Watch Dogs

Description

Watch Dogs is an upcoming action-adventure stealth video game set in an open world environment. It will be developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, WiiU, XBox 360 and XBox One. Watch Dogs centers on the player's ability to hack into various electronic systems, either to obtain and control information or to destroy those devices completely at specific times. The game was first unveiled during Ubisoft's press conference at E3 2012 and will be released worldwide in November 2013.

Gameplay

Watch Dogs is an open world action-adventure stealth video game in which players control a vigilante named Aiden Pearce (voiced by Noam Jenkins), who can hack into various electronic devices tied to the city's central operating system (ctOS), allowing various methods for the player to solve numerous objectives.Examples include hacking into people's phones to retrieve bank data and steal funds, triggering malfunctions in equipment to distract other characters and hacking into traffic lights to cause collisions. Players can also receive information on civilians via augmented reality feeds, providing the player with information on demographics, health and potential behaviour. Objectives showcased in presentations include finding specific targets to kill, evading the police and following potential victims in order to stop their would-be killers. Combat utilizes a combination of stealth components and parkour, along with the mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter.

The game features an elusive online multiplayer element. The "multiplayer" experience is a one-on-one interaction between two human characters in which one player seamlessly and secretly joins the single player experience of another player.The first player (which entered the other player's world) is tasked with finding the second player (which is initially unaware that another human is in their game session - no notification is given to the second player). Once the first player finds the second player the objective is updated. The first player's new objective involves installing a back door virus into the second player's smartphone, then hiding while that virus siphons off a portion of the data the second player has collected. This stolen information increases the first player's power once they return to their own single player session. The second player must stay within a certain radius of the first player for the download to progress. Once the download is initiated by the first player the second player is alerted that they have been hacked and that data is being stolen from their smartphone. Once the second player has been alerted of the intrusion their objective is to 1) locate the first player who is stealing their data, and 2) either kill the first player or cause the first player to flee to such a distance that the download is halted (a certain minimum distance must be maintained for the download to progress). It is unclear how long the first player must remain within range of the second player for the download to be successful. In all gameplay released by Ubisoft so far the hacks have been unsuccessful. In one gameplay video there are two hacking attempts. In the first attempt the first player successfully flees once they are identified by the second player (causing the download to fail). In the second attempt the first player is again identified by the second player, but the first player lures the second player into an alley where a gunfight ensues, ultimately resulting in the first player (the hacker) killing the second player (the hackee). A successful hack will give the hacker "a portion of information that you will gather through the game"; it is unclear exactly what is gained.