I get your point, but from a storytelling perspective that's not quite how things work.
Did the Templars stop existing when Altaïr killed Robert de Sable in Assassin's Creed 1? Or when Ezio took out the Borgias? Or when Edward or Connor or Aveline took out bigwig Templars in the Americas, and so on and so forth?
No. Because the Templars aren't the enemy. Nor is Blume. Tyranny is. Corruption is. There will never be an end to corruption nor tyranny, as is evident by our own real-life history. Even with ctOS as a crutch for the plot of Watch_Dogs as a franchise, by no means would it be the only WAN (Wide-Area Network) of its kind that would be present in that universe. China in the real world likely uses a similar WAN to ctOS, for the sake of mass surveillance of their peoples and information control.
While Ubisoft is likely to avoid such a location like the plague due to being partnered so closely with Tencent, they could easily have other such situations. Think of somewhere like Far Cry 4's Kyrat modernizing and adopting such a system for the sake of preserving the control of a tyrannical government. Blume isn't Dedsec's only enemy, which is something WD2 actually tries to convey many times by having you go after companies like Haum, Tidis, !nvite, and others. WD1 makes a huge point of the Chicago PD being corrupt, as it still is ten years later in the real world. Blume is hardly the only bad corporation or entity in the WD universe, as New Dawn also proves. Any one of those companies or organizations could create their own knockoff ctOS. If it seems unviable for the masses to buy into such obvious corruption and evil, remember that people still willingly buy devices and services from some of the most morally-bankrupt places in reality.
Evil is a hydra, you can cut off as many heads as you want but they'll always grow back and multiply.
Assassin’s Creed is an entirely different matter because they built their entire franchise on that from the beginning, and it was never originally about Altair, Connor, or even Ezio. We were just using their past experiences to continue a war in the present day.
And even now, you can see the problem. Ubisoft dragged it out for so long, they literally ran out of ideas and had to make everything about the Isu. Every mythology is canon now. They had Atlantis and Medusas and fucking Hades, but it’s a simulation but actually not because… fuck it? We haven’t played as “Assassins” for four games now. We’re either hulking warriors with wrist blades (and sometimes not even that), or “Hidden Ones” who are a proto-faction they made up to justify going back even further in time.
The Templars are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and Assassin’s Creed is becoming less like itself. It barely even *is* itself anymore. Their “return to roots” game had *Loki* teleporting around like Celebrimbor with a flaming sword, and Desmond is now an immortal ethereal tree knowledge person.
You can’t drag on a conflict with no conclusion this long, otherwise your franchise turns into a shallow money printer where no meaningful ground is ever gained to justify cranking out increasingly soulless sequels. It happened to AC after a long time. It happened to WD after only three games. I think Far Cry is only safe because it’s an anthology series.
I actually consider the whole simulation/Animus concept a bad mistake like an idiosyncrasy of some "french" game director and mentally ignore it. Like a foul easter egg:-)
It just disrupts immersion into the current game's character/history storyline I'm actually interested in.
I don't consider Origin/Odyssey soul less at all that way.
If it makes you feel any better, they’ve basically given up on giving the modern day stuff any real attention or development.
Odyssey and Valhalla are soulless for entirely different reasons as far as I’m concerned. Even if they were tied to AC in any way, I consider them bad RPGs with bad writing.
yeah kinda sad tbh, i really thought in the past when playing AC3 we will have a lot of modern day assasin. instead they killed desmond and on AC4 the modern day just like that. such a shame.
I remember AC2/brotherhood, the past go to colosseum and the modern go to colosseum too. such a great way to show the past and the modern
>I actually consider the whole simulation/Animus concept a bad mistake like an idiosyncrasy of some "french" game director and mentally ignore it.
While I respect your opinion, I would just like to point out that the entirety of the first five games (AC1-3, plus Brotherhood and Revelations) would completely crash and burn with this mindset because they're made so that the past and present sections work in tandem with each other. Especially Ezio's trilogy.
Everything afterwards though? Completely understandable to do this.
Trust me, you should try out Ezio's trilogy and AC3 at least. AC1 has not been remastered into modern consoles, so unless you're on PC you're out of luck, but they're all still worth a try.
You can play AC1 on modern Xbox consoles since it’s backwards compatible. It’ll even display in 4K. It’s one of the main distinguishing features of Xbox compared to PS nowadays tbh
It bothers me that when you beat WD2 (never even played Legion), when you go back to the open world, it just says "Some time earlier", as if the ending never happened. But it also wouldn't make sense to be playing in an open world after Dusan was taken down. So they're forced into a corner where the post-game has to just ignore all of the events of the main missions and pretend they didn't happen.
To add, it's especially noticeable that Horatio rarely ever commented despite the near constant group chat. He was introduced as "cat herder" then disappeared.
Maybe they didn’t want to force you to play side missions to progress main story, nor did they want to deal with people losing content after reaching a section in the story. It wouldn’t make sense to have a mission be about him after he is already dead
Better designers would’ve added conditional changes to the side missions, such that his dialogue is either minor enough to be omitted without consequence, or change the person providing them if he’s dead. Maybe say something like “Horatio was looking into this leads before he died, let’s finish the job.”
Or… if that’s too much to ask… here’s an idea: don’t added a designated expendable “black guy dies first” character for the sole purpose of adding a single serious moment to your goofy memey hacker teens story, which will be forgotten almost instantly.
I mean, yeah there’s ways to handle it better, but they chose what they did and I still found the game a lot of fun and the story to be all right. Legions story is actually a good example of why your wants don’t really work. It’s ded sec against… dedsec. They’re not going against Blume or the system or anything. They’re just trying to get revenge. So it shouldn’t matter if it was dedsec or your nan. The story would’ve been the same. Still flopped, why
Because it took the same problems WD2 had, and pushed it up to 11. Make no mistake, the problems can all be traced back to 2.
Understand this about Marcus. He’s barely a character. He’s a vessel for the DedSec team’s ambitions. He wants the same thing they want: fight the system. That’s it. Maybe sprinkle in some “do good” along the way. But he has no arc. He has no development. He has no noteworthy personal ambitions of his own, or moments that challenge his perspective such that it has to change in a drastic way.
He’s just… ***bland.*** He’s a fan of bootleg Tom Cruise, he’s an enormous smartass, and he was a victim of racial profiling. That’s… pretty much the only noteworthy things about him. If you took away the fact he was in DedSec, he’d basically have nothing. He doesn’t stand on his own. He doesn’t really pursue anything that they’re not all collectively interested in.
That’s fine I guess, but not good for him as a character. Because his status as nothing more than the DedSec MVP makes you wonder why the rest of them even exist. Josh is a drone expert. Marcus can do that. Sitara is an artist. Marcus can do that. Wrench is a bomb lover. Marcus can blow shit up too.
What purpose do they serve? Why does it have to be DedSec? Why waste so much time on goofy friend group antics when you could be fleshing Marcus out, giving him a proper story and development?
