E3 has come and gone, and I could not be more pleased. As I’m sure is true for most writing for the showcases this year, we’re all bent, broken, and hobbling on our last shred of hope for that one game we had hoped for this year. I had hoped for a Test Drive Unlimited 3 reveal, however, an eco-terrorist werewolf in Werewolf: The Apocalypse EarthBlood will do, for now.

I did, however, get a sequel in the Watch_Dogs franchise. This is something I have been banging on about with an alarming frequency, as you may have noticed in the E3 rundown article, Watch_Dogs 3 leak, Watch Dogs: Legion confirmation, Watch_Dogs 2 Review, Run The Jewels, The Crew 2, Nite Team 4, and other articles clearly referencing my excitement. Clearly, I had an issue with the anticipation for this E3; So much so that I was on the brink of setting up signs outside the conference demanding: “Watch_Dogs 3 or we riot!” However, as I’ve already said, there was an announcement prior to the show itself.

Watch_Dogs as a series is a strange one. The first was pulling everyone onto the hype train to Chicago, and of course, people were disappointed when they got to Chicago. The story was a collection of depressing and disconnected links, trying to justify a man so dull he may as well have had “Kiss me, my entire personality is as interesting as beige” written on his head.

Nonetheless, the gameplay was the proving ground for what Robin Williams called, “The World is Open for Play.” This is a world that you could not only inhabit, but one you could bend and break to your own will. The concept was set: it was time to set up a new world, one to build upon the laid groundwork.

The second game, Watch_Dogs 2, is arguably one of the best open-world games ever made. It specifically built on “The World is Open for Play” theorem. It then told a story we can all understand, following the main idea that “Big brother is watching you!” in an invasive way. In the shadow of Silicon Valley, Ubisoft had to use a location at the epicenter of social media tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Truly there was no way to avoid the story of their threat to our lives, and our privacy. Then of course it covered other things during the somewhat creepy side missions. During one of these missions, you stalk Sitara’s niece, who is presently streaming her self online. This also extends to the missions involving hacking into Nudle (Google), Tidis (military contractor), Galilei (SpaceX), and New Dawn (Scientology).

Between the two, of those that I know stuck around with the series enjoy the latter more for its much lighter tone. The story of “The digital age” also seemed to help as it doesn’t feature a story about another revenge. The brighter tone, not only in color gambit is also helped by the, quite frankly, gay and vibrant San Francisco and Bay area backdrop. Then you have the missions with the movie studio, taking on dated stereotypes of hackers: In that of the 1990s B-movie Starring Angelina Jolie, Hackers.

However, the question is, what does Watch Dogs: Legion have in store for us come March 6th, 2020? To give a short answer, a lot. Since the reveal at the UbiE3 conference last Monday, I’ve poured over every detail revealed. Everything said by the press, gameplay footage, information possibly leaked by demo instructors, and lots more. With that, the first thing we should know is the protagonist is a group of “Nearly nine million people.”

This is the standout line within the Watch Dogs: Legion 101 trailer by Ubisoft. You can play as anyone you see on the street and you can kill anyone on the street. Permadeath is the biggest aspect of this new protagonist system, which will allow for you to grab anyone you see. This includes the capability to recruit people that are otherwise antagonistic, bringing them over to your side.

Something revealed in the 45-minute demo for the press was every character having a life of their own. You could kill someone in a mission, or track them and speak with them during their daily chores after the fact. Some of these jobs will include expunging their record on the met’s servers, or you could just play some darts.

This also seems to mean you will be able to play Grand Theft Auto-style mini-games during the open world, though this may only open up for select missions. Once you have completed these tasks you will be able to properly recruit them onto Dedsec. Yes, the leak we reported on a few weeks ago wasn’t entirely true, you will be playing as Dedsec, not an authority figure. However, you are still fighting the authority, this time a private para-militarized government that has seized control in a post-Brexit London.

Watch Dogs: Legion‘s creative director, Clint Hocking, stood on stage at E3 trying very hard to tie this dystopian nightmare city of London to a post-Brexit Britain. He understandably played off of the issues of the day, to let people immerse themselves into the world of fantasy inspired by a bit of non-fiction. With that, Albion, the supposed new governmental body in a Watch_Dogs based London is slated to be the ultimate villain of the game. It is the Dušan Nemec to our Scooby gang of ragtag misfits and grannies that need a sit down once in a while.

Given we don’t know much about the main villain, as of yet, we would have to then move on to the secondary villain. Currently, that is Clan Kelly, which one assumes is an Irish crime syndicate. It is clear that growing marijuana and participating in human trafficking would be the cannon fodder. Once again, it is easy to assume that the story is set to take down and remove Albion, much like eliminating Ultor in Saints Row 2. I would suspect, once the story is over you will be left with Clan Kelly to pick up the antagonistic pieces. However, we don’t know much about either of the villains.

We do, however, know (or assume to know) the leader of Albion is a woman. In a piece of a public gameplay demo, we were shown a mission where a Dedsec member is set up for terrorism and is almost immediately killed by the surrounding armed Albion forces. Not only does this mean we’re facing an antagonist with a villain’s handbook on how to be evil, but it also means we may not have very much contact or interaction with the villain at all, which is very similar to Watch_Dogs 2.

