Five reasons Watch Dogs is the most important game coming to PS4 and Xbox One
Look around you. How much do you know about the man sitting opposite? Or the woman standing to your right? If you were Aiden Pearce, you’d be able to find out their occupation, their salary, whether they were a danger to society. Because Aiden Pearce is a hacker. He’s also the star of Watch Dogs, a new open-world action game that gives you digital ‘superpowers’ – the ability to hack into Chicago’s infrastructure to change traffic signals, control the trains or even cause a blackout – to accomplish your missions. And it’s the most important next-gen game so far. Here’s why…
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1. A diverse city
A complex system generates a diverse range of AI characters that populate your game – so unlike in, say, Skyrim, you won’t bump into identical characters spouting the same dialogue as you travel.
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2. Organic gameplay
Whether it’s protecting people from muggings, raiding hideouts or taking part in races, side missions don’t just spring up as an icon on a map – you discover them by hacking the phones of people walking the streets.
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3. Always online
Single player and multiplayer are blurred – you don’t have to switch between the two. When you’re not playing story missions, other players exist in the same game world as you and can cause havoc in your city. Just as you can in theirs.
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4. Second screen
Away from your console? No problem. A companion app allows you to control city systems in a friend’s game, hindering their progress, from your phone or tablet. And you’ll gain XP for your single-player game when you do it.
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5. Extra content
This was designed to be the best game it could be on next-gen consoles and sometimes current gen can’t keep up (the city’s not as densely populated). Next-gen also has exclusive content, including ‘online decryption’ – a four-vs-four game mode.
Watch Dogs is out on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and PC on 27 May