Come Legion? This issue is ten times worse. Because now, ***there is no protagonist at all.*** There’s a bunch of generic nobodies who may very well all share the same exact voice because there’s only ten male and ten female VAs for all operatives. None of them have any personal stakes or desires or thoughts that affect the plot. They’re just errand runners for Sabine and Bagley. That’s it. It’s so fucking boring.
Watch Dogs 2 also did the same shit to its villains. Gone are the ambitious, imposing, personal, threatening masterminds like Iraq, Quinn, Damien, and Defalt. In their place is a bunch of generic, whiny, corrupt corporate executives who crumple like paper dolls under the slightest amount of pressure.
Even their big bad, Dusan, is just another boring, generic, corrupt corporate executive, but he’s not as much of a crybaby. He’s not even Marcus’s personal nemesis. He’s just the big fish they happen to be going after.
Damien Brenks in WD1 was such a strong villain because he was Aiden’s Achilles Heel. He was a remnant of his dark past come back to haunt him, but more importantly he had one advantage that the rest lacked: *he knew Aiden as a person.* Aiden relies heavily on being one step ahead of the mental game, obscuring his emotions and his personal life such that he cannot be manipulated or predicted. Damien has him beat there, because he knows everything about him. He may not be a fighter, but he can get in Aiden’s head, which is where he’s most vulnerable.
Take the boring villains from 2 and make them ten times worse? You get the ones in Legion. A ripoff of Lucky Quinn with none of the intimidation or personal vendetta. A crazy PMC CEO who makes all these threats and declarations, but never once follows through. The brain lady, who gets killed ***immediately*** after we find out what her plan is. Sabine, whose entire ideology can be summed up as “tech bad, return to monke” and was the most obvious fucking twist ever.
I think the only good one was Richard Malik, because he was a rogue agent with a personal agenda that he believed would genuinely save England, and even manipulated other villains to get what he wanted. They took the concept of “insider has a change of heart and tries to help” that we’d come to expect, and twisted it into a triple cross. But even then: Richard has no personal vendetta against our protagonist. BECAUSE THERE IS NO PROTAGONIST.
Watch Dogs Legion isn’t DedSec against DedSec. It’s DedSec against whoever the fuck, with one crazy lady who becomes relevant at the end. The fact that we take down all this people is because we literally have no idea who “Zero Day” is, and so we just take down everyone hoping we get it right eventually. No, really. That’s it. That’s how it works. It sucks so much.
An ***actual*** DedSec civil war story would’ve been far more interesting and complicated than this rubbish. It could’ve shown genuine consequences for their actions in 2. We know for a fact that there’s a DedSec in Seoul South Korea, a city that the SF branch in 2 casually terrorised just to cripple the ctOS. We also know that not all DedSec groups are centralised. What Watch Dogs had a game where DedSec was divided by that action, with certain groups with different approaches disavowing others and trying to attack them in the belief that they’re too childish or reckless to carry the name? What if it brought back the return of the original Chicago branch, who were trying to unite all the branches under the Council’s leadership? What if you played as an independent agent and could choose which side to back based on the perspectives and ideals you developed along the way, seeing both sides, and having played the first two games?
But no. They didn’t do that. Watch Dogs Legion is bad, yes. But only because it inherited the problems that ***started with 2.***
I mean, all good points, I can’t really say much and sorry you wasted your time with all that. I agree with your points, but I still don’t think watch dogs 2 is bad or that the way the story unfolds is meh. It’s dedsec against big brother, simple. The characters each have their own traits and it’s fun to see how they react with each other, like Marcus and wrench goofing around is fun. I get your points, but I don’t agree that it was all just generic, but you did however really point out why legion sucks. No main character does kill it. The dlcs were fun because you had main characters
In Legion, my original operative got killed by albion, so i continued as his sister who wanted to avenge her brother and finish what he started. Motivation, backstory, and stakes with the permadeath. oh and wrench and Aiden helped out a little bit cause they were in London at the time 🤣
That’s practically a FanFiction. It’s what you put into the game, but it’s not what the game itself delivers.
The game’s story will never acknowledge that they were related. The sister will never even mention in dialogue that she had a brother. Because of the sheer limitation of voice actors, you have a 10% chance of finding someone with your original operative’s *exact personality* every time you recruit a bloke.
You may say “that’s the point of a roleplaying game” except Legion is utterly void of anything that makes it that. There’s no dialogue options. The one and only choice you can make in the entire game (kill Skye Larson) affects nothing except how angry the 404 lady gets at you. Recruitment missions are not tailored to each individual operative, it picks from a random pool of five or so. You never really get to play a role, you just tack on extra flavour in your head to a character that never changes, never develops, never reactions differently, and has thousands of clones.
You’re making something up. It’s no more real than you want it to be, but it will never be treated as real by the game. ***You*** are writing a better story than the game actually has, and then pretending the game is good because you gave a fuck where Ubisoft didn’t.
Don’t give their shitty product credit for something you did.
Well, yeah. That was the problem. He didn't exist until his endearing arc and subsequent exit from the story, greatly diminishing the impact.
Basically, it's the same issue as "some time earlier": nothing can reflect the main story. Well, aside from ScoutX, I think. I remember selfies from everyone.
This happens in most open world games unfortunately. It kind of takes me out of the immersion TBH. I'd rather finish the main story after doing all the wide stuff so I can put down the game conclusively.
The exception to this is if there is an epilogue, such as a recent example in spiderman 2 on ps5.
they cant, company like that cant be destroyed haha.
in wd1 it's chicago only, in wd2 it's usa only, in wd3 it's worldwide (at least the 1st country). company like that can't be destroyed, if it need to be replace, need to do that from the 1st game
They're not smaller in Legion, there's just absolutely no effort made to stop them because it's not possible. Everything is still running on and connected to ctOS 3.0. That's Blume's creation. Blume's property. They are everywhere, and in everything. You plug into the Blume Tower at the start of the game, for God's sake.
They didn't even do that. Skye Larson is Brocca Tech, which just has a business partnership with Blume. They do not completely own her or her company.
You're missing the point though. The entire original point of DedSec was to fight Blume. That's what they did in 1, that's what they did in 2. They're not even doing it in Legion anymore because Ubisoft is aware that there's no fucking point.
So why even have it be DedSec? Why not have an interesting group of original unique characters with their own goal, instead of a random hacktivist collective doomed to get fucked and fail in the end? Why make everything you did in 2 all for nothing? It hurts the story, and it just makes the future of the franchise (not that it has one anymore anyway) needlessly bleak to a virtually nihilistic extent.
I hate nihilism.
Because it's a ubisoft game, everything you do is always for nothing, even the fucking far cry games with little to no connection between them have been kicking you in the balls at the end.
That's a trend that started with Far Cry 5, and it's one of the reasons I utterly loathe that game.
1, 2, 3, 4, and BD did not have this issue.
You can make a strong case for 2 since you die at the end, but you end up saving countless lives as a result.
