Watch Dogs 2

Gameplay

Similar to its predecessor, Watch Dogs 2 is an action-adventure game with stealth elements. Played from a third-person perspective as protagonist Marcus Holloway – a young hacker from Oakland, California – the game features an open world set in a fictionalized version of the San Francisco Bay Area, an area more than twice as large as the Chicago setting from Watch Dogs. The Bay Area consists of four different areas: San Francisco, Oakland, Marin, and Silicon Valley, all of which have different characteristics and aesthetics. Players can navigate the city on-foot or by the various vehicles featured in the game, such as cars, trucks, buses, cable cars, motorbikes, quad bikes and boats. The driving mechanic was overhauled and was designed to be more accessible. The players can also shoot their weapons while driving. Marcus also has improved acrobatic skills, and has the ability to parkour around the city. Players can use different methods to approach the game's missions, choosing between the aggressive approach, in which they defeat enemies with guns which are made with a 3D printer, explosives like mines, or Marcus' own melee weapon, the thunderball, a billiard ball attached to a bungee cord. Alternatively, players can use the stealth approach, in which they can evade enemies or paralyze them temporarily with Marcus' taser. Players can also complete the game through hacking alone. When players commit too many crimes in the open world, police officers will become alerted and will attempt to arrest the player. The game upgrades system also returns, with items being divided into three categories: Ghost, Aggressor, and Trickster. Players can choose their upgrades in accordance to their own playstyle.

Marcus can hack into various electronic devices connected to the ctOS system with his in-game smartphone. For example, Marcus can modify the personal information of non-player characters to have them arrested, hack and manipulate every mobile phone featured in the game, disrupt traffic by hacking cars and traffic lights, hack into monitoring cameras, and carry out "mass hacking", which hacks the electrical equipment of a large group of people. Players also gain multiple options while hacking the same object. For instance, if the player attempts to hack a car, they can gain direct control over them, or have the car losing control and crashing in a random direction. If the player hacks a junction box, they can choose whether they should deactivate it or turn it into a proximity mine. Unlike Aiden, the protagonist of the first game, Marcus has an arsenal of advanced equipment, including a quadcopter and a remote-controlled car, both of which can be used for remote hacking and scouting. Marcus' apparel can be customized with over 700 articles of clothing, available for purchase in stores that maintain fashion styles unique to what is worn by the denizens in each area. The game features several main story missions, and side-missions known as "operations". Once completed, Marcus' follower count will increase, which is an important part of the narrative.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer returns in Watch Dogs 2. The game introduces a seamless cooperative multiplayer mode, in which players can meet and interact with other random players. They can explore the open world and complete missions together, which will also help players to gain followers. The game features an emote system, which allows players' characters to communicate with each other through basic gestures. The game can be played completely online or offline. It also features two competitive multiplayer modes:

Plot

Following the events of Chicago, San Francisco becomes the next city to install the ctOS (central Operating System), which connects everyone with everything. Marcus Holloway (Ruffin Prentiss), an intelligent twenty-four year old hacker from Oakland, California, is punished for a crime he did not commit by the upgraded ctOS – ctOS 2.0 – which categorizes him as the suspect. Realizing the system covertly brings harm to the innocent citizens of San Francisco, he decides to work with the hacking group DedSec to take down the city's ctOS 2.0, and Blume, the company behind it.

Marcus joins DedSec and works with fellow hackers Sitara (Tasya Teles), Wrench (Shawn Baichoo), Horatio (Michael Xavier) and Josh (Jonathan Dubsky), and they begin using their skills to expose corrupt organizations and corporations that are secretly using stolen personal ctOS data for their own ends. The game begins with Marcus – known also by his hacker alias Retr0 – having an initiation test: deleting his own ctOS profile. Accepted into DedSec, he is alerted to a Church called New Dawn that serves as a criminal organization, after which, Marcus mainly serves to bring about awareness of the hackers' goals through both social media and hacks to help get enough comptuters to bring down Blume, the 'figurehead' of ctOS. Eventually, they stumble upon the existence of a subliminal message and Bellwether, a data manipulation program being fed ctOS data by Dušan Nemec (Christopher Jacot), Blume's CTO, to manipulate world finance and politics. DedSec later manages to recruit the assistance of Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney (John Tench), who is determined to battle Blume. With his assistance, DedSec manages to expose the corruption of the FBI and numerous Silicon Valley corporations through hacking of their data facilities, and take down the ringleaders of the Tezcas, one of the local gangs after they kidnap Horatio and kill him after he refuses to cooperate with them. Learning that Blume is planning to install a satellite network designed to bypass undersea data cables, which would effectively give Blume a monopoly on the entire world's electronic data and stock exchanges, they infiltrate the launch area of one of the satellites to install a backdoor. In order to bring down Blume and Dušan for good, Marcus breaks into all of Blume's international headquarters and lastly their San Francisco headquarters and hacks their servers, exposing the existence of Bellwether and Dušan's corruption. Dušan is arrested for fraud and Blume is put under investigation, though DedSec resolve to continue their fight against Blume.

