Watch_Dogs is set in Chicago but just how realistic is the Windy City players will be guiding Aiden Pearce through to the real thing?
On Reddit, native Chicagoan presidenttrex has commented on how Ubisoft can capture the feel of the city in Watch_Dogs:
- Neighbourhoods. There's probably no chance they get this right, but if they're remotely accurate, I'll be thrilled. And they'll probably ball up large swaths of the west and south sides together, but too many depictions of Chicago basically reduce it to "The Loop", "Wrigleyville", "Crimetown." I've seen so many tourists form their opinion of the city from Navy Pier and Michigan Avenue, when the best parts of the city are in the little neighborhoods and cultural enclaves with their own "feel." Chinatown, Logan Square, Andersonville, and Bronzeville all feel like totally different places in the same city. I hope they capture a little bit of that.
- Architecture. The only time this truly makes a difference is in Assassin's Creed games, so I'm happy the same publisher that made me want to visit Florence is on this one. Chicago has a visual style and architecture that sets it apart from other big cities like New York or Boston. You have Beaux-arts next to Chicago School flourishes inspired by nature next to giant Mies van der Rohe glass boxes. I would love it if they represented our town visually as well as they did places like Jerusalem or Venice or colonial Boston.
- Crime/Corruption. There's really no hiding that Chicago has a massive issue with crime. And the central premise of the game is what the city would give up to control that. Really good movies and TV shows tackle social issues like this head on, so it's really cool to see a video game tackle the issues Chicago is facing. Yeah, it's a little fantastical. And yeah, it's a white character dealing with issues in one of the most segregated cities in America. But the city sometimes has an adversarial relationship with it's police force which can either get short shrift here or maybe becomes a bigger issue in the game. Who knows? But I loved "Spec Ops: The Line" for trying to show what war can do to a psyche. I would hope this is another game like that.
- Privacy. This isn't just a Chicago thing, but something our whole country is dealing with. With the SOPA/PIPA stuff, Net Neutrality, and the NSA metadata collection… all of which happened under an administration lead by a President from Chicago. And we have blue light cameras, stop light cameras, and private companies monitoring us (via parking meter and tollway meters) as we move around the city. So the central premise of Watch_Dogs isn't that far removed from reality. Maybe it will make people more aware of the kind of data they put out there?
If you've spent much time in Chicago do you think Ubisoft have come close to replicating the city virtually based on what we've seen so far? The developers have given their take on why Chicago was the best choice for the game but we won't really know how true they've been until the game is released some time between April and June.
I can't say myself, the closest I've been to Chicago is a six hour stopover in O'Hare Airport. Ubisoft has had great success in recreating the feel of cities in the Assassin's Creed games and, even if they're not accurate, maybe that's enough.
Watch_Dogs is headed to PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The game will also be released on Wii U after a delay.