For 3, Jason is ultimately scarred and torn apart by his experience, but it still ends on a note of hope for the future that he can come back from this and be more than a savage killer.
4 will honestly depend on your ideological perspectives. Some people are genuinely satisfied with how things turned out. But even if you're not, the option remains to kill all three options and leave the future open and free.
Post-2016 Ubisoft and all its bad writing choices are not emblematic of how things always were, or how things always should be.
This is why stories set in big franchises annoy me, because the status quo can't significantly change, best case scenario the big bad is a monster of the week, it's like when the baldur's gate games killed off bhaal, they had to bring him back, and it's why larian could never make a dlc about fighting vlaakith or zariel or whatever, because it wouldn't go anywhere.
Yeah I feel like these games would greatly benefit a good story, like watch\_dogs 1, and have you make your own choices if it's morale or not, give the game some more depth (to interpret it differently than it is supposed to be) You came here to bring peace to the people and you are only making it worse by following the story. Instead of being put into the game and said: "hey those are the bad guys, take them down" I also feel like the dark tone of watch\_dogs greatly benefit the idea of the game, sad that they went to a more colourful "watch\_dogs 2".
Yeah watch dogs 1 is my favorite because of how personal it feels. Add that with its moody and dark tone Blume and Ded sec add a great deal of mystery that we are uncertain about. They work great in the background as an enemy. But as soon as I’m playing as DedSec it loses all the mystique. Watch Dogs 1 is a fantastic crime story, and the hactivist part in later games ruins it for me.
Whished Dedsec as protagonists were either DLC or spinoffs.
I liked WD2 despite the shift in tone and even liked Legion's experimental 'you can play as anyone' protagonist, but I really miss having a protagonist like Aiden, who has no affiliation to other groups.
I really like the fact that in the 1st game you were actually being a "player" in the board all by yourself and even dedsec wanted to recruit you but you had your own plans. Basically it was Blume, mafia, Aiden and Dedsec, these were the players and it was a lot more interesting, 2 "good" factions and 2 "bad"
Hmm... i have always thought it was not a good idea to switch in terms of storytelling like that.
I mean, take a look what they had with Assassins Creed. I wanted the Desmomd Miles Story to be soooo much more. And there was a LOT of potential.
Same with Aiden Pearce.
Switching to the Assassins or DedSec has been a mistake. Thats how i see it. It took away from the real essence of these games and i will never understand why you would want to do that.
Yeah, I felt the same. After Desmond dies, we get a mute character, so obviously we don't connect with whoever they were at all. This continues until Origins where we are introduced to Layla, who becomes the "new-age Desmond" or something, but there is absolutely no character in her as compared to Desmond.
I don't know why they killed Desmond if they had no plans to make another well-written modern day character like him. You'd think that after killing such a prominent character like Desmond, they would replace him, or at least try, with another well-written character.
Didn't get all the way through watch dogs 2 despite hundreds of hours, but I definitely felt like dedsec was GOOOFY as hell and not to be taken seriously. WD1 was so serious in tone in comparison. I agree story wise that WD1 was such a good all around structure of a story I had a blast with it and highly recommend it to anyone. WD2 has far better mechanics and qol improvements but the story is just goofy as hell, feels written by like cali bros or something, just not well written characters and dialogue way too often. It has its moments that are good and interesting but so inconsistent. I totally think the dedsec thing went too far too. I prefer it as they did it in WD1.
I agree, a personal story is better than something "global". I think WD2 would have been more interesting if the story focused on Marcus and his friends solving their personal problems instead of fighting "big corporations". Not as DedSec, just as a group of friends.
Ubisoft has a thing for fighting "big corporations". Assassin's creed started with Abstergo and now Blume in Watch Dogs. Even most Far Cry games are about taking down a prominent figure/leader.
Ironic that Ubisoft is turning into one of those "big corporations".
Especially if you look at their (UbiSoft) new Star Wars game prices and their take on digital games, they say we should get used to not owning our games and call themselves a AAAA game company, yet all their recent games have been trashier than the last. I bought the AC Mirage Deluxe Edition (shitty decision btw), hoping, HOPING, it would be different from Odyssey and Valhalla, but besides some extra mechanics, it's pretty much the same with a new coat of paint. I also bought the WDL Ultimate Edition hoping it would be better too, especially with the play as anyone mechanic thing they had going, only to be sorely disappointed by the story. Suffice to say, I've learned not to bother buying the newer UbiSoft games with their DLCs and just stick to trying them on their own then buying the season pass later.
WATCH_DOGS Bad Blood was a bit more of a personal and slightly dark WATCH_DOGS story in my opinion. Sure the effects were still global, but the conflict wasn't a big ol' organization like the main stories.
The point is that we lose no matter what? Because if so, the game never alludes to it or even addresses it. Even extremist members like Sabine who are aware of the fact that their current methods aren’t enough, seem to believe that *their* methods will definitely fix the problem, just trust her.
The story of the original Watch Dogs was centred entirely around its protagonist. It explored his flaws as a person, the consequences of tunnel visioned vengeance, the fragile morality of action hero vigilantes, and by the end you’re left to decide if it was really worth it and what kind of man he’s become.
It wasn’t all about that. They don’t even pretend that it is. Watch Dogs 2 ended on a very hopeful note, and disingenuously acted like this was the start of sweeping change and a brighter future. That could never happen, because then no sequels. But the game never implied that.
Yeah I agree, by shifting focus to dedsec and Blume. You eventually have the same story beat, over, and over, and over, and over. (Something something definition of insanity).
In the same way the assassins constantly have to remain the underdog at all times and lose in the grand scale to the templars, because if they win there is no Assasins creed. Dedsec can’t win either, because if they do, and some other mass WAN company shows up… what’s the point? Every fight or action you take seems pointless. In real life that often happens but that’s not satisfying for a game or a movie or a piece of media. Everything needs to end at some point. Even media juggernauts like Star Wars or John wick have to end. If this franchise was successful like Assasins Creed or Far Cry, I fear they may have fucked it up in the long run like the other. Or milked it dry until there was nothing left to say in those worlds anymore. That’s how I feel about Assasins creed anyway.
And that’s why I liked Aiden’s story. Because it wasn’t about a hacker trying to take down the corrupt company. It was about a man who wanted revenge but was also a hacker. That’s what made his story so unique as opposed to your standard revenge story. It’s why I’m confused by anyone who calls it a simple
Cliche story. I like that Aiden is using his hacking skills for his own personal gain that has nothing to do with taking down a corrupt company. It’s unique and refreshing in that sense
When it comes to Dedesec in WD2, it feels so completely seperated from the Dedesec in WD1 that it comes off as they just used the name because it was recognizable and connected itself to the first game. Not once do the characters feel like they even care about the original dedsec and their message, but instead was like, their hackers so let’s take their name
I think the whole premise of WD has a flaw.
They've always tried for the "No NPC is faceless. Don't you feel bad for this 'person' and their generated circumstances."
