Current Events > The "everyone is playable" gimmick in Watch Dogs: Legion sucks.

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's utterly pointless and a waste of time and effort that should've gone into creating actual characters to care about. Why should I care about the story at all if the playable characters are just people off the street? Why the hell would they take the positive reception of Marcus and the San Francisco chapter of DedSec and do away with that? I have no motivation to play this and it hurts to say this since I loved the hell out of WD2.

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I like the idea, but not enough to buy the game at full price.

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vigorm0rtis posted...

I like the idea, but not enough to buy the game at full price.

Yeah, don't. I was expecting something on par with 2 but this is a downgrade in every sense of the word. I regret the hell out of this purchase. And the worst part was I hated the "recruit everyone" angle when they first announced it, and it turned out to be literally everything I feared it'd be. This game has no heart. 1 was meh but had a vision, 2 had heart and soul, this is a cash grab.

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The easiest way to get over the gimmick is to just find one character you like, and play as them. Some missions do require you to recruit and play as a specific character with the necessary role to get the task done, but outside of that, you can complete the campaign as one character for the most part.


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The funny thing is, the best part of Watchdogs has always been the NPCs

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InhumaneRaider posted...

The easiest way to get over the gimmick is to just find one character you like, and play as them. Some missions do require you to recruit and play as a specific character with the necessary role to get the task done, but outside of that, you can complete the campaign as one character for the most part.

That doesn't address the inherent issue with it all though. Why the hell should I care about any of the story? These aren't characters, they're basically faceless drones. Opening the game with what seemed to have been an interesting character to base the story around only to have him killed off in the very beginning was a mistake.

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I don't think you need emotional ties to characters to connect to a plot that is about systems and institutions, but I can see where you're coming from.
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Antifar posted...

I don't think you need emotional ties to characters to connect to a plot that is about systems and institutions

I absolutely do. If I don't care about the characters, I won't give a damn about the story since there's one to care about. Hell, the fact that these people are goombas for all I care means that a story like that would fall flat on its face. Why tell a story about systems and institutions if there's no individual character affected by said systems and institutions?

I'm really hoping WD2 wasn't a fluke in what's shaping up to be a mediocre series that has so much potential.

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Did you play with permadeath on? My first operative was the one I used primarily throughout the game and I immediately got attached to them, playing most of the missions with them btw. But they didn't have anything special about them, and so it made the game much more hard and the stakes far more higher.

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Thevmore playable characters we have the better

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dave_is_slick posted...

Yeah, don't. I was expecting something on par with 2 but this is a downgrade in every sense of the word. I regret the hell out of this purchase. And the worst part was I hated the "recruit everyone" angle when they first announced it, and it turned out to be literally everything I feared it'd be. This game has no heart. 1 was meh but had a vision, 2 had heart and soul, this is a cash grab.

I dunno the idea they have there would be way more complicated than a typical protagonist so cash grab probably isn't the right word.

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dave_is_slick posted...

This game has no heart.

Thats Ubisofts trademark, what did you expect

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I haven't played it but I would assume it would be hard to write a story worth telling with no focus on any one character and instead on an overall group or idea in a video game. I think the Division kinda suffers from this too.
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this is why every game should have a demo or trial

DuranOfForcena posted...

"gimmick is bad"

i mean....... yeah, what did you expect........

I think you're taking the usual negative connotation of the word "gimmick" and putting it in a place where it doesn't have that connotation. Plenty of games have good gimmicks, which in games are just featured mechanics and setups for those mechanics. Portal is the most immediately obvious.

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Tbh I didn't really like the story in the first two Watch Dogs games either. Watch Dogs 2 worked a bit better because for the most part there wasn't much of a story outside of messing things up for corporations and gangs which worked well for that game. But even then I wasn't overly attached to anyone other than Marcus. Wrench just acts quirky for the game outside of one mission where he's vulnerable and then that's it. One guy is barely in the game because he dies in the main story so he can't pop in the side missions like the other characters. The graffiti girl and the dreadlock guy from the first game don't really do much in general. And that's it. There's a douche CEO villain who gets the upper hand in one mission and that's about it from him as well. It shows promise right at the end of the game where you play as a few different members of deadsec which shows promise (and is probably where Legion got inspiration from) but that doesn't really go anywhere either.

I always knew it was gonna be a personal preference thing. If you like scripted character stuff Legion doesn't have much to offer. But people will find their own stories with the systemic systems in place for the player to create their own narratives and stories I suppose. Especially if they use systems like permadeath.

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Romulox28 posted...

Thats Ubisofts trademark, what did you expect

At least the same amount of heart WD2 had! And if you want to get more recent, the same amount Assassin's Creed: Origins had!

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Darmik posted...

Tbh I didn't really like the story in the first two Watch Dogs games either. Watch Dogs 2 worked a bit better because for the most part there wasn't much of a story outside of messing things up for corporations and gangs which worked well for that game. But even then I wasn't overly attached to anyone other than Marcus. Wrench just acts quirky for the game outside of one mission where he's vulnerable and then that's it. One guy is barely in the game because he dies in the main story so he can't pop in the side missions like the other characters. The graffiti girl and the dreadlock guy from the first game don't really do much in general. And that's it. There's a douche CEO villain who gets the upper hand in one mission and that's about it from him as well. It shows promise right at the end of the game where you play as a few different members of deadsec which shows promise (and is probably where Legion got inspiration from) but that doesn't really go anywhere either.

I always knew it was gonna be a personal preference thing. If you like scripted character stuff Legion doesn't have much to offer. But people will find their own stories with the systemic systems in place for the player to create their own narratives and stories I suppose. Especially if they use systems like permadeath.

I feel like you're intentionally selling Wrench and Sitara short, especially Wrench since his bromance with Marcus was by far the best part. And I never said the stories were particularly good either. All I've been saying is that without real characters I will not give one fuck about whatever is going on. Real characters will always be better than faceless goons and I hope this flops.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchDogs_Legion/comments/jmhf21/he_died_from_excitement/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

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I liked the setting for WD2 but got bored with the story and gave up probly halfway thru the game. Legion so far has actually been really fun because all the different characters with unique weapons and abilities give you so many unique ways to approach a mission. It's Ubi open world so it does get repetitive but I'm really enjoying the game because I can play as anyone I want.

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dave_is_slick posted...

I feel like you're intentionally selling Wrench and Sitara short, especially Wrench since his bromance with Marcus was by far the best part. And I never said the stories were particularly good either. All I've been saying is that without real characters I will not give one fuck about whatever is going on. Real characters will always be better than faceless goons and I hope this flops.

It probably will because Watch Dogs 2 flopped already. Franchise is probably dead.

And eh fair enough if you thought that way but most of the game felt like Marcus doing everything so the concept of a rag tag gang just never really clicked with me.

bnui_ransder posted...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchDogs_Legion/comments/jmhf21/he_died_from_excitement/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

lmao

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