“Look who showed up early,” really, Ubisoft? Isn’t it actually a day or two late than the plan shown on the last roadmap? 
Well, at least it’s now possible to play as her through the story. Might as well turn my team into ‘Team Helen’ where everyone dresses like her! It will be funny when Bloodline is released and putting her clothes on Aiden and Wrench.
Her voice is available and already shared with other senior female operatives. There are a few instances that the dialogue varies depending on the operatives you use, such as picking up an old-style flip phone during a SIRS story mission.
Watch Dogs Legion is now finished. Finished the story, got the side-missions all done, and the platinum trophy unlocked. (yikes, sorry for the wall of text)
Okay, where do I start with this game?
Let’s try the good:
- London was a pretty unique-looking environment. Seeing that european architecture was cool, and the future-tech was nice, but maybe they went a bit overboard.
- The Play As Anyone system is a nice system, (but doesn’t hold up against having fewer or more engaging characters), I can tell a lot of effort was put into creating it and the schedule tech behind it, but… something’s missing.
- The melee combat system was well-implemented, I’d say. Tedious and repetitive at times, but it offered more solutions to combat than pure stealth or guns-blazing.
- The story was pretty engaging… at times.
- Permadeath on Hard really upped the tension and attachment to characters.
- Bagley is a pretty fun main character in this game. Took me a while, but I finally warmed up to him after a bit.
- That big drone Cass boss battle was pretty unexpected and pretty fun. What came after though…
- The driving feels a lot better than WD2. Doesn’t feel like you’re driving on ice anymore.
- The light Hitman social stealth was cool. Hope that returns.
The not-so-good:
- The Play-as-Anyone system feels unfinished. The voice-mods the game uses almost never makes someone sound genuinely real. There aren’t enough voices to differentiate characters in your team. Swapping between characters feels clunky and slow. There isn’t enough sense that you’re building up a community/team, despite the fact that’s what the idea behind it is… Also the characters feel way too isolated and situation-specific.
- The story: At times, pretty fun and intriguing. At others, boring and not engaging, mostly dependent on the random character you’re controlling. Their lines can either bring you in or take you out of the moment. Also, of the 6 big baddies of this game, 4 of them are dealt with in cutscenes completely out of the player’s control. Felt a bit cheap.
- There aren’t enough side-activities. Watch Dogs 2 had drone, car, boat races. It had landmark photography. Taxi delivery missions. Plenty of collectibles. This one has… Post deliveries, Darts, and a boat-load of collectibles? Not much. Heck, with the darker tone, they could have brought back things from WD1 like Marked Man,
- Cool features from WD2 were removed. Police/Gang forgeries. Music on-the-go. Fluid movement. Easy-to-access-menu. At least BotNet points are gone.
- Online feels so empty, like an after-thought. And it seems like Ubi’s going to only add to their Online portion now, which isn’t really going anywhere cool. I really hope Invasions still comes to single-player, no idea how it would work otherwise.
Sidenote: The line “we’ll be the watchdogs of London” was used in the final cutscene. Is this the first time the title of the game was used? I don’t remember a stand-out moment like that in the other titles.
Overall, it’s a nice 6-7/10 game. But is the worst out of all the WD titles.
With the release of Bloodlines soon, I kinda want to revisit WD1 again. It had great gunplay, dark moody themes, and was a fun start to the series. But maybe later. I just finished an open-world game, don’t want another one yet.
Here are my final operatives, as I leave this game. I don’t know why I can’t replace some with specific ones like Helen, but maybe it auto-chooses the cast here based on your most-played operatives.
The surviving crew
Character occupations under here
RIP Aaron Park. He was my soldier, and quickly became my favourite character to use.
Simple, only having a P9 Silenced and Combat roll, but he got the job done.
Died by ambush during a side-mission, post game. There was no escape. Thankfully I took some pictures beforehand.
RIP
Also: SPOILERS (2nd Albion Chapter)
This boss battle was stupid easy. The one just before, not so much, it was hard, thank god there was a checkpoint, but this? Lmao. “Can’t beat me!” dead
https://youtu.be/z66-FKPJT8k
Also this was fun to see (spoilers, SIRS chapter)
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I am guessing it’s because the actual gameplay doesn’t fulfill the promise of it. Even we get to know an operative’s job, relationships, trivia stuff, he/she is still just a randomly generated character. We don’t take part in their personal lives, and most of their randomly generated backstories doesn’t add characteristics to them much, either.