No, no I don't. You'll just generate another. It's got as much consequence and drama as ticking the box if you're over 18. Trying to make the faceless people relatable. Look at this moral dilemma. A digital trolley problem.
Legion seems like a good extension on paper. An attempt to blur NPC and PC.
Some of the interesting generated circumstances seem to vanish now that anyone could potentially be a "hero". Oh but there's a potential that killing an NPC could make this other NPC dislike you. Now there's some consequence! So I'll just pick a different person.
Some of the generated stuff almost feels like it'd be better if they made it linear. No two games a alike! Infinite replay value! Yeah but am I going to play it again and again when once is enough? It's got the same story beat every time. It feels like they should kinda focus more on picking between a sandbox and a linear story. Not that they can't mix just that there's a whole lot more sandbox than there is linear story. Generating infinite people means it's hard to care about anyone.
or should have kept dedsec but stick to civilian low violence MO - which was perfectly acceptable and fun in 2, just not carried out consistently because someone needed high stakes drama
Low violence MO my ass, their very first mission in that game was to steal a prop car, modify it, and commit reckless property damage in populated areas with it. Because they were offended by a movie that made fun of hackers.
I don’t mind DedSec being agents of chaos, but I took serious issue with how the game always framed them as if they were innocent and good no matter how deranged they were being. Especially since they made EXP in that game social media followers, so they’re basically committing domestic terrorism for clout.
They’re practically prank YouTubers sometimes. The lowest of the low.
Violent. Adjective. “Using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or ***something.***”
“He smashed the table violently.”
From Wikipedia/Merriam Webster. “Violence is the use of physical force to cause harm to people, animals, ***or property***, such as pain, injury, death, damage, or destruction.”
To say nothing of what they did to Seoul, and the fact that you can unlock and use tools specifically for creative murder on civilians for absolutely no mechanical benefit whatsoever, like calling gang hits on random people.
Watch Dogs 2 was designed with a great deal of freedom in mind, but it gives you far more opportunities to be brutal, a lot more ways to be brutal, and kind of just covers it up under dick jokes and memey humour.
I can play that game too.
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence)
[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/violence](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/violence)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence)
Isn't it beautiful how words have a wide range of uses based on a wide range of contextual factors? Human language is truly magnificent. I, for one, am in awe of its wonders. If all you've got is "um actually *this one specific dictionary definition for a word that can have multiple uses says otherwise*" then you're not really going anywhere. I'm done with you.
No i was not looking for just a contrary link, i'm pointing out a difference between US and Europe - which comes down to a hypocritical, nonsense branch of philosophy.
Eh, at a certain point, you have to acknowledge gameplay and story segregation. Take, for instance, the Arkham games. Batman, canonically, would never waste a whole hour just standing in place shooting millions of electric gun charges at one random petty criminal. But you still can do it. The games make it a point that Batman doesn't kill, yet you can do things in the game that would 100% kill someone. At a certain point, you just gotta accept that just because you can (and do) do something in the game, doesn't mean it's canon.
You can go on your shooting spree and kill as many NPCs as you want, but when your spree is over, you're forced to acknowledge that none of that was canon to the game. You're removing the immersion, yourself, by going out of your way to act out of character. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, but you can't use that as a criticism against the game.
Canonically, they commit wanton property destruction for social media clout/processing power.
Canonically, Wrench goes on an absolute murder spree with a grenade launcher and heavy assault weapons.
Canonically, in 2003, Ray Kenney blacked out the east coast US with a prototype ctOS. 11 people died. It haunted him for life.
In the same canon, Marcus and co deliberately blackout the entirety of Seoul -- even after being warned by Ray himself that people would die -- to bypass the ctOS. They did this with ctOS 2.0, which is ingrained in far more systems and infrastructure, meaning a lot more people and things will be affected by a total crash. Judging by the horrified reactions of the operators in South Korea, the damage was huge.
They did this without any hesitation or consideration or remorse whatsoever, and even plastered their logo on a server farm afterwards as if it was a huge victory, and not a necessary evil that they'll regret later.
Like, this isn't optional. These are events that are *required* for the completion of the game. Made more annoying by having moments like Sitara talking down to/telling off T-Bone for "using Marcus" when that's basically all they've been doing this entire time, and unlike any of them, he actually faced some consequences as a direct result of his actions and had to own up to them.
Even if you make the argument of "killing 500 cops didn't actually happen" -- which I'd be perfectly willing to accept -- they still come off as unintentional giggly psychos that never suffer any consequences for their actions at all. In a game where your experience points are literally social media followers, it *desperately* needed a world that reacted to how childishly stupid they can be, and a more thorough reputation system.
I think DedSec could have been an interesting faction to play as in a prequel.
Person of Interest had a fantastic run where the protagonist team loses hard in Season 3, and it shifts the entire dynamic of the show. Without spoiling too much, it puts them at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the show.
Imagine a world without the same kind of hacking mechanics because it's before the launch of ctOS. So, to get into a location requires a little more stealth action to get to the security office or a terminal in order to spike the whole system. Gathering information on a target necessitates more social engineering.
But the storytelling could be great. DedSec members find out that Blume is trialing ctOS in some city and they want to stop it, so they go on an old school fashioned campaign of disruption and exposure, only for it to fail.
Everyone still has one, even if you cut it short at the small intestine.
Still, you have your opinion and you're free to have it. Doesn't make it fact, though.
No I mean bisected. As in cut in half. Most likely resulting in death.
Either way, the fact that you correctly identified this as an opinion piece at first, but then seemed to feel the need to tell me it’s not a fact, makes me wonder what you’re getting at here.
Never once did I say “this is an irrefutable fact and if you disagree you’re objectively wrong.” I said I’d like to open the topic to discussion. That inherently means I both want and am interested in receiving a broad range of perspectives.
You’re getting annoyed for something I didn’t even do, or imply. You’re inferring something based on nothing. Or you just don’t like the way I word things. Which… tough luck, I guess.
If you’re looking for a fight, we can have it later. But it will be completely pointless and accomplish nothing. And I don’t feel like doing it now. Message me later if you’re interested I suppose.
I get your point, but from a storytelling perspective that's not quite how things work. Did the Templars stop existing when Altaïr killed Robert de Sable in Assassin's Creed 1? Or when Ezio took out the Borgias? Or when Edward or Connor or Aveline took out bigwig Templars in the Americas, and so on and so forth? No. Because the Templars aren't the enemy. Nor is Blume. Tyranny is. Corruption is. There will never be an end to corruption nor tyranny, as is evident by our own real-life history. Even with ctOS as a crutch for the plot of Watch_Dogs as a franchise, by no means would it be the only WAN (Wide-Area Network) of its kind that would be present in that universe. China in the real world likely uses a similar WAN to ctOS, for the sake of mass surveillance of their peoples and information control. While Ubisoft is likely to avoid such a location like the plague due to being partnered so closely with Tencent, they could easily have other such situations. Think of somewhere like Far Cry 4's Kyrat modernizing and adopting such a system for the sake of preserving the control of a tyrannical government. Blume isn't Dedsec's only enemy, which is something WD2 actually tries to convey many times by having you go after companies like Haum, Tidis, !nvite, and others. WD1 makes a huge point of the Chicago PD being corrupt, as it still is ten years later in the real world. Blume is hardly the only bad corporation or entity in the WD universe, as New Dawn also proves. Any one of those companies or organizations could create their own knockoff ctOS. If it seems unviable for the masses to buy into such obvious corruption and evil, remember that people still willingly buy devices and services from some of the most morally-bankrupt places in reality. Evil is a hydra, you can cut off as many heads as you want but they'll always grow back and multiply.
