Is this not always the case with the western developed open world games? For me the characters of GTAV were 'violently unlikable' too, not only were they incredibly inconsistent as fictional characters, but the nihilistic nature of that game made them seem like horrible monsters that deserve no redemption.
To take it further, I always find it troublesome how many games find it completely justifiable to ask the player to kill hundreds of people, or other intelligences simply because they are 'bad guys'. Killing the Asari in Mass Effect games always made me incredibly uneasy because of the capacity for life that that species had and how many potential changes an individual member of that species could go throughout their long life. It never felt justifiable to me.
And there is no reason that we should have to put up with this trivialisation of life. A lot of games don't handle it like that, yet manage to still be action packed and violent. The Yakuza series, often looked at as a Japanese GTA, makes a huge deal out if every lost life. The games are very violent, but they don't ask the player to kill hundreds of men. Silent Hill and Resident Evil series always make every human death a significant event. The MGS games always make you feel like resorting to killing is a failure.
I could ramble on about this for hours, but I think the heart if my question here is this; why is this only an issue with Watch Dogs? Are there any characters that can be justified in killing hundreds and thousands of people? This is becoming a much discussed issue, but for me this has always been a problem with a lot of videogames, and it's not like this is something unavoidable.
Log in to comment