Still a bit too twitchy for me. Some cars don’t like bumps and can be out of control from time to time. But I especially appreciate the auto-drive mode implemented in this game. It’s like you can explore the city while riding a taxi, but you can choose whatever model you like on the road.
You’re absolutely right about this one! Building up a team feels like collecting disposable character to use. Well of course it can be explained that inactive operatives are doing off-screen works like developing tools or gathering intel. But the active one which the player controls is still all alone on field. It would be better if other operatives can join you and provide combat support, etc.
I think this is a failure of the open-world activity design of this game. Surely I can get a PMC controlled city won’t allow you to mess around as a citizen, but like you said, it’s hard to keep engaged and distracted by the minigames in Legion.
Adding street races will be enough for me. Maybe it invalidates the overall settings of the game, despite speeding in the game doesn’t attract any authority attention. But I can make good use of getaway drivers here. 
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Feel like this needs a separate post. Here’s an answer to your question here: 
If you’re talking about the ‘watchdogs’ term in particular, there is a line in the original Watch Dogs.
During the final mission, Aiden is tasked to hack the satellite, shut down ctOS, and track down Damien. After he uploaded virus on 3 locations and got chased by CPD all around the city, Aiden returned to the building to proceed. Dedsec then hacked into the TVs in the building to convince Aiden to install a back door for them on the satellite, which Aiden later refused. The conversation is as following:
Dialogues
DedSec: Aiden Pearce, wait. We are DedSec. We’ve been watching. We know what you’re doing. You’re killing the lines to CTOS.
Aiden Pearce: Enjoy the show.
DedSec: Give us 30 seconds.
Aiden Pearce: For what?
DedSec: 30 seconds inside CTOS. We drop in our code. Then when the system reboots, DedSec will control the machine from inside. We will correct what Blume has broken. 30 seconds is all we need.
Aiden Pearce: 30 seconds, no one knows. Our little secret?
DedSec Speaker: We will be the watchdogs.
Aiden Pearce: No. I’m tired of all the noise.
DedSec: We will not forget this.
source: Sometimes You Still Lose/Transcript | Watch Dogs Wiki | Fandom
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Yes! Big agreed on that one.
Some of the better moments in the side-activities were the borough missions, which, true to what the developers said: they were missions that provided a unique gameplay structure compared to the rest of the game. One was a hacking puzzle on the side of a building, the other was a speedy drone destruction flying over a borough, another was a race through checkpoints in London.
That last one I did very recently, and it made me wonder: Why isn’t this a normal part of the game? Races have been a part of every other Watch Dogs game, either through Multiplayer or Singleplayer, and the non-grid-layout that London uses would have made for some great tracks, but, then I guess that Borough mission wouldn’t have that same level of “wow”.
Yeah, I was expecting more of the game to feature some team-based infiltrations, but apart from the final mission, where we kiiinda got that – one operative is locked into Blume Tower, the other locked into Broca Tech, it’s all solo ops. Even encountering Operatives in the open-world doesn’t feel like they’re a part of the same team or are on your side.
Ah, cool. Yeah, I don’t remember any “Watchdogs” word being used in WD1 or 2, but at least there’s that. Thanks.
And I forgot Aiden had nothing to do with Dedsec in the first game. They were just some shady hacker group out to maybe help Chicago? I wonder what made Ubisoft think: “we need this kind of group to be the franchise’s mascots” then turn it into a millennial, colourful group in San Fransisco.
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You know what’s totally rad? Knowing someone involved in the production of this game.
I checked out the credits again for WDL and found two people who I know from my school program! 
One of my teachers from last year was one of the motion capture performers, and one of my teachers from this year was part of the voice cast.
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Ah you sure they aren’t different people coincidentally having the same names? 
jk That sounds amazing! Maybe you get to know which cutscene or takedown animation they did, or hear a familar voice from a random citizen.