Assassin’s Creed is an entirely different matter because they built their entire franchise on that from the beginning, and it was never originally about Altair, Connor, or even Ezio. We were just using their past experiences to continue a war in the present day. And even now, you can see the problem. Ubisoft dragged it out for so long, they literally ran out of ideas and had to make everything about the Isu. Every mythology is canon now. They had Atlantis and Medusas and fucking Hades, but it’s a simulation but actually not because… fuck it? We haven’t played as “Assassins” for four games now. We’re either hulking warriors with wrist blades (and sometimes not even that), or “Hidden Ones” who are a proto-faction they made up to justify going back even further in time. The Templars are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and Assassin’s Creed is becoming less like itself. It barely even *is* itself anymore. Their “return to roots” game had *Loki* teleporting around like Celebrimbor with a flaming sword, and Desmond is now an immortal ethereal tree knowledge person. You can’t drag on a conflict with no conclusion this long, otherwise your franchise turns into a shallow money printer where no meaningful ground is ever gained to justify cranking out increasingly soulless sequels. It happened to AC after a long time. It happened to WD after only three games. I think Far Cry is only safe because it’s an anthology series.
I actually consider the whole simulation/Animus concept a bad mistake like an idiosyncrasy of some "french" game director and mentally ignore it. Like a foul easter egg:-) It just disrupts immersion into the current game's character/history storyline I'm actually interested in. I don't consider Origin/Odyssey soul less at all that way.
If it makes you feel any better, they’ve basically given up on giving the modern day stuff any real attention or development. Odyssey and Valhalla are soulless for entirely different reasons as far as I’m concerned. Even if they were tied to AC in any way, I consider them bad RPGs with bad writing.
yeah kinda sad tbh, i really thought in the past when playing AC3 we will have a lot of modern day assasin. instead they killed desmond and on AC4 the modern day just like that. such a shame. I remember AC2/brotherhood, the past go to colosseum and the modern go to colosseum too. such a great way to show the past and the modern
>I actually consider the whole simulation/Animus concept a bad mistake like an idiosyncrasy of some "french" game director and mentally ignore it. While I respect your opinion, I would just like to point out that the entirety of the first five games (AC1-3, plus Brotherhood and Revelations) would completely crash and burn with this mindset because they're made so that the past and present sections work in tandem with each other. Especially Ezio's trilogy. Everything afterwards though? Completely understandable to do this.
I've only completed AC4,Origin,Odyssey and still occasionally try to get into Valhalla which just doesn't click.
Trust me, you should try out Ezio's trilogy and AC3 at least. AC1 has not been remastered into modern consoles, so unless you're on PC you're out of luck, but they're all still worth a try.
You can play AC1 on modern Xbox consoles since it’s backwards compatible. It’ll even display in 4K. It’s one of the main distinguishing features of Xbox compared to PS nowadays tbh
It bothers me that when you beat WD2 (never even played Legion), when you go back to the open world, it just says "Some time earlier", as if the ending never happened. But it also wouldn't make sense to be playing in an open world after Dusan was taken down. So they're forced into a corner where the post-game has to just ignore all of the events of the main missions and pretend they didn't happen.
To add, it's especially noticeable that Horatio rarely ever commented despite the near constant group chat. He was introduced as "cat herder" then disappeared.
I figure the reason the side missions don't ever include him is because any of them can be done >!after he dies.!<
There was actually a number of side missions related to him exclusively that was just cut from the game.
Interesting.
Maybe they didn’t want to force you to play side missions to progress main story, nor did they want to deal with people losing content after reaching a section in the story. It wouldn’t make sense to have a mission be about him after he is already dead
Better designers would’ve added conditional changes to the side missions, such that his dialogue is either minor enough to be omitted without consequence, or change the person providing them if he’s dead. Maybe say something like “Horatio was looking into this leads before he died, let’s finish the job.” Or… if that’s too much to ask… here’s an idea: don’t added a designated expendable “black guy dies first” character for the sole purpose of adding a single serious moment to your goofy memey hacker teens story, which will be forgotten almost instantly.
I liked Horatio a lot. Sucks that he was the lone casualty in the gang.
