Watch Dogs: Legion

Watch Dogs as a franchise is one that has been mired in controversy before, although perhaps "controversy" is too strong a term; the first game in the series made lofty promises in pre-release trailers only to come up woefully short in the finished version. With Watch Dogs: Legion presenting similarly high ambitions, the question was whether Ubisoft could deliver on such promises of an open world sandbox that utilises an ability to recruit any resident of London to your cause. In the end, it presents an interesting concept trapped inside a dull, repetitive game.

Set in London, Legion takes place a few months after multiple bombings are pinned on DedSec, the hacker group from previous entries. Now, with the group's presence in London all but destroyed, you must play as and recruit the fine citizens of London to investigate who caused the bombings and why they set up DedSec for the fall, as well as oust the militaristic security force that has taken root in London to oppress civilians under the guise of anti-terrorism. All retread ground by Ubisoft's standards - a revenge story and fighting against an oppressive power rolled into one - however it is serviceable as a plot.

From here, the player picks their first operative from a list of randomly generated people to start off the new English branch of DedSec which introduces the new operative system that the trailers touted. Unlike previous instalments which focused on central protagonists - for better or for worse - Legion includes a wide variety of citizens with different perks, items, and abilities to use in helping reclaim London. On top of that, the game offers a permadeath mode where once an operative dies they're gone for good, and once all operatives die the credits roll and you'll have to restart from the beginning. Now, given how easy it is to recruit most citizens, coupled with the safety net of the first few missions being without permadeath even if you have it turned it on, it is highly unlikely that you'll find yourself at that point, however the permadeath mechanic is probably one of the most interesting things the game has going for it.

While the operatives you can hire aren't as fleshed out as the protagonists of previous games, I have found myself getting attached to some of the operatives I've recruited, especially some of the first ones I got. This led to moments where I played far more tactically than I otherwise would, often staying in cover and waiting for a gap in the enemies surrounding me to make my escape; it's quite a simplistic system, yet it's effective at making scenarios more tense than they were in previous games (well, so long as you do actually feel anything for the recruits).

Ubisoft's London also has some charm to it too, with every character having a thick accent and swearing like a sailor. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy how characters interacted with each other and the environment around them, as wry English humour and deadpan deliveries make the game just that much more fun. Given that London's residents are all randomly generated, quite often the faces don't match the voices quite as much, but the accents are usually charming enough to the point where you don't really mind.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game is an all-too-familiar Ubisoft affair: an open world with numerous collectibles and enemy hold outs that you have to infiltrate (preferably stealthily) depending on what each mission demands. At the start of the game these locations are interesting enough but after playing for a while you begin to recognise areas increasingly frequently, which wouldn't be so bad if the areas weren't all so same-y to begin with. Each stronghold becomes a similar routine of clearing a path, interacting with an object or person, and then leaving without being detected; this affair becomes even more simple with the spiderbot unlockable which you can get right at the start of the game, it can more or less do anything you can as well as reach more places and hide more easily.

Considering this, missions that are already a repetitive slog become even easier, more-so once you upgrade your gadgets. The main story missions sometimes have more interesting segments, like piloting a microdrone through a maze of electrical equipment or exploring the basement of an AI scientist to reveal the inhumane way she makes her AIs. However, these spots of intrigue are too few and far between to keep the game interesting, especially when most story missions have you infiltrating locations in the exact same manner you would in side missions. Nothing in the game ends up being interesting enough to hold weight for much longer than a short while, as eventually the lustre of building up a resistance in London wears off and you're left with a bland sandbox without much life in it.

That would be fine enough on its own - a dull distraction is still a distraction after all - but I played the game on the XBOX One S, and compounding on the boredom was the game's poor technical performance. Legion was clearly designed for next gen consoles, so I expected the game not to look or play the absolute best, however what I wasn't expecting was for the game to crash almost constantly. At the start, the game would crash around twice per session which was annoying enough, but I got to a point where the game would start crashing multiple times while doing the same mission. One mission had me simply talking to a government official as an operative she would find attractive, and it took me three attempts to walk into the pub she was in before the game finally let me without throwing me back to the home screen or shutting off my XBOX entirely. After running into a similar problem on a later mission, I decided that the game wasn't worth struggling through these horrendous performance issues and I haven't returned to it since.

Sure, if you're looking for a distraction and have upwards of £60 knocking about, then there is some semblance of fun to be had with Legion, but it starts small and only dwindles as you play more of the game and start to notice the patterns in every mission you play. The charm of Legion's London is not enough to carry the dull gameplay, and in the end I dropped it once it started becoming a nuisance to play, since nothing made me want to take it any further.