Watch Dogs (video game)
Watch Dogs is a 2014 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the first installment in the Watch Dogs series. The game is played from a third-person perspective, and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Set within a fictionalized version of the Chicago metropolitan area in 2013, the single-player story follows grey hat hacker and vigilante Aiden Pearce's quest for revenge after the killing of his niece. An online multiplayer mode allows up to eight players to engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Development of the game began in 2009, and continued for over five years. Duties were shared by many of Ubisoft's studios worldwide, with more than a thousand people involved. The developers visited Chicago to conduct field research on the setting, and used regional language for authenticity. Hacking features were created in consultation with the cyber-security company Kaspersky Lab, and the in-game control system was based on SCADA. The score was composed by Brian Reitzell, who infused it with krautrock.
Following its announcement in June 2012, Watch Dogs was widely anticipated. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii U in 2014. The game received generally favorable reviews; praise was directed at the gameplay, mission and open world design, combat system, hacking elements and mission variety, while criticism was expressed concerning technical issues, the discrepancy in graphical quality between marketing and the real game, plot, and protagonist. Watch Dogs was a commercial success, breaking the record for the biggest first-day sales of a Ubisoft game and becoming the biggest launch of a new intellectual property in the United Kingdom at the time. The game has shipped over 10 million copies. A sequel, Watch Dogs 2, was released in November 2016, and a third game, Watch Dogs: Legion, was released in October 2020.
Gameplay
Watch Dogs is an action-adventure game, played from a third-person view. The player controls hacker Aiden Pearce, who uses his smartphone to control trains and traffic lights, infiltrate security systems, jam cellphones, access pedestrians' private information, and empty their bank accounts. System hacking involves the solving of puzzles. The game is set in a fictionalized version of Chicago, an open world environment which permits free-roaming. It has a day-night cycle and dynamic weather system, which changes the behavior of non-player characters. For melee combat, Aiden has an extensible truncheon; other combat uses handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers. There is a slow motion option for gunplay, and the player can use proximity IEDs, grenades, and electronic lures. Lethal and non-lethal mission approaches can be enacted.Aiden can scale vertical surfaces, hack forklifts and aerial work platforms to reach places otherwise unreachable, and can crouch behind walls to hide from enemies. The player has an array of vehicles with which to navigate the setting, including motorcycles, muscle cars, off-road vehicles, SUVs, luxury vehicles, sports cars, and speedboats. The car radio is customizable, with about fifty songs. If the player steals a car, its driver can summon the police; if the player has a good reputation, the driver may acquiesce. A good reputation may be gained by detecting crimes, and a bad reputation results from committing crimes. The skill tree is upgraded with points earned from hacking, combat, driving, and crafted items. Money can be used to purchase guns, outfits, and vehicles. There are several minigames, ranging from killing aliens to controlling a large, robotic spider. QR codes and audio logs are included as collectibles; ctOS towers unlock map icons and side missions. Multiplayer mode can host up to seven other free-roaming players, with whom the player may complete hacking contracts and engage in races. The player can also be hacked by others, who will perceive the target as an NPC. In-game invasions can be disabled, but this will reset the multiplayer skill rank to zero. Free-roaming with multiple players and decryption mode, where two teams of four are tasked with acquiring and holding data, were excluded from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.
The game's recreation of the Chicago metropolitan area is anchored by six regions on the map: Parker Square, which resembles the city's northern and western areas; the Loop, based on the Chicago Loop; Brandon Docks, a loose recreation of the south side's industrial district; the Wards, based on Englewood; Mad Mile, based on the Magnificent Mile; and Pawnee, a faux rural town resembling some of the city's suburbs.
Plot
In 2012, Chicago becomes the first city in the world to implement ctOS – a computing network connecting every device together into a single system, developed by technology company Blume. While conducting an electronic heist at the Merlaut Hotel, hacker Aiden Pearce and his mentor and partner, Damien Brenks, trigger a silent alarm set by another hacker. Damien tries to find the hacker, giving himself and Aiden away. Fearing for his family, Aiden drives them to safety in the guise of a surprise trip to the country. On the way, hitman Maurice Vega attacks them, resulting in a car crash that kills Aiden's six-year-old niece Lena.A year later, Aiden tracks down Vega at a baseball stadium, but is unsuccessful in learning the identity of his contractor. Leaving Vega in the hands of his partner, hired fixer Jordi Chin, Aiden visits his sister Nicole and nephew Jackson for the latter's birthday, but learns someone is harassing them. With the help of Clara Lille, a member of the hacking syndicate DedSec, Aiden tracks down the harasser, revealed to be Damien, who wanted to get Aiden's attention so that he will help him find the other hacker from the Merlaut job. Aiden refuses but, after dealing with a witness from the stadium, he learns that Damien kidnapped Nicole to force him to comply.