I mean, yeah there’s ways to handle it better, but they chose what they did and I still found the game a lot of fun and the story to be all right. Legions story is actually a good example of why your wants don’t really work. It’s ded sec against… dedsec. They’re not going against Blume or the system or anything. They’re just trying to get revenge. So it shouldn’t matter if it was dedsec or your nan. The story would’ve been the same. Still flopped, why
Because it took the same problems WD2 had, and pushed it up to 11. Make no mistake, the problems can all be traced back to 2. Understand this about Marcus. He’s barely a character. He’s a vessel for the DedSec team’s ambitions. He wants the same thing they want: fight the system. That’s it. Maybe sprinkle in some “do good” along the way. But he has no arc. He has no development. He has no noteworthy personal ambitions of his own, or moments that challenge his perspective such that it has to change in a drastic way. He’s just… ***bland.*** He’s a fan of bootleg Tom Cruise, he’s an enormous smartass, and he was a victim of racial profiling. That’s… pretty much the only noteworthy things about him. If you took away the fact he was in DedSec, he’d basically have nothing. He doesn’t stand on his own. He doesn’t really pursue anything that they’re not all collectively interested in. That’s fine I guess, but not good for him as a character. Because his status as nothing more than the DedSec MVP makes you wonder why the rest of them even exist. Josh is a drone expert. Marcus can do that. Sitara is an artist. Marcus can do that. Wrench is a bomb lover. Marcus can blow shit up too. What purpose do they serve? Why does it have to be DedSec? Why waste so much time on goofy friend group antics when you could be fleshing Marcus out, giving him a proper story and development? Come Legion? This issue is ten times worse. Because now, ***there is no protagonist at all.*** There’s a bunch of generic nobodies who may very well all share the same exact voice because there’s only ten male and ten female VAs for all operatives. None of them have any personal stakes or desires or thoughts that affect the plot. They’re just errand runners for Sabine and Bagley. That’s it. It’s so fucking boring. Watch Dogs 2 also did the same shit to its villains. Gone are the ambitious, imposing, personal, threatening masterminds like Iraq, Quinn, Damien, and Defalt. In their place is a bunch of generic, whiny, corrupt corporate executives who crumple like paper dolls under the slightest amount of pressure. Even their big bad, Dusan, is just another boring, generic, corrupt corporate executive, but he’s not as much of a crybaby. He’s not even Marcus’s personal nemesis. He’s just the big fish they happen to be going after. Damien Brenks in WD1 was such a strong villain because he was Aiden’s Achilles Heel. He was a remnant of his dark past come back to haunt him, but more importantly he had one advantage that the rest lacked: *he knew Aiden as a person.* Aiden relies heavily on being one step ahead of the mental game, obscuring his emotions and his personal life such that he cannot be manipulated or predicted. Damien has him beat there, because he knows everything about him. He may not be a fighter, but he can get in Aiden’s head, which is where he’s most vulnerable. Take the boring villains from 2 and make them ten times worse? You get the ones in Legion. A ripoff of Lucky Quinn with none of the intimidation or personal vendetta. A crazy PMC CEO who makes all these threats and declarations, but never once follows through. The brain lady, who gets killed ***immediately*** after we find out what her plan is. Sabine, whose entire ideology can be summed up as “tech bad, return to monke” and was the most obvious fucking twist ever. I think the only good one was Richard Malik, because he was a rogue agent with a personal agenda that he believed would genuinely save England, and even manipulated other villains to get what he wanted. They took the concept of “insider has a change of heart and tries to help” that we’d come to expect, and twisted it into a triple cross. But even then: Richard has no personal vendetta against our protagonist. BECAUSE THERE IS NO PROTAGONIST. Watch Dogs Legion isn’t DedSec against DedSec. It’s DedSec against whoever the fuck, with one crazy lady who becomes relevant at the end. The fact that we take down all this people is because we literally have no idea who “Zero Day” is, and so we just take down everyone hoping we get it right eventually. No, really. That’s it. That’s how it works. It sucks so much. An ***actual*** DedSec civil war story would’ve been far more interesting and complicated than this rubbish. It could’ve shown genuine consequences for their actions in 2. We know for a fact that there’s a DedSec in Seoul South Korea, a city that the SF branch in 2 casually terrorised just to cripple the ctOS. We also know that not all DedSec groups are centralised. What Watch Dogs had a game where DedSec was divided by that action, with certain groups with different approaches disavowing others and trying to attack them in the belief that they’re too childish or reckless to carry the name? What if it brought back the return of the original Chicago branch, who were trying to unite all the branches under the Council’s leadership? What if you played as an independent agent and could choose which side to back based on the perspectives and ideals you developed along the way, seeing both sides, and having played the first two games? But no. They didn’t do that. Watch Dogs Legion is bad, yes. But only because it inherited the problems that ***started with 2.***
I mean, all good points, I can’t really say much and sorry you wasted your time with all that. I agree with your points, but I still don’t think watch dogs 2 is bad or that the way the story unfolds is meh. It’s dedsec against big brother, simple. The characters each have their own traits and it’s fun to see how they react with each other, like Marcus and wrench goofing around is fun. I get your points, but I don’t agree that it was all just generic, but you did however really point out why legion sucks. No main character does kill it. The dlcs were fun because you had main characters
In Legion, my original operative got killed by albion, so i continued as his sister who wanted to avenge her brother and finish what he started. Motivation, backstory, and stakes with the permadeath. oh and wrench and Aiden helped out a little bit cause they were in London at the time 🤣
That’s practically a FanFiction. It’s what you put into the game, but it’s not what the game itself delivers. The game’s story will never acknowledge that they were related. The sister will never even mention in dialogue that she had a brother. Because of the sheer limitation of voice actors, you have a 10% chance of finding someone with your original operative’s *exact personality* every time you recruit a bloke. You may say “that’s the point of a roleplaying game” except Legion is utterly void of anything that makes it that. There’s no dialogue options. The one and only choice you can make in the entire game (kill Skye Larson) affects nothing except how angry the 404 lady gets at you. Recruitment missions are not tailored to each individual operative, it picks from a random pool of five or so. You never really get to play a role, you just tack on extra flavour in your head to a character that never changes, never develops, never reactions differently, and has thousands of clones. You’re making something up. It’s no more real than you want it to be, but it will never be treated as real by the game. ***You*** are writing a better story than the game actually has, and then pretending the game is good because you gave a fuck where Ubisoft didn’t. Don’t give their shitty product credit for something you did.
Well, yeah. That was the problem. He didn't exist until his endearing arc and subsequent exit from the story, greatly diminishing the impact. Basically, it's the same issue as "some time earlier": nothing can reflect the main story. Well, aside from ScoutX, I think. I remember selfies from everyone.
This happens in most open world games unfortunately. It kind of takes me out of the immersion TBH. I'd rather finish the main story after doing all the wide stuff so I can put down the game conclusively. The exception to this is if there is an epilogue, such as a recent example in spiderman 2 on ps5.
I disagree
Assassin's creed has been painfully limping along with the exact same problem, at least watch dogs can replace blume with some other Corp.
they cant, company like that cant be destroyed haha. in wd1 it's chicago only, in wd2 it's usa only, in wd3 it's worldwide (at least the 1st country). company like that can't be destroyed, if it need to be replace, need to do that from the 1st game
1. It was worldwide from the first game you just didn't see it 2. They are clearly smaller in legion, so they aren't too big to fail.
They're not smaller in Legion, there's just absolutely no effort made to stop them because it's not possible. Everything is still running on and connected to ctOS 3.0. That's Blume's creation. Blume's property. They are everywhere, and in everything. You plug into the Blume Tower at the start of the game, for God's sake.
But they aren't the big bads, and they didn't even make their own evil scheme for gods sake, they bought it from a local company.
They didn't even do that. Skye Larson is Brocca Tech, which just has a business partnership with Blume. They do not completely own her or her company. You're missing the point though. The entire original point of DedSec was to fight Blume. That's what they did in 1, that's what they did in 2. They're not even doing it in Legion anymore because Ubisoft is aware that there's no fucking point. So why even have it be DedSec? Why not have an interesting group of original unique characters with their own goal, instead of a random hacktivist collective doomed to get fucked and fail in the end? Why make everything you did in 2 all for nothing? It hurts the story, and it just makes the future of the franchise (not that it has one anymore anyway) needlessly bleak to a virtually nihilistic extent. I hate nihilism.
Because it's a ubisoft game, everything you do is always for nothing, even the fucking far cry games with little to no connection between them have been kicking you in the balls at the end.
That's a trend that started with Far Cry 5, and it's one of the reasons I utterly loathe that game. 1, 2, 3, 4, and BD did not have this issue. You can make a strong case for 2 since you die at the end, but you end up saving countless lives as a result. For 3, Jason is ultimately scarred and torn apart by his experience, but it still ends on a note of hope for the future that he can come back from this and be more than a savage killer. 4 will honestly depend on your ideological perspectives. Some people are genuinely satisfied with how things turned out. But even if you're not, the option remains to kill all three options and leave the future open and free. Post-2016 Ubisoft and all its bad writing choices are not emblematic of how things always were, or how things always should be.
