Watch Dogs

Overview

Watch Dogs is a 2014 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the first game in the Watch Dogs series. It is played from a third-person view, on foot or by vehicle, in a fictionalized Chicago in 2013. The story follows grey hat hacker and vigilante Aiden Pearce, who goes after revenge when his niece is killed in a botched assassination attempt. An online mode allows up to eight players in cooperative and competitive play.

Aiden uses his smartphone to control trains and traffic lights, break into security systems, jam cellphones, read pedestrians' private information and empty their bank accounts. He also fights with a truncheon, handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers, with a slow motion option, and missions can be done lethally or non-lethally. The open world has a day and night cycle, a dynamic weather system, a reputation system, a skill tree and minigames.

Development began in 2009 with ten people and grew to over a thousand across Ubisoft studios, over five years. The working title was Nexus, and the game runs on the Disrupt engine, built by Ubisoft Montreal. The team made field trips to Chicago and added local slang, and the hacking was built in consultation with Kaspersky Lab, with the in-game control system based on SCADA. Brian Reitzell composed the score.

Ubisoft announced it at E3 on 4 June 2012. It was delayed from November 2013 to 27 May 2014 so as not to compromise on quality, and it launched that day on Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. A Wii U version followed in November 2014. A story expansion called Bad Blood, set one year after the main game, came out in September 2014 and has ten story missions.

Reviews were generally favourable, with praise for the gameplay, open world, hacking and mission variety, and criticism for technical issues, the gap between the marketing visuals and the real game, and the plot and protagonist. It was Ubisoft's biggest first-day seller at the time and the biggest launch of a new IP in the UK. It had sold ten million copies by the end of December 2014.

Gameplay

Watch Dogs [Xbox One] Gameplay [No Commentary], BLG. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Action-adventure

Publisher

Ubisoft

Series

Watch Dogs

Engine

Disrupt

Composers

Brian Reitzell

Designers

Danny Bélanger

Writers

Kevin Shortt

Producers

Dominic Guay

Directors

Jonathan Morin

Developer

Ubisoft Montreal (additional work by Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Bucharest)

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

8

Release dates

Editions

Buy this game

Subscription history

Achievements

Achievements48 (1,250G)

Total

48

Gamerscore

1250

100% time

50 hours

Playthroughs for 1000G

1

Online trophies

5

Online note

Hackification, Piggyback, Superhighway (finish 10 public online races), Stealth Cookie and Traced (get tailed 5 times, with online invasions switched on). The Bad Blood achievement Tag Team needs 10 co-op missions.

DLC has trophies

Yes

DLC note

Ten Bad Blood achievements worth 250G sit in the Xbox One list, taking it to 48 achievements and 1250G.

Gamerscore, base game

1000

Gamerscore with DLC

1250

Missable trophies

• None flagged by the PS4 guides; some side missions only open after story progress

Grind

• Geolocated: check in at all 100 hotspots
• Bookmarked: tag 100 enemies
• End of Line: 40 Fixer Contracts
• Freeware (100G): every skill in the tree
• Free Radical: escape a level 5 police chase, called the hardest by Push Square

