Watch Dogs: Legion Review

Watch Dogs: Legion is one of Ubisoft’s biggest releases of 2020. It arrives right at the end of the current generation and will be available on the new consoles. That means it can push the limit of the current hardware, with the developers having years of knowledge and expertise. The latest entry in the series has made several changes though. There’s a switch in setting from the US to London along with some gameplay innovations. But while these factors are positive additions, Watch Dogs: Legion can’t quite reach the heights Ubisoft wants it to.

Story

Many of Ubisoft’s more recent games have followed a similar theme. The stories often revolve around a protagonist attempting to overthrow a tyrannical government. In many instances, this will also include rallying the local population and leading a resistance group.

Watch Dogs: Legion pretty much follows this script and contains many of the same ideas. Set in a fictionalized late 2020s London, the city has been overtaken by technology. The advent of artificial intelligence means drones, driverless cars, and cryptocurrencies have risen in popularity. A deadly corporation also controls the city, keeping the citizens in their place with force.

The way that Watch Dogs: Legion differs from other Ubisoft sandbox games is in the protagonist. The game allows players to pick almost every single NPC in London. While this stops you from being able to experience a fully focused narrative, it does have some advantages. The most important of them is that it allows the player to experience the true diversity of London. With such a wide range of characters, it makes it feel like a true resistance rising up.

Where the story falls down is when it tries to take itself seriously. The villains are a prime example of this, as they are so over-the-top that nothing they do makes sense. Their actions add no drama and this means the story never feels that compelling. It is almost as if the enemies are evil for the sake of it, without any motivations. That’s a major problem for a game that wants to tell a proper story. This failure does take away from the overall experience, as the narrative doesn’t have the impact it should.