When the first Watch Dogs game was released several years ago, the game received a lot of mixed-reactions. Some say it’s good while other say it’s mediocre due to its boring main protagonist, and a somewhat limited “open world” gameplay. With Ubisoft wanting to redeem itself and make its new IP shine, Watch Dogs 2 was developed and compared to the first game, the sequel has improved a lot in terms of its story, main protagonist, and an open-world experience that can be compared to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V.
Moving away from Chicago, where the first game took place, Watch Dogs 2 is now set in San Francisco. With ctOS’ AI infrastructure now relocated in the Bay area, you take the role of Marcus Holloway, a young hacker from Oakland who has a grudge on ctOS due to false criminal charges pinned on him. With his desire to do something on the company and take his revenge, he joins a team of other hackers in the activist group called DedSec. The mission of DedSec is to gather enough followers to take down Blume, the creator of the infamous ctOS and expose its dark secrets once and for all. Compared to the first game’s serious and somewhat dramatic story, Watch Dogs 2 now offers a fun and charming story that everyone will like right away. Unlike Aiden’s boring personality in the first game, Marcus is more likable due to his quirky sense of humor. What you can expect in the story of Watch Dogs 2 is a light-hearted, yet funny adventure of Marcus in his quest to take his revenge on ctOS.
One of the main goals that you have to do in Watch Dogs 2 is to get a lot of followers for DedSec and to do that, you will be tackling a plethora of missions. Fortunately, the missions available in the game offer a lot of variety. For the most part, they are unique and very enjoyable to do. From hacking a computer terminal and defusing a bomb to stealing a talking car from a movie set, these are just some of the many missions you will be doing in the game. With the fun missions that you can do, it’s pretty obvious that Ubisoft Montreal went wild with their creative side. Instead of feeling like you are doing missions just because you are forced to, you will be now doing it just because they are fun to do and you are enjoying it.
In terms of the game’s combat, shooting with guns feels unpolished. They feel uninspiring and for the most part, you will choose to avoid it and just do the stealthy way. In my playthrough, I did most of my missions sneaking up behind enemies or tasering them down. Luckily, this game gives you options on how to tackle missions and it’s a good thing. Not to mention that hacking into cameras, or using an RC car to do your mission makes it a lot better than shooting your way through a mission.
The city of San Francisco is huge and in Watch Dogs 2, you are free to explore it. Similar to other sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto V, the game offers a lot of side missions that you can do. By simply opening the city map, you’ll see numerous areas of interest that you can explore and icons showing that there are missions available for grabs. With so many missions that pop out as you go further into the game, you will find yourself doing side missions than the main ones. The amount of quests available are decent and it could take you roughly over 30 hours to finish the game if you are to do all of them.
Apart from the story missions and side quests, there are other types of missions that you can do and that’s doing it with a friend. For those who want to play with friends online, they can do a mission together through the game’s online co-op mode. By opening your DedSec mobile phone in-game, you will see in your mission list that there are a plethora of missions that you can do with friends. Unfortunately, the type of missions available are the ones from the main story, though it’s fun re-doing it with a friend especially if you are doing those sneaky missions that may be challenging to you. It would be good if the game offers some sort of full co-op campaign but hey, at least the twelve missions that you can do is at least better than none at all.
In addition to co-op missions, the game also have other multiplayer modes like the Bounty Hunt missions. When exploring San Francisco, you can come across a bounty hunt mission where you can join with other players in either assisting or evading a police chase. If you just want to watch them, you are free to do so or simply ignore them and just go back to doing the story missions. All of these multiplayer mode missions can be tracked in the game’s mobile phone and it will pop up when there’s one near you.
Visually, the game looks phenomenal and it’s an improvement over the first game. Marcus and the rest of the DedSec’s members look phenomenal in every aspect and their voice overs give life to the game’s narrative. The city itself within Watch Dogs 2 looks colorful and lively as you will see NPCs interacting with one another. Some of the familiar places in the game like the Golden Gate Bridge look very real and as someone who grew up in the Bay area, I could say that the game is very close to the real San Francisco. Though with an open-world game like Watch Dogs 2, expect some technical problems especially in its frame rate. In my experience, slow frame rate happens during an intense scene though they are not game breaking. Also, expect some pop-ins here and there.
Verdict
Watch Dogs 2 is a massive step forward from its predecessor, expanding on many of the original ideas. From its witty and enjoyable story with an equally likable protagonist, to a huge world you can explore with a wide variety of missions, Watch Dogs 2 is more than just another Watch Dogs. Sure, it may have technical problems, but the thrilling gameplay makes up far more of your experience. you found the first game boring and uninspired, you definitely would want to consider Watch Dogs 2 as it has the improvements the first game needs.
[Editor’s Note: Watch Dogs 2 was reviewed on the PS4 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]