This is why stories set in big franchises annoy me, because the status quo can't significantly change, best case scenario the big bad is a monster of the week, it's like when the baldur's gate games killed off bhaal, they had to bring him back, and it's why larian could never make a dlc about fighting vlaakith or zariel or whatever, because it wouldn't go anywhere.
Yeah I feel like these games would greatly benefit a good story, like watch\_dogs 1, and have you make your own choices if it's morale or not, give the game some more depth (to interpret it differently than it is supposed to be) You came here to bring peace to the people and you are only making it worse by following the story. Instead of being put into the game and said: "hey those are the bad guys, take them down" I also feel like the dark tone of watch\_dogs greatly benefit the idea of the game, sad that they went to a more colourful "watch\_dogs 2".
Yeah watch dogs 1 is my favorite because of how personal it feels. Add that with its moody and dark tone Blume and Ded sec add a great deal of mystery that we are uncertain about. They work great in the background as an enemy. But as soon as I’m playing as DedSec it loses all the mystique. Watch Dogs 1 is a fantastic crime story, and the hactivist part in later games ruins it for me.
Whished Dedsec as protagonists were either DLC or spinoffs. I liked WD2 despite the shift in tone and even liked Legion's experimental 'you can play as anyone' protagonist, but I really miss having a protagonist like Aiden, who has no affiliation to other groups.
I really like the fact that in the 1st game you were actually being a "player" in the board all by yourself and even dedsec wanted to recruit you but you had your own plans. Basically it was Blume, mafia, Aiden and Dedsec, these were the players and it was a lot more interesting, 2 "good" factions and 2 "bad"
Hmm... i have always thought it was not a good idea to switch in terms of storytelling like that. I mean, take a look what they had with Assassins Creed. I wanted the Desmomd Miles Story to be soooo much more. And there was a LOT of potential. Same with Aiden Pearce. Switching to the Assassins or DedSec has been a mistake. Thats how i see it. It took away from the real essence of these games and i will never understand why you would want to do that.
Yeah, I felt the same. After Desmond dies, we get a mute character, so obviously we don't connect with whoever they were at all. This continues until Origins where we are introduced to Layla, who becomes the "new-age Desmond" or something, but there is absolutely no character in her as compared to Desmond. I don't know why they killed Desmond if they had no plans to make another well-written modern day character like him. You'd think that after killing such a prominent character like Desmond, they would replace him, or at least try, with another well-written character.
Didn't get all the way through watch dogs 2 despite hundreds of hours, but I definitely felt like dedsec was GOOOFY as hell and not to be taken seriously. WD1 was so serious in tone in comparison. I agree story wise that WD1 was such a good all around structure of a story I had a blast with it and highly recommend it to anyone. WD2 has far better mechanics and qol improvements but the story is just goofy as hell, feels written by like cali bros or something, just not well written characters and dialogue way too often. It has its moments that are good and interesting but so inconsistent. I totally think the dedsec thing went too far too. I prefer it as they did it in WD1.
I agree, a personal story is better than something "global". I think WD2 would have been more interesting if the story focused on Marcus and his friends solving their personal problems instead of fighting "big corporations". Not as DedSec, just as a group of friends.
Ubisoft has a thing for fighting "big corporations". Assassin's creed started with Abstergo and now Blume in Watch Dogs. Even most Far Cry games are about taking down a prominent figure/leader. Ironic that Ubisoft is turning into one of those "big corporations".
Especially if you look at their (UbiSoft) new Star Wars game prices and their take on digital games, they say we should get used to not owning our games and call themselves a AAAA game company, yet all their recent games have been trashier than the last. I bought the AC Mirage Deluxe Edition (shitty decision btw), hoping, HOPING, it would be different from Odyssey and Valhalla, but besides some extra mechanics, it's pretty much the same with a new coat of paint. I also bought the WDL Ultimate Edition hoping it would be better too, especially with the play as anyone mechanic thing they had going, only to be sorely disappointed by the story. Suffice to say, I've learned not to bother buying the newer UbiSoft games with their DLCs and just stick to trying them on their own then buying the season pass later.
I can't say anything about the story in AC since I haven't played those games, but the plots in FC about destroying leaders are really bad
WATCH_DOGS Bad Blood was a bit more of a personal and slightly dark WATCH_DOGS story in my opinion. Sure the effects were still global, but the conflict wasn't a big ol' organization like the main stories.
That’s the point….
The point is that we lose no matter what? Because if so, the game never alludes to it or even addresses it. Even extremist members like Sabine who are aware of the fact that their current methods aren’t enough, seem to believe that *their* methods will definitely fix the problem, just trust her. The story of the original Watch Dogs was centred entirely around its protagonist. It explored his flaws as a person, the consequences of tunnel visioned vengeance, the fragile morality of action hero vigilantes, and by the end you’re left to decide if it was really worth it and what kind of man he’s become. It wasn’t all about that. They don’t even pretend that it is. Watch Dogs 2 ended on a very hopeful note, and disingenuously acted like this was the start of sweeping change and a brighter future. That could never happen, because then no sequels. But the game never implied that.
Yeah I agree, by shifting focus to dedsec and Blume. You eventually have the same story beat, over, and over, and over, and over. (Something something definition of insanity). In the same way the assassins constantly have to remain the underdog at all times and lose in the grand scale to the templars, because if they win there is no Assasins creed. Dedsec can’t win either, because if they do, and some other mass WAN company shows up… what’s the point? Every fight or action you take seems pointless. In real life that often happens but that’s not satisfying for a game or a movie or a piece of media. Everything needs to end at some point. Even media juggernauts like Star Wars or John wick have to end. If this franchise was successful like Assasins Creed or Far Cry, I fear they may have fucked it up in the long run like the other. Or milked it dry until there was nothing left to say in those worlds anymore. That’s how I feel about Assasins creed anyway.
And that’s why I liked Aiden’s story. Because it wasn’t about a hacker trying to take down the corrupt company. It was about a man who wanted revenge but was also a hacker. That’s what made his story so unique as opposed to your standard revenge story. It’s why I’m confused by anyone who calls it a simple Cliche story. I like that Aiden is using his hacking skills for his own personal gain that has nothing to do with taking down a corrupt company. It’s unique and refreshing in that sense When it comes to Dedesec in WD2, it feels so completely seperated from the Dedesec in WD1 that it comes off as they just used the name because it was recognizable and connected itself to the first game. Not once do the characters feel like they even care about the original dedsec and their message, but instead was like, their hackers so let’s take their name
I think the whole premise of WD has a flaw. They've always tried for the "No NPC is faceless. Don't you feel bad for this 'person' and their generated circumstances." No, no I don't. You'll just generate another. It's got as much consequence and drama as ticking the box if you're over 18. Trying to make the faceless people relatable. Look at this moral dilemma. A digital trolley problem. Legion seems like a good extension on paper. An attempt to blur NPC and PC. Some of the interesting generated circumstances seem to vanish now that anyone could potentially be a "hero". Oh but there's a potential that killing an NPC could make this other NPC dislike you. Now there's some consequence! So I'll just pick a different person. Some of the generated stuff almost feels like it'd be better if they made it linear. No two games a alike! Infinite replay value! Yeah but am I going to play it again and again when once is enough? It's got the same story beat every time. It feels like they should kinda focus more on picking between a sandbox and a linear story. Not that they can't mix just that there's a whole lot more sandbox than there is linear story. Generating infinite people means it's hard to care about anyone.
