This Narrated Walkthrough Takes You Around Watch_Dogs' Open World

"Nothing is black or white."

Stealing money from a struggling family to reimburse your killing spree seems pretty black and white.

I find it funny how Ubisoft seems to think hacking a single moms bank account is a moral gray area.

Okay, right at the beginning they tell you that hacking is unavailable for mobile phones because you haven't gotten access to this districts CTOS. But then he proceeds to hack everything else in sight.

WHY DIDN'T YOU RUN HIM OVER?

In general, I get more excited, but that video made me way less excited.

First, I couldn't tell if it was current or next-generation. They need to be clear about that upfront at the start of every gameplay video from now on. It doesn't hide anything or benefit them. If I'm not sure, I start trying to pick it apart. "Well, it does look nice, so it could be next-gen, but there's a bit of pop-in and aliasing and some of the animations aren't great and neither is the background city, so it might be current-gen actually." If I just knew, then this wouldn't be a problem at all. I could manage my expectations instead of picking it apart to find out.

Second, the hacking stuff is actually starting to get on my nerves at how unrealistic it is. I know that's a petty complaint, but they throw the term "hacking" around like every other dumb pop culture thing, like Skyfall where they had to "strip the headers" or whatever the fuck. How is Aiden "hacking" street lights while speeding down the road in a car chase? What the fuck is his phone interface like to enable that?

Finally, the multiplayer just looks boring so far. Go into their game, start a hack, take cover, watch a progress bar fill until you inevitably get discovered because it's so easy to find people, chase scene, done. Every time they've shown it off. Multiplayer shouldn't be watching a progress bar fill up. Give me something to do. It should vary at least a little bit as well. I don't want to do the exact same thing every time. It shouldn't be boring. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were fun because it was so intense trying to hunt the other player down and it was always different. It was a simple objective but it was also very involved. This is literally just watching a progress bar fill up.

I'm still excited for the game, but wow, this video did wonders to make me adopt a wait-and-see approach. There are already a lot of games I want to buy for my PS4, and I might want to be a bit more choosy with my money now.

I cannot wait for the next generation specifically so I can see Digital Foundry tear these games apart and compare the different generational ports.

Also, I hope there's a boss battle where it's just a dude who still hasn't upgraded to a smartphone.

I don't agree, but I do understand that sentiment. Seems like ubi has been showing off the same 3-4 portions of the game, just under different contexts, since it was first unveiled. I'm excited to get into the game and see what else is there but these promotional videos leave lots to be desired this close to release.

The more I see of this game, the less I care

@the_vein: If you compare it to reality, webcams/cameras are a bit easier to get into than cellphone networks. So in a sense it does explain why you'd need to hack each regions system if it was tied to wifi/tower range.

Pretty sure this was PS4. There's no way this is PC. The shadows look like shit and the LOD changes are noticeable from like 2 metres away

There's no way this is PC.

Or a CLOSED-Circuit camera. Some of these things...

That's some Demon's/Dark Souls multiplayer shit right there at the end. Awesome.

First thing I'll be doing is turning that multiplayer bullshit off.

Pretty excited for Watch Dogs. I expect this and AC4 to be where I spend most of my next gen time for launch. I love the look. Love Chicago, Love the hacking concepts. Gameplay and driving looks fluid. If you're like me and love having lots of "activities" in games, I think Watch Dogs is going to deliver in spades.

*hacks into woman's account and steals her money while she cares for her baby*

"So you see, in Watch Dogs we want to show you that not everything is black and white, that there are shades of grey."

okay, pal.

I just want to see him trigger a blocker while standing on it.

@nethlem: Listen, at the end of the game I'm pretty sure the screen will go white and you'll get out of an animus so all logic is pointless.

@kingpk said:

The prompts don't mean much, during the first reveal they also had PS3 button prompts, even played it on a PS3 controller. But it got later confirmed that the game ran on some kind of development PC platform.

@christilton said:

Well try taking the battery out of your Iphone and see how far you get with that and airplane mode won't prevent an attacker from tracking you, if he's willing to put enough effort into it.

I think the reason why Aiden does not simply stop the hack, by disabling his phone, is that he wants to track down the hacker, to get information from him.

He didn't hack anything locally at the Server, he remotely hacked cameras, cover and even forklifts.
So should we assume: The player could hack these very same things all over the district, without hacking the server first?

The bigger question: Why is the "security server" and it's cameras so vulnerable to remote hacks, when it's sole purpose is to prevent them?

To me that whole thing feels like a giant logic break and kind of like a missed opportunity. I thought getting "hack access to a district" would involve Aiden being without his hacking-power, giving the game a nice opportunity to throw the player into the cold water from time to time.

But other then that i really really like what I've seen so far! Loving the whole precog crime thing, gives a lot of room for variety with these encounters. And the thing with the single mother and the player being able to steal her money, without reputation impact, that's genius! I hope they track some global stats on that stuff for all players, should make for interesting statistics :D

The way some of Ubisoft's games seem to "blend together" at this point (AC series, SC series, Watch_Dogs...am I forgetting any other) is, if nothing else, pretty unique. Can't say I'm a big fan of it though.

This game looks okay, I guess. The hacking looks like a cool mechanic, but from what I've seen, I'm not very hyped for the game.