In an extended ending scene added in a post-release patch, two unidentified individuals note that more DedSec cells and hacktivist groups have been emerging worldwide in response to the San Francisco Blume scandal, and that it is time to put their own plans into motion.

Development

At E3 2014, Ubisoft executive Tony Key claimed that they were very satisfied with the sales of the first game, and that the brand would be turned into a long-running franchise. According to creative director Jonathan Morin, the first game's main goal is to establish the Watch Dogs brand. According to Morin, they intended to take risks with the sequel, instead of creating a more polished version of the previous game. To improve the game, Morin and his team read the reviews of the first game, and visited NeoGAF and various forums to study player feedback. Their priorities include creating a "believable" environment, giving players more freedom, and introducing a new leading character, whose personality is completely different from that of the protagonist of the first game, Aiden Pierce. The driving mechanic was completely overhauled to make it more accessible to players, and was developed by Ubisoft Reflections, the developer of Ubisoft's own Driver series. In light of complaints about a graphical downgrade in Watch Dogs from what was seen at E3 2012, Ubisoft assured that Watch Dogs 2 would not suffer the same outcome because, unlike the first installment, it was developed for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One from the start. Another improvement from the first game was a more prominent thematic connection to the narrative. Main operations are structured like story arcs, advancing the plot with each completion; arcs may last up to ninety minutes.

The developer worked with consultant hackers who would validate their scripts, including the use of jargon, and gameplay mechanics in order to ensure the authenticity of the subject matter. The propaganda used by the game's hacker group DedSec was influenced by animated GIF culture, glitch art and comic books from the late 1940s. David Maynor served as a hacking advisor. Content director Thomas Geffroyd, who had twenty years of experience with the hacking community, was tasked to accumulate information from hacktivists – such as author Violet Blue – and then relay it to the team. The game also features references to real life; Project Chanology was fictionalized in the mission "The False Prophets".

Ubisoft Montreal made frequent scouting trips to California to research the setting, and attempted to put most of the local landmarks in that region in the game. For regions that they could not put in the game, the team redesigned these locations and put them back into the game. According to producer Dominic Guay, having realistic and accurate locations featured in the game is essential for the game as they encourage players to explore the open world. Unlike many of Ubisoft's previous open world games, players do not need to climb towers in order to discover locations and missions. Instead, the game is opened up from the start, allowing players to explore the city freely. The game's new progression system, which tasks players to gain followers instead of completing main missions, is another way Ubisoft Montreal hoped to encourage exploration and make the city feel more "free". Watch Dogs 2 had around sixty programmers devoted to its development.

The soundtrack was composed by Hudson Mohawke. Ingrained with a combination of electronic music and hip hop, it was approached from the palette of cult science fiction music. Ubisoft teamed up with Dutch music producer Oliver Heldens to influence the video for his track "Good Life" in the vein of DedSec. For acquiring licensed songs, an agreement was made with Amoeba Music. Mohawke's soundtrack was released separately as Ded Sec – Watch Dogs 2 (Original Game Soundtrack) via Warp Records.

A sequel to Watch Dogs was rumored since its release but first officialized by publisher Ubisoft through financial reports in February and May 2016, before it was confirmed as a part of the 2016 E3 lineup. A twenty-minute online reveal was hosted a couple of days later. On 27 October 2016, Watch Dogs 2 was announced to have been released to manufacturing.

Release

On 8 June 2016, Ubisoft revealed the game would be released on 15 November of that year for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One platforms in six separate editions. In September 2016, it was announced that Watch Dogs 2 would have enhancements on PlayStation 4 Pro. In October 2016, Ubisoft announced that the Windows version was delayed to 29 November 2016 to ensure that the game was well-optimized. Two weeks from release, Ubisoft and Samsung partnered to bundle a free digital download of Watch Dogs 2 with the purchase of their solid-state disks or curved gaming monitors. Amazon Prime copies were subject to an early release, which revealed issues with the seamless multiplayer. Ubisoft vowed to repair the feature on schedule but on the day of release, the company said it was broken – citing persistent lagging and crashing. Cooperative multiplayer was enabled a week after the game's release.

