In the gaming industry, there are many titles that “seem” to have the makings of a great franchise or show off glimpses of greatness and then never get the ability or chance to live up to their own potential. We can think of franchises from numerous publishers that fit that mold, but few encapsulate it as much as the Watch Dogs franchise. The series from Ubisoft started out red hot via a trailer/gameplay demo at E3 that showcased a person using their phone to hack into everything around them and get things done or information they needed. Given the digital world we lived in back then, and especially now, this intrigued gamers. Why? Because this was so much more than another action game, this was using everything digital within the world to your needs, and it was exciting.
The problem was that when the game was released, it was nothing that Ubisoft promised it would be. A trend that continues to this day with other games, but we’ll let that go for now. Instead, gamers got a rather basic action game with SOME hacking elements but nothing that the infamous “vertical slice” demo showcased. Over time, Ubisoft tried to do more with the Watch Dogs series, taking it in bold directions to emphasize player choice and freedom. However, it never worked out, and one insider states that the franchise is basically done.
This comes from j0nathan, who is a Ubisoft leaker over on Twitter. In a post about the franchise, he said this:
“Watch Dogs is normally dead and buried. Legion’s failure destroyed the projects on the license (including a fairly original Battle Royale).”
Obviously, we have to take that with a grain of salt, especially since there’s a movie based on the franchise apparently in the works. However, should that movie go bust, it would likely be the final nail in the series coffin, so to speak.
The sad part about all of this is that Ubisoft had not one, but two, chances to fix their mistakes and make the series exactly what fans wanted it to be. Instead, they focused on the wrong elements, another worrying trend of theirs, and just tried to make the game darker plot-wise. Gamers didn’t ask for “dark hacking plots”. They wanted gameplay that made them think they could “hack the world,” just like the vertical slice from that E3 oh-so-long ago highlighted.
But they didn’t do that, and the franchise is either hanging by a thread or is dead. Either way, it’s not good.
