With Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft is trying to make up for the blotchy performance of the first installment. The game couldn’t become as famous as the trailer. The promises that Ubisoft had made to the players about the game through the trailers didn’t live up to the expectations.
Watch Dogs 1 was mediocre when it came to the visuals and the gameplay. However, it was a huge success and Ubisoft realized that the players needed an installment, hence Watch Dogs 2 became a reality.
Watch Dogs 1 was a mixture of Grand Theft Auto and Black Mirror. Ubisoft paid attention to the feedbacks from the players and made Watch Dogs 2 better than the last game. The game might not have the elements of the Grand Theft Auto anymore, but it has a charm that is unique to the game.
The developers have made the game universal, where even those who aren’t familiar with the gaming culture, can enjoy it. The first game talked about the hyper-connected society that we all live in, and it ended up being preachy.
Ubisoft has learned from the mistakes in the past and decided to get rid of their moral tone. They have instead brought in a comedic element for Watch Dogs 2. According to The Next Web, everyone who has ever visited Reddit would love and appreciate the humor and references made in Watch Dogs 2.
Watch Dogs 2 places the players in the role of the younger hacker, Marcus Holloway. Marcus is from the San Francisco Bay area, and the game starts with his initiation into a hacktivist group called DedSec.
The group plans to take down the Central Operating System of the city known as ctOS. The software controls the environment of the urban city. The game requires the players gain experience points and convince their followers to install the botnet app from DedSec so that they can stop the ctOS from functioning.
Kotaku reported that the story for Watch Dogs 2 is relevant and dated and the hero of Watch Dogs 2 is relatable and likable right from the start.
The gameplay has Marus and his crew from DedSec driving around San Francisco Bay Area while participating in activities like hacking, data heist, car chases and even espionage. The inspiration for the story lies in the 90s movies like Sneakers and Hackers.
The villain in Watch Dogs 2 is again a character who is relatable to the players. He is a yogabro who sports a man bun and gets referred with names like douche and works for companies like Nudle and !NVITE, which represent Google and Facebook respectively.
While the satire is subtle, the players don’t lose time in understanding what Ubisoft tries to communicate. The office of the DedSec also brings to mind the offices of different San Francisco area startups, with their stickers and the neon lighting.
The characterization of Watch Dogs 2 is beautifully done. Unlike Aiden Pearce, Marcus Holloway, and his team connects with the players instantly. They are a colorful lot, and everyone has some aspect that they can associate with.
While Marcus is black, Sitara is an Indian-American tech-savvy woman who is a leader of a group of tech-savvy men. The depiction of the white characters in the game is problematized. They get depicted with their issues. While Wrench has vulnerability issues, Josh has autism and often becomes an outsider to the group.
The gameplay is formulaic, where the player needs to go to a certain point, interact with someone and then sneak into a place to hack the computer and sneak out again. The gameplay reminds the players of Grand Theft Auto to some extent.