Don't automatically assume that the narrator is the one playing the game. It's highly likely that he is narrating pre-recorded gameplay and the actual player could be someone else entirely.

That multiplayer looks legitimately good. I hope it works to the extent that you can spot who is invading your world by the fact that they are running, or moving weirdly. I really like the idea of having to try and find someone who is trying to hunt you down amongst all these other NPC's. I think I really need to play this game on next-gen though. I hope there is an appreciable difference.

Excellent observation.

Well it's seamless for the player you join. That's what they meant I'm guessing. They don't get any indication that someone has joined. It's not Journey seamless that's for sure.

If that was the PS3 version shown (it had PS button icons for the prompts and Ubi likes to use PS3 in their demos), that doesn't look bad at all for "old-gen".

I goddamn need this game.

I'm guessing you get shit rewards, and hacking the other player successfully gives you good rewards?

Random cherry-picked stat from Internet: Proof that you know your stuff!

How many of those seven were in Englewood, Woodlawn or some other neighborhood whose streets are 6000+ south? I'm guessing nearly all if not all.

Some neighborhoods in Chicago are indeed total garbage. Most, however -- the Loop, Wrigleyville, Lincoln Square, Boys Town, Lakeview, Edgewater, Edison Park, this list goes on and on -- are perfectly fine at night. I've been walking around them my whole life. It's much more fun than pretending to know what I'm talking about because I read about it online that one time.

Hold up, let me hack this hack-station so that I can hack into the hack-sphere.

I want this game NOW! *waves handful of cash at Ubisoft*

It would be awesome if you reach the end of this game and you find out the Bloom Corporation is actually the Templars.

7 homicides in Cook County so far this month (i.e. 4 days), but hey!

Seems to me like just Watch Dog's equivalent of the radio towers in FC3 or all the sync points in AC. You know, the "do this thing first so you can unlock all the other activities in the area" activity. It makes a little less sense here but I'm not really expecting to be blown away by the story or how much things make sense in Watch Dogs either.

Wow you can see DNA from virtually every Ubisoft release in here. Assassin's Creed/Far Cry with the traversal and CTOS center hacking, even a little bit of Splinter Cell Spies v. Mercs in that hacking multiplayer example.

I'm excited to see how it turns out even if I likely won't be able to play it for awhile.

@spiritof said:

That's not really true at all, but hey!

Really, anywhere in Chicago is not a place you want to be by yourself after dark.

Do they have any clue what seamless means? Being transported to a completely different location via a load screen is not seamless.

I was thinking the same thing. Why even bother? Just make up a fictional city.

this looks really great, but does anyone actually park cars in open world games?

Instead of hiding from the player you are hacking in the parking lot, why don't they just use the car to run em over instead of driving off?

There are a few nuances but the way the open world works and opening up networks feels like something from Ass Creed, there are so many similarities, maybe Ubi is out of ideas.

Also doesn't seem like there are many interactive indoor environments, just like AC

@grilledcheez: yeah this looks pretty fun. the first part was just a side mission, that was pretty cool

This game is looking really good. I am kind of torn between this and ACIV--love me some pirate action.

A game about a cyber terrorist who used IEDs and murders a lot of people?

Yeah, the politicians are going to love this one.

What prevents you from "trying" to hack someone and just shooting them before they see you aren't an NPC?

Day one on my PS4 for sure. Would of been my Xbox One but that will not be out by then! Oh, well they fixed the PS controller so it should not be a let down like the PS3 / 360 days.

@cale: @fargofallout: Seems like in the demo here you had to travel to the area first, maybe you get those notifications but can ignore or disable those specifically either through a menu or simply not traveling to the area... which in the demo was fairly out of the way. I mention that cause the other player couldn't have started the hack from that far away so in traveling there you're prolly setting yourself up to connect to the hacker yourself, seamless.

I have to imagine you can't actually use your weapon until your in 'combat mode', which in the case of multiplayer is only activated by the hack itself.

Also isn't there term Hack not appropriate for 90% of the stuff in this game? Breaking INTO security for the purpose of anything nefarious is called Cracking, I think. Hacking is Whitehat term for gentle exposing security threats to the owners of whatever. I think.

Of course Hacking sounds infinitely more cool than Cracking, so I really prefer the term anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)

They are subject to the long standing hacker definition controversyabout the true meaning of the term hacker. In this controversy, the term hacker is reclaimed by computer programmers who argue that someone breaking into computers is better called a cracker,^[4] not making a difference between computer criminals (black hats) and computer security experts (white hats).^[5] Some white hat hackers claim that they also deserve the title hacker, and that only black hats should be called crackers.

I started out with this on in the background as i was doing something else.....by half way through i was completely paying attention and by the end i was fully invested in the narrator getting revenge for being hacked....

If the gameplay is half as engrossing as the demo, Watch Dogs may give GTA 5 a run for its money.

Cant wait to find out.

pretty slick. looks fun.

@kevin_cogneto: It's probably Candian Chi-town :P

I'm really hoping they have an outfit or skin that has him wearing a dark suit.

Then, I'd really be able to play this as if it were 'Person of Interest' the game.

one thing i hope this next generation solves is things like traffic density. its crazy how empty the streets look