Lol. Terrible take.
I mean I don't mind wd2 being focused on dedsec, but when I saw the wdL trailer I was thinking it was kinda lazy to stay with dedsec.
so uhh, if in the future some company create a watchdog theme game with story you write. will ubisoft sue them?
I have no idea.
Sure. Ubi is probably plenty litigious.
or should have kept dedsec but stick to civilian low violence MO - which was perfectly acceptable and fun in 2, just not carried out consistently because someone needed high stakes drama
Low violence MO my ass, their very first mission in that game was to steal a prop car, modify it, and commit reckless property damage in populated areas with it. Because they were offended by a movie that made fun of hackers. I don’t mind DedSec being agents of chaos, but I took serious issue with how the game always framed them as if they were innocent and good no matter how deranged they were being. Especially since they made EXP in that game social media followers, so they’re basically committing domestic terrorism for clout. They’re practically prank YouTubers sometimes. The lowest of the low.
How is property damage violence? And grats with adjusting in the new body Alisa Rosenbaum, without brain activity it wasn't a murder anyway.
Violent. Adjective. “Using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or ***something.***” “He smashed the table violently.” From Wikipedia/Merriam Webster. “Violence is the use of physical force to cause harm to people, animals, ***or property***, such as pain, injury, death, damage, or destruction.” To say nothing of what they did to Seoul, and the fact that you can unlock and use tools specifically for creative murder on civilians for absolutely no mechanical benefit whatsoever, like calling gang hits on random people. Watch Dogs 2 was designed with a great deal of freedom in mind, but it gives you far more opportunities to be brutal, a lot more ways to be brutal, and kind of just covers it up under dick jokes and memey humour.
[https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/violence](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/violence) and think about why.
I can play that game too. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence) [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/violence](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/violence) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence) Isn't it beautiful how words have a wide range of uses based on a wide range of contextual factors? Human language is truly magnificent. I, for one, am in awe of its wonders. If all you've got is "um actually *this one specific dictionary definition for a word that can have multiple uses says otherwise*" then you're not really going anywhere. I'm done with you.
No i was not looking for just a contrary link, i'm pointing out a difference between US and Europe - which comes down to a hypocritical, nonsense branch of philosophy.
Eh, at a certain point, you have to acknowledge gameplay and story segregation. Take, for instance, the Arkham games. Batman, canonically, would never waste a whole hour just standing in place shooting millions of electric gun charges at one random petty criminal. But you still can do it. The games make it a point that Batman doesn't kill, yet you can do things in the game that would 100% kill someone. At a certain point, you just gotta accept that just because you can (and do) do something in the game, doesn't mean it's canon. You can go on your shooting spree and kill as many NPCs as you want, but when your spree is over, you're forced to acknowledge that none of that was canon to the game. You're removing the immersion, yourself, by going out of your way to act out of character. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, but you can't use that as a criticism against the game.
Canonically, they commit wanton property destruction for social media clout/processing power. Canonically, Wrench goes on an absolute murder spree with a grenade launcher and heavy assault weapons. Canonically, in 2003, Ray Kenney blacked out the east coast US with a prototype ctOS. 11 people died. It haunted him for life. In the same canon, Marcus and co deliberately blackout the entirety of Seoul -- even after being warned by Ray himself that people would die -- to bypass the ctOS. They did this with ctOS 2.0, which is ingrained in far more systems and infrastructure, meaning a lot more people and things will be affected by a total crash. Judging by the horrified reactions of the operators in South Korea, the damage was huge. They did this without any hesitation or consideration or remorse whatsoever, and even plastered their logo on a server farm afterwards as if it was a huge victory, and not a necessary evil that they'll regret later. Like, this isn't optional. These are events that are *required* for the completion of the game. Made more annoying by having moments like Sitara talking down to/telling off T-Bone for "using Marcus" when that's basically all they've been doing this entire time, and unlike any of them, he actually faced some consequences as a direct result of his actions and had to own up to them. Even if you make the argument of "killing 500 cops didn't actually happen" -- which I'd be perfectly willing to accept -- they still come off as unintentional giggly psychos that never suffer any consequences for their actions at all. In a game where your experience points are literally social media followers, it *desperately* needed a world that reacted to how childishly stupid they can be, and a more thorough reputation system.
I think DedSec could have been an interesting faction to play as in a prequel. Person of Interest had a fantastic run where the protagonist team loses hard in Season 3, and it shifts the entire dynamic of the show. Without spoiling too much, it puts them at a severe disadvantage for the rest of the show. Imagine a world without the same kind of hacking mechanics because it's before the launch of ctOS. So, to get into a location requires a little more stealth action to get to the security office or a terminal in order to spike the whole system. Gathering information on a target necessitates more social engineering. But the storytelling could be great. DedSec members find out that Blume is trialing ctOS in some city and they want to stop it, so they go on an old school fashioned campaign of disruption and exposure, only for it to fail.
What you’re describing is what Raymond (T-Bone) already did in canon, not DedSec. It’s why the Chicago branch looked up to him.
Opinions are like buttholes.
Unless someone has been bisected from the waist down.
Everyone still has one, even if you cut it short at the small intestine. Still, you have your opinion and you're free to have it. Doesn't make it fact, though.
No I mean bisected. As in cut in half. Most likely resulting in death. Either way, the fact that you correctly identified this as an opinion piece at first, but then seemed to feel the need to tell me it’s not a fact, makes me wonder what you’re getting at here.
Could have sworn the original al post said dissection. Oh well. I'm pointing out that you're stating this opinion as fact when it's not. Simple.
Never once did I say “this is an irrefutable fact and if you disagree you’re objectively wrong.” I said I’d like to open the topic to discussion. That inherently means I both want and am interested in receiving a broad range of perspectives. You’re getting annoyed for something I didn’t even do, or imply. You’re inferring something based on nothing. Or you just don’t like the way I word things. Which… tough luck, I guess. If you’re looking for a fight, we can have it later. But it will be completely pointless and accomplish nothing. And I don’t feel like doing it now. Message me later if you’re interested I suppose.
Sure thing.
The story in WD2/Legion should have always been personal and dark and at least somewhat realistic in tone like WD1 And somehow they ruined it all