Watch Dogs – part 3: Gameplay

In the earlier articles about Watch Dogs a lot have been said about the culture and philosophy behind the game and also the new tech that will supposedly power the incredibly lively game world. In this final article on Watch Dogs I will cover more of the gameplay elements that are in Aiden Pearce’s hands.

Tech

The main features of this game is of course the tech abilities. You have Chicago’s ctOS (central operating system) at your hands, but to utilize and draw the power from this extreme amount of information you have to use your cell phone, which is connected to the ctOS.

Based on what has been shown in the two demos/trailers, the options on the cell phone’s menu include Bridges, Jam communication, Traffic lights and Control trains, together with two other options whose labels haven’t been shown. There are also two empty menu options, and I guess there are more layers with options, that can be filled with other tech actions.

You can steal a car to get away from pursuers, and when reaching a bridge, raise it, so you jump over but those behind will not be able to continue

The Bridges action is shown in the end of a trailer. Aiden Pearce have found the wanted person and disposed of him; after that he need to flee the scene for obvious reasons. To do this he steals a car à la Grand Theft Auto and sets of. To stop pursuing cars from catching him, he raises a bridge so they cannot follow him. Aiden himself jumps over the bridge in the car.

The actions Jam communication and Traffic lights have been described in earlier articles, but in short the Jam communication action jams and disturbs the cell phones in a certain area, causing people to move around or get upset. By jamming traffic lights you can cause a crash, stopping most cars and stop people from getting away from you.

There seems also to be an automatic action, that is always active, like a scanner which scans nearby people (or their cell phones) and give you a quick status of them. You get to know their names, income, age, occupation and a “main status” e.g. if the person have been charged with plagiarism or is an assistant to someone you are looking for.

The status scan is very useful to get information on other people. This can lead to clues or even other submissions

Action

There are also more physical actions involved in the game. In the demo there are scenes of fighting with hands and also gun fights. As mentioned earlier you can also steal cars if you need to get away quickly. There also seems to be some parkour action and movements that you can perform, and this is very much to my liking.

Even though I would have liked the violence was kept even lower and more subtle than it is, the action sequences seems to be cool enough

Multiplayer

In a short teaser at the end of the demonstration of Watch Dogs a scene with a second character is shown. He seems to be watching Aiden Pearce from a roof top after Aiden having caused a big crash and killed a wanted person. The second character is talking to someone through a phone and he is being ordered to protect Aiden.

A second player (and perhaps more) get a mission to protect Aiden Pearce

There has been rumors about co-op and that would be super cool! Imagine being a few people with this power or perhaps one main person and the other ones acting as the main character’s team. Let’s see what happens, but I am super hyped about this game, to say the least!

Last

This was the last of my preview articles of Watch Dogs, at least at this stage. I will surely come back when more is known about the game. If the game is shown on the floor on Eurogamer Expo 2012 I would be very happy, keeping my fingers crossed for that, but I doubt it will be there though…