Watch Dogs Legion Review

I’ve never played any Watchdog’s games before, but I always enjoy a game that is made on the streets of the UK, and for Watchdog Legion – London is the city. Watchdog Legion’s London isn’t too far off what is happening in the UK at the moment, what with Brexit and a feeling of civil unrest at the UK Government for their handling of the Coronavirus outbreak.

However, Watch Dog’s London is a touch more extreme, we don’t have  a private militia wandering the streets with machine guns and self-driving cars driving into each other. So the story: A terrorist hacker group called Zero Da has set off a series of explosions throughout the capital, killing many people, and then framed the good hacker group, DedSec for the crime. Now the streets are patrolled by a private security force called Albion, with DedSec’s name being dragged through the mud. The opening chapter sees you defusing a bomb in Parliament, which Sabine, the leader watches as her team being wiped out, and as she manages to flee London, she contacts the last remaining Dedsec member – you! Whoever you choose to be.

You can play as anybody in this game, and I mean anyone. It can take some effort to play as some characters, but you can recruit anyone you see walking around on London’s bustling streets. Each character has their own strengths and skills which makes certain missions a little easier. For instance, one of the missions you need to get into Scotland Yard, playing as a Police Officer makes this task a lot easier, just make sure you stay away from your colleagues or Albion security guards.

You can see people’s opinion of Dedsec by doing a good deed for them, and this is you essentially recruiting them. I did find the recruitment missions very repetitive though. The game will continue, with the same script whoever you play, I found myself only really playing with a handful of operatives, but if I played with different ones all the time, I think I would have found it difficult to care about the operatives, but that’s the aim, you care about the overall group Dedsec and not any individual.

You don’t have 1 particular operator to root for, but you do have a funny A.I. computer helper, Bagley, and it’s always nice to hear from him, with his witty antidotes and one-liners. You do have some formidable enemies to fight against, in the form of Zero Day, Albion and Clan Kelly – the last evil London gang, headed by the hated Mary Kelly.

The storyline, whilst fairly short, it is a great story and there are some stand out moments, as well as characters that give those moments weight. I did brute my way though most of the storys mission, as I maxed out my teams capacity. The games combat is very good – doing silent takedowns to all out gun battles was very pleasing. Some o the takedown moves are well worth the watch, from a paramedic bringing her chest paddles to deliver a finishing blow to a stunned enemy – fantastic.

The gun play is still good, don’t get me wrong, not every character is ready for war, and they will just get the standard non lethal weaponry you choose in the kit for each character. But you are trying to convince the people of London that you aren’t a terrorist group, so being non lethal is your best bet anyway. But using stealthy moves from hijacking cameras and drones to distract enemies is a good way to get round the “red zones”.

I really liked the way you could go into buildings using brain power and stealth without no one ever knowing you were there. Figuring out which camera is best placed can be tricky at times, but once you go the right one, it really was a joy to play, jumping from one camera to the next without firing a gun and having drones shooting at you – its how I like to play. Hand to hand combat was very good, and reminded me of Assassins Creed games, blocking, ducking diving to get that takeout blow.

Now I played this game on the PS5, the graphics of some of London’s famous landmarks were phenomenal, and with all cars now being electric, you didn’t have the London smog to contend with, so being up high, you could see for miles. Each character will go around their own daily business, with their own schedules to keep to. Even the tight streets of London are so populated, the one drawback I found is if you are racing around the streets, the pedestrians will just jump in front of you from time to time, so you end up getting a wanted level for that, so be careful. The handling of most of the cars was really nice, and you could power slide round corners with ease. Car’s aren’t the only way to get around London – Hijack a big delivery drone, hop on and take to the skies, sure it’s a lot slower, but it does look bloody cool.