Watch Dogs: Legion

Ultimately, Watch Dogs: Legion’s main mechanic feels like an incredibly ambitious move that almost pays off for Ubisoft, but not quite. In favor of cramming as many playable NPCs into the game as possible, Legion ends up sacrificing story and character investment. Ubisoft’s vision of near-future London is a beautifully realized sandbox world that I loved spending time in, but it’s also forgettable and not one that I see myself returning to anytime soon.

The new "Play As Anyone" system is as impressive as it sounds on paper, creating a host of intriguing characters if you choose to dive into their backgrounds. Crafting your own version of DedSec is a ton of fun, especially early on. The problem is the gameplay of Watch Dogs Legion is mostly the same as its predecessors and the missions are quite repetitive overall. It's not a step back for the series, but the hacking and stealth core of the series does need an overhaul.

If a little more attention was paid to the missions, character and vehicle handling mechanics, it could be one of the most sound games of the year.

Richly realised systems and empowering abilities create a tremendously fun sandbox to dig into, but another toothless story ensures these flashes of brilliance never cohere, leaving Legion feeling less than the sum of its parts.

Watch Dogs: Legion is a fun game, but in the end it doesn't stand out. The possibility of recruiting anyone is ambitious, but many, perhaps even more important elements have fallen victim to it. The game unfortunately falls into the ranks: to play and forget. [Issue#307]

Watch Dogs: Legion is presented as Ubisoft’s grandest and most compelling adventure ever, but ends up failing to deliver what has been promised. Despite the additional development time, it lost the chance to deliver a new type of experience that includes the much-advertised Operators Recruitment.

A surprisingly inaccurate recreation of London ties into simplistic gameplay and terrible performance to create a deeply flawed and shallow game.

Even if you put aside the sidelining of permadeath and the absence of any sense of a progression system, the underlying Watch Dogs concept has not evolved in any meaningful way. The hacking functions are relatively the same as previous editions in the series, and once you have spent a few hours in this world there isn’t much left to surprise you. There’s some fun to be had in Watch Dogs Legion, but it becomes so repetitive that by the end of the game everything feels like a chore — one I was desperately wanting to be over hours before its credits rolled.

Watch Dogs Legion had a catchy concept, but everything is far too superficial, which undermines all the gameplay and the interest of the game. The combination of a questionable balance, universal hacking, the lack of difficulty and overly versatile recruits results in a functional but tasteless gameplay. The generic story takes itself way too seriously while making us betray its message is easily forgettable. The basics are present, and there's still stuff to do that'll keep you busy for a while. You might even be able to have fun by thinking outside the box, but it's probably not worth the detour.

Watch Dogs: Legion could have been a milestone, but it feels a little rushed and unsteady on its feet as it is. Maybe some time and TLC will secure its original promise, but for now, it remains a case of an engaging concept that stumbles in its execution.

Although the recruitment system provides a few hours of entertainment, Watch Dogs: Legion feels like a series of systems masquerading as an open-world adventure game. Compared to the first two entries, Legion is a massive step backward, both in terms of story and execution. This is paint-by-numbers Ubisoft on autopilot.

This is the worst kind of sandbox, with bland, repetitious gameplay, and barely existing narrative.

Much has been sacrificed in service of making a brilliant central concept work, then - and yet it's the very thing robbing Legion of any star quality. [Issue#353, p.118]

Watch Dogs: Legion is Ubisoft’s most ambitious entry in the series yet, and while it doesn’t disappoint like the first Watch Dogs, it feels aimless. Exploring London is a good time, but the game is never challenging, and the story makes very little sense.