• Family Man Complete Act 1 10G Hidden 51.02% of players
• Who Is Raymond Kenney? Complete Act 2 10G Hidden 38.03% of players
• One Down, One to Go Complete Act 3 15G Hidden 34.83% of players
• Vengeance Complete Act 4 15G Hidden 33.38% of players
• Log Off Complete Act 5 100G Hidden 30.37% of players
• Hello World Take down Maurice 15G 99.74% of players
• End of Line Complete 40 Fixer Contracts 30G 8.94% of players
• Basest Base Complete every Gang Hideout 50G 14.49% of players
• Peephole Complete every Privacy Invasion 30G 11.92% of players
• Enforcer Use the Crime Detection System to take down 20 confirmed criminals 15G 22.05% of players
• Hard Crash Perform 10 vehicle take downs 10G 54.96% of players
• Communication Fail Using non-lethal takedown, stop 10 civilians from calling to report you 10G 35.7% of players
• Bookmarked Tag 100 enemies 30G 57.43% of players
• Power Cycle Participate in 5 different City Games 10G 13.62% of players
• Magic Smoke Kill 4 enemies within a single instance of Focus 10G 20.11% of players
• Free Radical Escape a level 5 police chase 30G 28.01% of players
• White Rabbit Object Escape 15 police scans 30G 8.21% of players
• Scanproof Escape a level 5 police scan 30G 6.58% of players
• Hardware Fail Shoot out a tire on 15 different vehicles 15G 40.77% of players
• Black Hat Trick Kill 3 enemies with a single IED 30G 36.11% of players
• Saturday Night Special Complete the final mission in the Weapons Trade Investigation 15G 13.67% of players
• Sanity Check Collect all 8 Burner Phones 15G 14.37% of players
• Read-only Complete the final mission in the QR Code Investigation 15G 11.32% of players
• Geolocated Check in at every Hotspot 30G 11.18% of players
• Social Lubricant Complete level 10 against all 3 Drinking Game opponents 15G 4% of players
• Hackification Invade and successfully hack 10 enemy Fixers in Online Hacking 30G Needs online 6.92% of players
• Piggyback Invade and successfully observe 10 enemy Fixers in Online Tailing 30G Needs online 6.92% of players
• Superhighway Complete 10 Public Online Races 30G Needs online 7.58% of players
• System Mangler Complete every ctOS Breach 30G 9.08% of players
• Stealth Cookie Complete an Online Tailing without being detected 30G Needs online 14.82% of players
• Freeware Unlock every Skill in the Skills Tree 100G 9.45% of players
• Traced Get tailed 5 times 15G Hidden 5.63% of players
• They Call Him The Vigilante Complete every Investigation 30G 10.21% of players
• Road Rage Complete every Criminal Convoy 30G 9.53% of players
• Revoking Client Privileges Complete the final mission in the Human Traffic Investigation 15G 13.71% of players
• Darkness Looms Complete the final mission of the Missing Persons Investigation 15G 15.04% of players
• Disk Space Full Unlock every song with the SongSneak app 30G 5.88% of players
• Clear Signals Unlock every ctOS Tower 30G 24.94% of players
• Friends in Need T-Bone: Complete Act 1 10G Hidden 5.27% of players
• No Easy Fix T-Bone: Complete Act 2 20G Hidden 4.49% of players
• Pest Control T-Bone: Complete Act 3 30G Hidden 4.3% of players
• Mob Ruled T-Bone: Complete 20 Chicago South Club contracts 20G 2.25% of players
• Second Amendement T-Bone: Complete 20 Militia contracts 20G 2.24% of players
• Unfixable T-Bone: Complete 20 Fixers contracts 20G 2.21% of players
• Full Circuit T-Bone: Complete 29 driving missions 30G 2.14% of players
• Tag Team T-Bone: Complete 10 coop missions 30G 2.12% of players
• Looking For Trouble T-Bone: Complete all side investigations 30G 2.87% of players
• Negative Eugenics T-Bone: Kill 4 enemies at once by blowing up the RC Car 40G 1.96% of players

DLC

The main paid add-on is the Bad Blood story expansion. Its ten achievements are included in the Xbox One list.

Items

Name	Date	Adds
Bad Blood	2014-09	A separate story set one year after the main game, following Raymond Kenney, with ten story missions, side content and an RC car

Playable today

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale
Metacritic	Xbox One	78	100
Metacritic	PlayStation 4	80	100
Metacritic	PC	77	100
Metacritic	Wii U	62	100

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
Destructoid	8	10
Eurogamer	7	10
Game Informer	8.5	10
GameSpot	8	10
GamesRadar	4	5
Giant Bomb	3	5
IGN	8.4	10
PC Gamer US	8.7	10
Polygon	8	10
VideoGamer	7	10

Notes for collectors

• Four collector's editions were released, and the GameStop pre-order version came with a poster by Alex Ross. None of them held every piece of extra content.
• Players accused Ubisoft of a graphical downgrade when they compared the 2012 E3 visuals with 2014 footage.
• An eBook, Dark Clouds by John Shirley, continued the story alongside the game.
• A free companion app for iOS and Android let players join console and PC players in two racing modes.
• The Xbox One list has 48 achievements worth 1,250 Gamerscore, ten of them for Bad Blood.
• Landmarks in Chicago were redesigned to only resemble the real ones, because the artistic rights would have tripled the budget.

Credits

Publisher

Ubisoft

Developer

Ubisoft Montreal (additional work by Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Quebec, Ubisoft Bucharest)

Director

Jonathan Morin

Released

2014-05-27

Region

US

Time to beat

about 19.5 hours

Copies in the shop

• Watch Dogs (XBOX ONE) CA$14.99