What is Going on With Watch_Dogs?

Our “What The Hell Happened” series is usually associated with games that once soared high as an eagle, but eventually dropped down to the ground due to one reason or another. But today, we have a rather curious case of a franchise that didn’t start life on the best foot forward, but continued to make strong moves and eventually cemented itself as a valuable IP. And at a time when you’d expect the game to be gracefully riding on the waves of its new-found success, its future looks to be oblivious to say the very least.

We are, of course, talking about Watch_Dogs, which was an attempt to create a new-age open-world action game centered around hacking. Over the course of just three major entries, Watch_Dogs has managed to garner quite a following for itself, and the latest entry Legion has been received pretty well by fans and critics alike. However, it’s been close to three years since Legion came out and the lack of any updates on a new entry is rather surprising. So, what the hell is going on here?

The first Watch_Dogs was marketed as a showcase title for the power of eighth-generation consoles, and the E3 2012 gameplay trailer showcased a ton of impressive lighting effects and an open world that looked better than anything else on the market. Trees would sway to the tune of the winds, NPCs would behave in a realistic manner, the rain effects looked slick, and much more. Expectation from fans was at an all-time high, and all that was left for the developer was to deliver on its promise for Watch_Dogs to be a smash hit.

Watch_Dogs would finally release in May 2014, and it was generally well received among critics. A rather respectable Metacritic score of 80 backs that sentiment. Watch_Dogs had some fresh gameplay ideas, and while the open-world was generally cut from the same cloth as other open-worlds – it made for an enjoyable adventure nevertheless. The story surrounding Aiden Pearce’s revenge is compelling in some aspects, but it also felt a bit too bland as the characters lacked any form of personality.

But the biggest criticism by far with Watch_Dogs was its graphics downgrade. It was evident that corners had been cut when compared to that E3 trailer, and the visuals were just not up to those pre-release standards. This in turn sparked a ton of controversy over the internet and outrage. Despite being a decent game, Watch_Dogs is generally deemed as one of the biggest letdowns of that year. Regardless, Watch_Dogs managed to make some impressive sales with over 10 million copies sold in its lifetime. All in all, the developer knew that Watch_Dogs’ IP had a lot of potential, and there was money to be made with a potential sequel that can correct the original’s shortcomings.

Jump to November 2016, and Watch_Dogs 2 was released for consoles and PC after just being announced earlier that year. There was a ton of skepticism surrounding this release due to the first game’s controversies, but most of those worries eventually turned into anticipation as favorable reviews started flowing across the internet.

Watch_Dogs 2 transports players to a high-tech rendition of San Francisco, and you take on the role of a new protagonist Marcus Halloway as he joins the Dedsec organization in an effort to take down the intrusive ctOS 2.0 network. Watch_Dogs 2 ditches the overtly grim tone of the original, and instead presents a colorful cast of characters that have a ton of personality – and it works well to create a markedly more engaging narrative than the original.

The gameplay had also seen major improvements, with the addition of parkour being one of the biggest additions to the player’s set of movements. You also get new tools to play with such as drones and RC cars to remotely hack systems, and all of this beautifully comes together in the game’s set of open-ended missions where you can use these tools in interesting ways to complete objectives. Even the multiplayer component was a lot more fun this time around. It featured a total of four distinct game modes that served as a worthy distraction from the single-player component.

There were still some apparent technical flaws within the experience, which were later patched, but by and large – Watch_Dogs 2 was a worthy sequel that corrected almost every shortcoming of the original. Fans absolutely loved it, and the game once again sold pretty well – despite originally having fewer pre-orders than the first game. The developer reported that Watch_Dogs 2 sold well over 10 million copies, and now that the franchise’s reputation was restored once again, the future was looking pretty bright for the IP as a whole.

Fast forward to 2020, the industry saw the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X | S. A new Watch Dogs subtitled Legion also joined the party. The game followed a similar pattern of a relatively short marketing cycle with an announcement in 2019 and a release set to align with the new consoles’ release in late 2020. Set against the backdrop of a futuristic London, Legion offered a brand new twist to the Watch Dogs experience. Instead of playing as a fixed protagonist, you have the option to recruit any NPC to your cause and play as that person.

It’s a rather fresh mechanic that was executed well enough, though Legion was not immune to some inherent flaws that come along with this new system. Each NPC has their own set of abilities and special tools that enable more personal expression in the gameplay, but the lack of a well-written protagonist also means that you don’t get a story that involves any personal stakes.

As for the gameplay, Legion builds upon what came before – and refines the mechanics in some neat ways. The systemic open-world design of prior entries was brought over but since there were different characters to play, it also meant that there were different tools, gadgets, and styles to play with. The open world of futuristic London also looks stunning with excellent attention to detail. It’s a mostly great game, but reception seems to be somewhat divisive as some fans didn’t really jive with the play-as-anyone mechanic.

The developer tried to solve those complaints with Bloodline, a post-launch DLC. At the end of the day, despite some problems, Legion seems to have largely turned out to be a successful venture. We don’t know how much the game has sold to date, but Legion reportedly sold almost 2 million copies in just three days – which was an impressive start to say the very least.

It’s already close to three years since Legion released, and there’s little information on what’s next for the future of the franchise. Looking at release patterns of prior entries, The developer has churned out a new Watch_Dogs game every three to four years on average. Between this and the impressive sales of Legion, it’s a rather curious case as to why we haven’t heard anything of a new Watch Dogs in development.

As you can already imagine, it’s pretty hard to pinpoint why that is the case exactly, but all speculation point to Mirage being the biggest fish. In addition to the upcoming entry this year, we have Red, Hexe, and Jade in development right now alongside a VR game and a standalone multiplayer game called Invictus.

As such, the developer might just not have the bandwidth to undertake a new Watch_Dogs project at the moment, though we suspect that this will change at some point in the near future. Sales figures and critical reception are proof that there is a lot of potential in the Watch_Dogs IP, and it’s very likely that the developer will eventually circle back to this franchise. Exactly when, though? That is one question that will likely will not be answered for a while.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.