Setting up a hideout in the Bunker—an undetectable former Blume base with access to ctOS—Aiden and Clara track down the hacker: gang leader and Army veteran Delford 'Iraq' Wade. To reach Iraq's servers, Aiden infiltrates a human auction he is attending to copy his access key, and blackmails his cousin Tyrone "Bedbug" Hayes into acting as his inside man. Bedbug manages to obtain a data sample revealing that Iraq has information on almost every citizen of Chicago, which allows him to protect his gang from the authorities.
As the data recovered by Bedbug is encrypted beyond Aiden and Clara's abilities, they decide to track down legendary hacker and former Blume whistleblower Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney, who caused the Northeast blackout of 2003 while trying to expose the dangers of ctOS, which he had helped to create. Aiden finds Kenney and agrees to erase his identity from ctOS to allow him to return to Chicago. While infiltrating the Blume headquarters, however, he discovers that Damien gave up Kenney's location in exchange for full access to ctOS. After Aiden protects Kenney from Blume's private security forces, the pair return to Chicago. To finish downloading Iraq's server data, Aiden assaults his gang's compound, and kills Iraq when the latter confronts him.
Aiden, Kenney, and Clara are unable to decrypt Iraq's data because another hacker, JB "Defalt" Markowicz, infiltrates their system, steals the data, and deletes it from their servers. Defalt also reveals that Clara was hired to track down Aiden after the Merlaut job, therefore being indirectly responsible for Lena's death, which causes Aiden to angrily dismiss her. Meanwhile, Damien demands to know Aiden's progress, so the latter sets up a meeting where he lies that he has the data Damien wants, and demands Nicole's release. However, Damien calls Aiden's bluff and, in retaliation, exposes his identity to the authorities. After dealing with Defalt and retrieving the stolen data, Aiden tracks down Nicole with Kenney's help and rescues her, allowing her and Jackson to leave Chicago.
As Kenney finishes decrypting the data, he informs Aiden of who ordered the hit on him: Irish Mob boss and Merlaut owner Dermot "Lucky" Quinn. Aiden confronts Quinn, who reveals he ordered the hit because he believed Aiden was searching for secret video footage of Mayor Donovan Rushmore killing Rose Washington, a former Blume engineer who was used by the company and Quinn in a plot to blackmail the mayor. Aiden kills Quinn by hacking his pacemaker, but learns that the latter sent hitmen after Clara for being a liability. Unable to save Clara, Aiden makes the video of Washington's murder public, enraging Damien, who hoped to use the blackmail material for his own gain. As Damien wreaks havoc in Chicago using ctOS, Aiden shuts down the system using a virus created by Kenney, leading to a massive blackout in Chicago and other cities. He then tracks down Damien and confronts him at a lighthouse, where Jordi also arrives, having been hired to kill both men. Aiden incapacitates Jordi and kills Damien before reflecting on his role as Chicago's protector. Later, Jordi calls Aiden one last time to tell him where Vega is kept; Aiden heads there and decides his fate.
''Bad Blood''
In 2014, one year after the main events of Watch Dogs, Kenney decides to leave Chicago after performing what he thinks is his last hacking job: removing more data about him from the Blume servers and planting a fake trail to lead Blume away from him. However, after rescuing his former colleague Tobias Frewer from several fixers who had kidnapped him, Kenney elects to stay in the city until he learns who is out to get him and Frewer. The pair investigate the fixers trying to capture them and eventually discover that they were hired by Defalt, who is working with Blume to exact revenge on Kenney.Kenney manages to track down Defalt, but while searching one of his hideouts, he finds mannequins representing the people who died during the blackout Kenney had caused eleven years ago. Among them is a mannequin wearing a replica of Defalt's mask, leading Kenney to realize the true reason for Defalt's vendetta against him: his brother was among the blackout victims. This angers Kenney, who had no intention of harming anyone during the blackout and has been living with the guilt ever since. After fending off fixers sent by Defalt to kill them, Kenney and Frewer infiltrate his hideout, where they are separated when Kenney is trapped in a room by Defalt, who holds a vote to decide his fate.
Forced to confront the families of the blackout victims, Kenney apologizes for his actions and admits that he may be deserving of death, but warns the audience that, if they vote to kill him, they too will have to live with the guilt of taking someone's life. Kenney's speech ultimately fails to make the majority of the audience change their minds, and they vote in favor of his execution. As Defalt releases gas into the room, Kenney begins to asphyxiate but manages to hack the building's ventilation system through Frewer's phone, rerouting the gas to Defalt's room and seemingly killing him. Frewer rescues Kenney and the two decide to stay in Chicago for the time being, hoping to recruit Aiden to help them fight against Blume.