Ubisoft touched down earlier today with its latest gaming delight with the release of the reveal trailer for Watch Dogs 2. It follows up on the 2014 Chicago-based hack-fest original with a whole new adventure and this time around you’ll have San Francisco as your playground. The trailer is cinematic for the most part, so we’ll probably have to wait until E3 before we get to see the gameplay in action, but for now it’s a little slice of West Coast sun, sea and cyber disruption.
With the vociferous Marmite-like reaction of gamers to the debut game there are bound to be as many negative comments as there are positive. However, with the huge success of The Division late last year, decent response to Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and the impressive potential of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands maybe it’s cracked the formula for great releases for all of its games from hereon in.
Check out the reveal trailer below and let us know what you think.
Release date
Watch Dogs 2 will be arriving in the UK and US on the same date with an international release date confirmed for the 15th November 2016. It’ll be available on the Xbox ONE, PS4 and PC, but it would appear that it will not be getting a port to the Nintendo Wii U or the NX from the look of the latest details from Ubisoft, so Nintendo fans of the original may be left a little disappointed.
If you pre-order the game you get access to the extra mission, Zodiac Killer, which links in to the cereal killer that struck terror into San Francisco throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Campaign mode story
DedSec is alive and well in the Bay Area and in the thick of the infinitely connected action is hacker Marcus Holloway, who’s mission in life is to fuzz up the corrupt and greedy establishment. The challenge is taking on the might of criminal kingpins and corporations who have been using the updated tech of ctOS 2.0 – in operation throughout the city – to keep tabs on the public and manipulate them for their own ill gotten gains.
This kicks things off for what they’re describing as the biggest hack in history, but if we’ve learned anything from the original Watch Dogs it’s that things can get pretty tough when you stand up to the established order. Luckily, you’ll also have a little strength in numbers from the rest of the DedSec hacking community to fight alongside you; the question is whether or not you can rely everyone close to you, or if the old dictum, “trust no one”, still applies.
Watch Dogs 2 gameplay
While Ubisoft hasn’t released any gameplay videos as of yet, it has confirmed a few nuggets about the new additions to the game. The third person adventure will see you controlling vigilante hacker, tech and Parkour genius Marcus Holloway and as was the case with Aiden Pearce, he’s also pretty handy in a fight, knows his way around a gun cupboard and can drive like he’s Nigel Mansell.
The backdrop to all of this is an open world recreation of San Francisco, which will include Oakland, Marin County and the Silicon Valley, so there’s going to be a lot of land to cover. This provides a lot of variety in terms of the kind of environment you’ll get to run around in with everything from the relaxed bustle of the city to the Giants stadium, Golden Gate Bridge and beyond to hack, leap and race through.
As was the case with the original game, you’ll be able to hack pretty much every piece of tech in the city thanks to the super-connected infrastructure of CTOS 2.0. The includes yet more smart phone hacks, computer terminal takeover, surveillance camera control and transport infrastructure like traffic lights and train movement. However, this time you’ll also get RC Cars and quadcoptor drones to take over and use to your advantage.
As well as the core campaign story behind Watch Dogs 2, the game will also boast a new multiplayer experience in an attempt to win back support for the series from the gamers that didn’t warm to the original game. It describes it as a shared openworld multiplayer experience with both co-op and vs. game modes, so we’re expecting something impressive with the quality of the multiplayer gameplay of other recent Ubisoft third-person action adventures like The Division.
First impressions
We were always in the positive camp on the first game, so the arrival of details about Watch Dogs 2 is pretty exciting for us, especially with the addition of San Francisco, so much new technology at your fingertips and the prospect of updated multiplayer gameplay. However, for anyone that was less than impressed with the opening title, the real test will be how it plays, so they’ll be rooted to the spot on the game until the release date comes around. If it can tap into the same groundswell of positive sentiment as The Division did then it stands a good chance of making a big impact when it arrives.
