How a major attitude adjustment saved Ubisoft’s hacker series from meltdown

By Jen Simpkins

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Montreal) Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2016

Any job worth doing in Watch Dogs 2 is worth doing to music. And so, the best mechanic in Ubisoft’s hackeraction sequel is Marcus Holloway’s earbuds. Equippable at any time, they pump an eclectic stream of on-demand tunes – from Dizzee Rascal to Anti-Flag, KC & The Sunshine Band to Run The Jewels and more besides – into your ears. You can freely soundtrack any mission (attempting grand larceny while blaring Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is one moment we won’t forget in a hurry) or simply wander the streets of San Francisco to your favourite songs.

One particular track so perfectly captures the philosophy of Watch Dogs 2, it almost feels as if the game was formed around it. We blast Get Stupid as we have Holloway ride on top of a car like it’s a skateboard, driving it remotely via his phone. “Get stupid, it’s what we do good,” Mac Dre raps. “Ghost ride the whip while we dancin’ on the hood.” Virtual Californians look on in bewilderment, and we laugh uproariously. Even Dre seems to admire our efforts, crooning his approval: “Boy, we go dumb, dude”. Credit to Ubisoft, then, for a tonal U-turn of such epic proportions that it singlehandedly saved a series. Watch Dogs got stupid. And it worked.

After the 2014 release of Watch Dogs, something had to be done. It suffered as a result of a now-infamous E3 2012 reveal that, on the cusp of a new generation of consoles, made promises beyond the actual graphical capabilities. The ‘downgrade’, as it was dubbed, was apparent to anyone playing the final game. But on top of that, Watch Dogs didn’t endear itself to players. Its Chicago setting was designed to be cramped and dark, a representation of a city riddled with surveillance cameras and made paranoid under the all-seeing eye of Big Tech. And its lead, Aiden Pearce, had all the charisma of wet cardboard.