Ubisoft have released fifteen minutes of sandbox gameplay complete with commentary from Animation Director, Colin Graham.
The gameplay begins with an assurance that everything shown is “totally systemic”, basically that it’s all unscripted and true sandbox gameplay. It begins in the poorest district of Watch Dogs’ interpretation of Chicago and whilst being taken through the back streets the commentary is giving some pretty interesting detail about the world itself. Hand on heart I’ve not been following Watch Dogs as much as I should have been, so this info is all new to me.
Colin Graham explains the nature of the interconnectivity in Chicago via the ctOS (central operating system) software and goes about showing how the player gets access to it, and all goodness that comes with it. He locates the control centre, finds an access code and then sets about getting inside. This attempt is a stealthy one, to begin with, with the promise of flexible approaches. If you wanna go in guns blazing, that’s fine. If you wanna sneak in without anyone seeing you? That’s fine too.
The video shows quite a few of Aiden’s, the player character, abilities. “Focus”, a sort of bullet time, and the easy switching between gunplay, sneaking between cover and hacking. It also shows off a bit of the dynamic world. Much like first open world trailer Aiden gets info on, and has the opportunity to interrupt a crime. The whole dynamic vigilante side of Watch Dogs looks pretty interesting, being able to predict and interrupt a mugging or assault could be, without wanting to sound too morbid, a good way of keeping the sandbox interesting.
Seeing a gameplay demo it looks like a healthy mix of Deus Ex Human Revolution (minus the gold filter) and a bit of Assassin’s Creed, especially in the fast movement. A lot of the latest and next-gen Ubisoft games are looking quite similar, especially in terms of player movement. I remember the E3 demo of The Division and being the way that the characters moved along cover being very reminiscent of Watch Dogs.
The video shows off quite a bit of the core personality of Watch Dogs, what looks like it’s USP’s at the moment and the gameplay facets that give it a bit of depth. I’ll stop whittering now and urge you to watch the video below. And keep an eye out for the multiplayer component.