Just let us know one day when you get to perform in a videogame. I will definitely purchase it and have a look!
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(Gah! Accidentally deleted the previous reply. It happens instantly for me!)
Yes, it’s the same people. They have pretty unique names. One of them even told us he got multiple voice-acting gigs thanks to Ubisoft giving him a 4-game contract – most likely because he was fluent in different dialects. (his very real IMDB page credits him with small roles from Splinter Cell: Blacklist to Watch Dogs: Legion)
Not sure I’d be able to recognize his voice though, since everyone in Legion speaks in British RP, Cockney, Irish, etc. Not Canadian English 
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Mark your calendar! The official story trailer for Bloodline will be shown on Ubisoft’s livestream on June 12th at 12 PM PDT.
https://twitter.com/watchdogsgame/status/1402656817444950018
We finally get to have a look at Wrench, too! He, unlike Aiden, doesn’t seem to get that older.
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The story trailer is out now!
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Seeing the plot be Aiden hunting down Wrench for a ransom is unexpected, but I’m very interested in how that’s going to play out! Can’t quite figure out what their skills might be from the trailer, but I hope they’re fun!
According to this entertaining recap, apparently this was shown before the Forward stream? Kinda makes me feel bad for the Toronto team.
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Aha, it was indeed shown before the show kicked in. It actually saved me a lot of time to not watch the stream, though, since other games don’t interest me too much.
In fact, The Crew 2’s “another year of live service” trailer was also shown in the countdown section, some good cars and stuff were in there, but I just stopped to care about it ever since the never ending live service began.
Anyway, back to the topic, yeah I think it would work that Aiden and Wrench don’t team up with each other but were against each other, because they don’t seem to get along based on their personalities. Plus, it must be family again to force Aiden to work with enemies, just like the first WD. We will see how good the story is very soon, though!
There’s a sale on Legion 'til the end of the week on Epic; what I wanna know is… how does it compare to Watch_Dogs 2? 
I personally still prefer WD2, but these two differ from each other so much that compare them will be challenging. But I will think of them as:
-
In 2, you play as one protagonist, who has plenty of skills to develop. There are multiple ways to tackle enemy territories. The game allows more mischievous/destructive behaviors like forging evidences. Story is mostly light heart, different from its predecessor. Plenty of side activities to do. San Fran is a vibrant, colorful open-world environment.
-
In Legion, you play as many characters as you wish. They all have limited skills, so you can’t utilize all functions/techniques that the game offers with just one. Still, multiple ways of tackling territories, but this time the game has a more serious tone in both gameplay and story. Less side activities compared to 2. London is still very well crafted, but it’s a bit messy due to PMC taking over and futuristic settings.
Overall, it’s a very different experience. I’d say it’s worth a try with discount. Even if you find yourself not enjoying Play as Anyone, Bloodline is about to be released, which will allow you to play as Aiden from 1 again.
Hmm, probably won’t be buying DLC to be honest
Just want to get my money’s worth; if I spend $30 I want 30 hours of reasonable playtime
But I might Y0LO and get it
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I got it for about 30% off and I’d say I got my money’s worth.
It feels less focused than previous WD titles and the main Play As Anyone can feel a bit under-cooked at times, but there’s fun to be had with it. The world is a unique place not many games use. Some of the story missions get pretty engaging and fun (at least for me) later on in your playthrough.
I’d say 30% off is a good starting price. Any lower and it’s even more worth it.
I’m not really interested in the DLC characters or Special Ops, just the Story Expansion and Wrench/Aiden. So I’ll try to pick up the Season Pass on a deep sale.
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Official details on the Bloodline story (takes place before WDL) and Aiden/Wrench abilities here:
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The interesting part is retroactively adding icon characters into the story mode. I’m gonna wait til bloodlines releases so I can simply play as aiden the whole duration of Legion.
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Another sneak peak of Bloodline, this time with Aiden and Jackson Pearce. It’s short and has swear words censored, but it’s always nice to see more Aiden!
Video Link Here
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Watch Dogs Legion Online very fun got the season pass looking forward to new content updates and singleplayer DLC ofcourse 
Edit: I always buy Ultimate Edition that comes with a season pass 
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