A free trial lasting three hours was released for PlayStation 4 on 17 January 2017; the Xbox One version was downloadable on 24 January.

Pre-ordering The Gold Edition Collector's Edition includes additional content such as weapon skins, vehicles and drones; the Deluxe Collector's Edition contains the same, but excludes the season pass. Each of these, as well as the generic Collector's Edition, contains a physical robot called "Wrench Junior", which is controlled by using a mobile app on a smartphone or tablet computer. The Gold Edition comes with the aforementioned items and season pass, and although the Deluxe Edition omits the inclusion of the season pass, it comprises all other additions. The mission "Zodiac Killer" is also exclusive to pre-order purchases. It involves the protagonist Marcus Holloway in chasing a copycat killer emulating the same modus operandi as the Zodiac Killer. Amazon and Twitch Prime members are privy to free content like XP boosts and skin packs. "ScoutXpedition", a PlayStation 4 pre-order bonus mission, became free to download in January 2017.

Downloadable content

Five downloadable content (DLC) packs will be released: the T-Bone Content Bundle, Human Conditions, No Compromise, Root Access Bundle, and Psychedelic Pack. As per an exclusivity agreement with Sony Interactive Entertainment, all DLC for Watch Dogs 2 are timed exclusives for PlayStation 4.

Reception

Watch Dogs 2 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Technical issues on consoles were fixed with the Update 1.04 patch.

In his review, Destructoid's Zack Furniss praised the sequel's tonal shift to a lack of seriousness and stated that its protagonist Marcus Holloway boasted a similar charm and wit. He thought well of the hacking component as it was suggestible to multiple fields of use, and enjoyed its nature of compatibility with a non-lethal approach; in fact, Furniss felt that for this reason firearms could have been excluded entirely. The driving was lauded as an improvement from the first game, yet technical issues like glitches and low frame rates were cited as shortcomings. To Matt Buchholtz, writing for EGM, the game signified "less a hacktivist tale and more a beautiful immersion into the San Francisco Bay". The setting, characters and story were cited as considerable refinements from its predecessor. Buchholtz discerned that the tasks demanded to gain followers were successful in encouraging world exploration. He noted however that – in context of the main character – murder made little sense, which led to increased usage of stealth. Elise Favis at Game Informer both disparaged and praised elements in comparison to those of Watch Dogs. She enjoyed that hacking was prioritized in the gameplay and the new "smoother" driving mechanic, but saw inconsistencies in the protagonist's actions versus his personality and thought supporting characters "too obnoxious and petty to be meaningful companions". Favis also experienced low frame rate capabilities on the PlayStation 4. Aron Garst of Game Revolution stated that Watch Dogs 2 had redressed "nearly every negative aspect of the original", and as such, marked a favorable change in the franchise.

IGN's Dan Stapleton liked Marcus Holloway more than Aiden Pearce of the first game, and similarly appreciated the supporting characters of DedSec. Marcus' penchant for moral integrity was a noticeable contradiction for Stapleton, though, in light of the prospect to have him kill innocent people if one so chooses. Therefore, the character's personality was observed as the only preclusion to violence and an axiomatic push toward the stealth approach, which Stapleton insisted was the most accommodating of available tools. Writing for Polygon, Philip Kollar saw that Watch Dogs 2 could appeal to those able to connect with "being young, angry at the system and certain that you know what's best for the world". Its tongue-in-cheek demeanor was said to naturally coincide with the hacker culture and open world genre. San Francisco – the spaces of which were described as "cleverly designed" – never felt overwhelming in size to Kollar but inspired joy as he took advantage of the immediate ability to explore it entirely. His complaints concerned firearms; their use was considered "a complete failure of imagination" and unbelievable from the members of DedSec—"an Anonymous-esque group of peaceful hacktivists". Alice Bell of VideoGamer.com wrote in her verdict, "Watch Dogs 2 is missing a bit of refinement ... but joining DedSec is still a riot and a half. It's high energy fun with engaging characters, and you can make an entire city your playground".

Sales

In November 2016, Ubisoft revealed that the game's pre-orders were disappointing for the company. Due to this, Ubisoft took a more conservative approach and reduced the sales projection for the second half of its fiscal year 2017. However, CEO Yves Guillemot is confident that the game would not be a commercial failure, and compared the game to Far Cry 3, a commercially successful game with low pre-order sales. He believed that reviews would have a great impact to the game sales due to consumers' "wait-and-see" approach.

Watch Dogs 2 was the second best-selling retail video game in the United Kingdom in its week of release, according to Chart-Track, an eighty percent decrease from the sales of the original. In the month of January in the United States, it was number eight in sales.