Both Jeff Marchiafava of Game Informer and Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot particularly noted its improvement to the combat.[69][70] IGN's Dan Stapleton named it one of the best features of the game.[71] Metro's Ludwig Kietzmann called the hacking "refined, reliable and precise," and expressed his belief that the feature improves the game overall.[73] Chris Carter of Destructoid felt less impressed by the hacking feature, saying that it "isn't nearly as revolutionary as Ubisoft Montreal wants us to think."[80]

Controversy was caused a month before release when it was uncovered that at a PR event in the UK, game journalists were given free Nexus 7 tablets as gifts, a move that has been seen by many as amounting to a bribe in an effort to improve the game's review scores after mounting negative press over delays and alleged lies over graphical quality on consoles.[81] There was also some controversy after release concerning graphics/video changes (such as missing or modified environment effects) from the demos at E3 in 2012 to release in 2014.[82]

Sales

Watch Dogs broke the record for biggest first day sales in Ubisoft history.[83] Watch Dogs had the biggest new IP launch in the United Kingdom ever, beating the previous record holder, L.A. Noire, by more than half its sales. Overall, Watch Dogs is the 17th biggest game launch in the United Kingdom of all time.[84] A week after its release, Ubisoft announced that the game had sold 4 million units worldwide.[85]

Awards

Prior to release, Watch Dogs received more than 82 awards and nominations for its display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2012 (E3 2012),[86] and won two Game Critics Awards for Special Commendation for Graphics and Special Commendation for Innovation.[87] Later that year, the game was nominated for One to Watch at the 30th Golden Joystick Awards.[88][89] In 2013, Watch Dogs received over 90 awards and nominations for its display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 (E3 2013),[90] and won one Game Critics Award for Best Action/Adventure Game while receiving four additional nominations for Best of Show, Best Original Game, Best Console Game, and Best Online Multiplayer.[91][92] Later that year, the game was nominated for Most Wanted at the 31st Golden Joystick Awards,[93][94] and was also nominated for Most Anticipated Game at the VGX 2013.[95]

Film

Variety reports that Ubisoft is developing a Watch Dogs film, along with Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Splinter Cell and Raving Rabbids films.[96] Sony announced at their 2013 Gamescom press conference that Ubisoft will work with Columbia Pictures and New Regency to make the film, Sony will distribute the film in the US and 20th Century Fox will handle the international distribution rights.[97] On 24 April 2014, Deadline.com reported writing and producing partners Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese will write the film.[98]

References

Notes
  1. ^ The decryption and free-roam modes are not available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, due to hardware limitations.[12]
  2. ^ GameRankings's aggregate scores apply to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows versions. A separate score of 75% for the PlayStation 3 version is based on one review.[63]
Footnotes
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  2. ^ a b c Stuart, Keith (3 July 2013). "Watch Dogs – and how Ubisoft is planning the next decade of game design". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  3. ^ Martin, Matt (17 April 2014). "Watch Dogs programmer: "Frame rate is very important to the gameplay"". VG247. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  4. ^ Phillips, Jevon (15 June 2013). "E3 2013: 'Watch Dogs' writer maps Chicago, morality of vigilantism". LA Times. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  5. ^ Greening, Chris (23 April 2014). "Game Release Calendar: Composer Assignments 2014". Game Music Online. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
  6. ^ Kirsch, Nathan (5 December 2013). "Havok Tech Powering Assassin's Creed IV, Watch Dogs and The Division". Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  7. ^ Langshaw, Mark (4 June 2012). "E3 2012: 'Watch Dogs' announced by Ubisoft - watch video". Digital Spy. Retrieved 20 June 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ Karmali, Luke (27 March 2014). "Watch Dogs Hacks, Vehicles and Weather Discussed". IGN. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
  9. ^ McLaughlin, Rus (4 June 2012). "You are the network in Ubisoft's Watch Dogs". VentureBeat. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
  10. ^ Usher, William (4 September 2013). "Watch Dogs Asynchronous Multiplayer Trailer Turns This Into A Must-Buy Game". CinemaBlend. Retrieved 17 May 2014.
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  12. ^ Steinman, Gary (13 May 2014). "What Makes Watch Dogs a True Next-Gen Game". Ubisoft. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
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  14. ^ Goldfarb, Andrew (4 June 2012). "E3 2012: Ubisoft Reveals Watch Dogs". IGN. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
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