Ubisoft uploaded twenty minutes of new footage they showed off at Gamescom 2016 for Watch Dogs 2. They take us around a section of the Bay, as we play through both a singleplayer operation and a co-op team-up experience.
Alongside enhanced hacking interactions with objects, the player has access to a hack-view that allows them to see points of hack interest. By investigating a nearby person’s text messages, we get an operation where we investigate strange stolen signals coming from Colt Tower. We see a “stingray” box at the top of the tower, but there’s no feisable way to get up there ourselves. So Marcus tosses out his quadcopter drone instead. After analyzing the box, we find a way to trace the signal to another location. When the video opens up the map, we’re informed that the entire bay area is unlocked at the beginning of the game. Taking a nearby car for a joy ride to the traced location, we see that the vehicles of Watch Dogs 2 are more responsive than previously. As you race across San Francisco, you’ll still be able to hack obstacles and vehicles as you go.
Stopping at a nearby clothing store, we learn that there’s over 700 items of clothing we can dress Marcus up with. The different regions in the Bay area have their own looks and styles, so if you want to get them all you’ll need to travel around a bit. Your phone is equipped with a wide array of applications: from Maps, to DedSec stuff and cars on demand, to even a research app that lets you further your hacking skills. The game puts an emphasis on exploration with it’s ScoutX app that let’s us find landmarks and get rewards for exploring them. We take a selfie at the crab statue and gain more followers as a result. These followers work as a sort of EXP system that levels Marcus up.
Getting back to the main objective, we go to a warehouse pier to see where these stange signals are coming from. It’s a heavily guarded area, so we scan the enemy layout using our drone. Getting a sense of our objectives, we come to the conclusion it’s impossible to waltz right into the office where the signal is coming from undetected. Marcus deploys his RC car to go in on our behalf. The RC gizmo can hack things on it’s own, making it possible to open paths for Marcus without the need to get his hands dirty. Marcus uses a construction lift to get to the warehouse roof. He hacks an air conditioning unit to explode when the guards come nearby, creating a distraction. Marcus adds to a DedSec box to the signal source, and we complete the mission.
Seamlessly transitioning to co-op, we find another player-controlled avatar walking around in our game. He joins up with us, and we engage in a co-op mission that has tougher objectives. Our next mission is taking on a gang lair and steal two hard drives with our new comrade. We roll on down to Oakland. The compound is heavily guarded and we use many of the same techniques and methods from the earlier mission in order to snag the hardware from our targets. We hack the phone of a gang member and send a message of war to an enemy group, and they come in and start attacking the rest of the compound for us, allowing an escape.
The last minute of the video shows off the bounty system, where a player in pursuit by police can be pursued by up to three other players in a PVP style gameplay set-up. If you manage to evade them and take out the other players, you get an award. Alternatively you get an award for taking down other players yourself. This bounty system has more of a chance of activating based on your particular play-style.
Watch Dogs 2 comes out on November 15th for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. To learn more about the game, check out their website, Twitter, and Facebook.
