Perhaps one of the most stunning game demonstrations of E3 yet was delivered by Ubisoft during their press event in which they reveled their new game entitled Watch Dogs. The preliminary announcement trailer explains the back story of the game. In August of 2003, a power outage on the East Coast caused by a 'disgruntled employee' left 55 million people in a total blackout. Panic ensued and by the time it was all over, 11 people had died. In order to prevent such a tragedy again, a system named CTOS (central operating system) is installed; it is a very sophisticated program that controls online networks, traffic grids, data servers, surveillance cameras and power grids. A computer is responsible for controlling and managing an entire city but who controls the computer? The woman narrating goes on to explain the ulterior motives of big corporations controlling the content we see and how we see it, likely the main focus of Watch Dogs.
The gameplay demo follows shortly after the announcement trailer and pans over various shots of a very impressive and beautiful looking Chicago; I was stunned by the visual quality of the city. The camera catches up with main protagonist, Aiden Pearce, a hacker capable of infiltrating the CTOS system. As he walks casually down the street I can't help but stare in awe at the amount of detail injected into the game's visuals. The city streets replicate the feel of a city much better than any other game has done in the past. The amount of depth and small details like, neon signs, wind, litter and the pedestrians around Aiden just look so real. The behavior of clothes and accessories like a pedestrians purse even caught my eye as they seemed to move and react to movement and the wind in such a realistic fashion. To say the least, I was impressed in the first ten seconds of the camera following Aiden over his shoulder.
Aiden makes his along the windy streets to an art gallery featuring the work of a man named Flynn Demarco and it seems to be invite only. Instead of jumping in line, Pearce pulls out his phone and jams cell phone and radio signals. The guard at the front door is distracted and wanders away from his post allowing Aiden to slip inside. In the gallery, Aiden walks through the crowd of attendees who have actions above their head associated with what they're doing.
You can hack their phones to listen to conversations or jam their cell phone signals to prevent them from making contact. Pearce meets up with some kind of contact who he has some sort of arrangement with. Not much is revealed other than Pearce is after Demarco and is using himself as bait. After the contact hands Aiden a gun, he uses his phone to hack the phone of a employee of Demarco. She's calling Demarco to alert him of Aiden's presence which prompts Demarco to make his way over to the gallery. Aiden heads for the back door but is halted by a guard who he disposes of with a asp baton without drawing any attention. He exits the building and awaits Demarco's arrival.
Once he spots the car, Pearce causes a massive car accident between multiple vehicles after he hacks the traffic lights. A gun fights ensues as Demarco's body guards spot Pearce. The seamless cover and shoot system employed by Pearce allows him to take the guards down. At one point he even slides over the hood of a car and engages in close combat with one of the body guards which looked very clean and just awesome at the same time. After the security is eliminated, Pearce drags Demarco from his car and kills him with a single shot from a handgun.
Pearce opens his PDA but the camera switches to a man on a rooftop watching Pearce; The man, with the tag of Bixxel_44 talks to a another man on his phone and runs out of sight in a bit that seems to be controlled by the player. The camera then pans up and gets a view of the whole city where code names such as 'Siren', 'Fidget' and 'Valkyrie' pop up which seems to imply a network of players may be playable and have a role to play in manipulating the CTOS system. Aside from that, Ubisoft refrained from revealing anything else and no time frame was given for a release date although the game is planned for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
Check out the trailers below to see how truly amazing this game looks. Keep in mind the screens in this post are all in game. Keep an eye out for more news on Watch Dogs.
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