There is only one point of the year that I am excited about, I love E3 because it is when everyone joins in on a collective cynicism. This probably says a lot about me and will be part of the psych analysis by Fraiser Crane, soon enough. However, I hold out hope for one gleaming portion of the Ubisoft repertoire: Watch_Dogs. Possibly the most bi-polar response I’ve had to any two games in my life. The first is something I loathe as much as I do Star Trek Discovery, while the second I love, to keep the sci-fi theme, as much as The Orville.

For the last two years now, I have held out the hope the rumors were true. That the series would soon be trading in the US backdrop for the UK, more specifically London. As a report in 2002 said, “It wouldn’t be unreasonable to guess that Londoners are monitored by 500,000 CCTV cameras,” with another guessing that the average Londoner is caught on camera 300 times, a day. This sounds like the perfect place to host a game that stands in the face of 1984; repeating everything it says with a childish voice.

If this doesn’t sound like the perfect Watch_Dogs game, albeit creepy, then Cyberdog seals it. A clothing retailer that is for people of the current generation who thought The Fifth Element’s costume design wasn’t nearly revealing enough. Not only is it a shop that old men of the 1980s thought 2020 would look like, but it is also the previous home and rehearsal space of the Punk gods, The Clash. This seems like the perfect place for the DedSec headquarters.

Well, from here the assortment of exciting ideas die for me. As we head into E3 this year we’re getting some leaks, and that’s to be expected. Though some are going to be more exciting than others. This one doesn’t sound too great from my established love-hate relationship with the series. It seems we’re back on the bi-polar express heading towards “grump and serious” character-ville.

According to an anonymous leaker via Reddit, the new Watch_Dogs 3 will be set in London, will feature a woman called Sarah, and is part of a counter-terror unit. Yes, the gloomy and otherwise serious side of Watch_Dogs is back with a vengeance. If this leak is to be believed, then there is a lot of changes coming to the fun of sitting outside of a movie studio and dropping bombs from your drone. Watch_Dogs 2 was the Ubisoft game of Ubisoft games, and it seems this time we’re going deeper into that rabbit hole.

There are high points I am looking forward to if this leak is true, such as using a skateboard to get around, graffiti, no lethal allowed, a near future cyberpunk London, and some mobs and riots forming sounds great. Something about that sounds fun, light, and enjoyable. Then there is the story portion that has been leaked: Dead brother due to an overdose, which I don’t trust to sit alongside the fun and colorful side of the last game. A dead family member sounds like we’re heading back towards Aiden “I’ll kill everyone!” Pearce.

As I’ve been saying, I hope I will like this installment, though I’m cautious of what Ubisoft will do. If the leak is to be believed, we may also see a piece of it teased this week or next ahead of E3. The leak also states, much like 2016’s reveal of Watch_Dogs 2, that we’ll see a full gameplay trailer at E3, and the release would be scheduled for November this year.

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