While I am on the topic of this gameplay demo, I should also speak about the possible slip of information given. According to Legion‘s art director, Joshua Cook, “We’re starting mid-way through the game today. So you’re already a part of Dedsec, you already have a small team assembled, but we’re looking for a new recruit.”

The interesting section here is, “already a part of Dedsec,” which implies you don’t start as a Dedsec member from the get-go. This may mean that at the beginning you get a character creation suite to create yourself, or you may be given a random character to wander the streets with for a moment until a Dedsec member runs into you.

Nonetheless, you will be able to tweak characters to your own will either way. In many testimonials by the press and the development team respectively, they have both confirmed this is the first time in a Watch_Dogs game you will see a class system, not the British class system but one in-game affecting how characters play.

You will have an infiltrator who is stealth focused, disguising bodies. You could be a hacker, a more balanced class that holds onto the spider-bot you may have seen in the E3 trailer. Then you have the enforcer, a brute and bullet sponge; which is seemingly meant to be melee-focused or there to take the hits.

Once you have recruited a new member into Dedsec, through doing them some favors, you will be able to pick the character’s class. This means you could have a venerable lady of age who is an enforcer, or if you so choose she can have a pet spider-bot. However, not only can you decide what someone’s abilities are via this system, but there is also a perk system for each character. This means you will be able to refine each character even more with perks. This will increase damage dealt or possibly give hacking opportunities that previously weren’t possible.

However, it seems each character will also have innate abilities to them specifically. As stated in a video by Ubisoft themselves, if your characters keep getting arrested, you may want to track down a lawyer aiding in getting your Dedsec members out of prison. You may have seen in the E3 trailer that you can keep fighting if a character is badly injured, if you surrender, however, they will be put in jail. This means if you are a big fan of Ethel with her spider-bot, but she’s on the brink of death, you can surrender and get her back after a period of time. conversely, you could let her die and find someone new for your team.

That being said, you could also have characters with specific stats. To go back to the E3 trailer, you may have seen some characters will punch a little harder, die randomly, or (like Jimmy Shaw)  have increased drone health. Supposedly these traits are not random numbers thrown to any character, for example, those around pubs may have a better damage output “while drunk,” as some profilers have shown. Each and every character will have their own little bit that makes them tick differently from others.

This brings me to the schedules of the characters. Not only will they run daily chores while you are tracking them, but they also lives outside of Dedsec. This means when you want to travel from the city of London to Westminister; you could use the tube to fast travel, or you could switch characters, effectively doing the same thing. However, you’d no longer be playing as Ethel, you’ll now be Dave, the ex-black cabby from Shoreditch with a wife and three kids.

However, I want to say one thing about this new character switching system. You can switch without fast-traveling across the map, instead, you would stay where you were when you hit A or X on the characters selection screen. I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is useful to switch out a hacker for an enforcer, on the other, it is strange not to move the characters to the nearest column or building to lean on. This may change, as this is only a small gripe noticed in alpha footage, however, it does seem like a large disconnect.

What would not be disconnected, however, would be the online co-op and the single-player. Don’t get worried, yet. In online co-op, you will be taking your band of hooligans and grannies into your friends’ game. This also means that you could battle each other to see who has the better team. This is when you might start to get worried. You will still be under permadeath rules: If your Ethel dies in a firefight with your friends she will be gone from your group forever. You will also be able to fight up to three friends in online co-op.

That being said, will you be able to customize each character’s appearance? Yes! In a strange response to an otherwise benign question about shopping, art director Joshua Cook said, “Every clothing store interactable.” I can only assume this is to say, while other open-world games have clothing stores as decoration, here you will be able to buy from them all. How is it done? Well, not every shop seems to have an interior, or at least if they are closed you can still buy from them.

Some stores will be fully rendered and open (I’ll return to this), while other stores will have a panel on the window that you interact with to buy your clothes. There is one store in particular that will be fully furnished and accessible, known as Exomod. It wasn’t shown in the E3 trailer. However, there is a small store next to Camden market with two large dogs outside, a store not too dissimilar from Cyberdog. Cyberdog is a rave-wear store that is known for two large statues outside and its colorful collection of clothing.

Proving the store is still one of clothing, you will be able to dress in neon pink and take pictures of yourself. It does seem Ubisoft are building on the camera phone from the previous game, at least there has been some testing of a front-facing (or “selfie“) camera. Nonetheless, this is all based on the conjecture of one small clip, there may very well be little to no use for this feature other than to be vain as you dress Ethel in a black leather catsuit to go hacking.

Possibly the last two pieces of information we have at the moment would be how lethal you can be, and why sometimes this is useful. Of course, there will be those of us who want to do a pacifist’s run of Watch Dogs: Legion, however, creative director, Clint Hocking, doesn’t know if that would be possible. He and his team are happy to yell into the void that we could use lethal and non-lethal weapons and takedowns all day, but even he doesn’t know how possible that is. Though the claim that there is an equal number of lethal weapons as non-lethal does sound suspicious.

A majority of your hand to hand combat is non-lethal, though there is a reason I’m concerned more about weapons. Does this mean you would count an Amazon delivery drone a weapon? Well, if it dropped a gas tank on you, it might be a weapon. Ethel’s stun gun, much like Marcus’ would be a non-lethal weapon, as would the electro grenades that are present. However, the assault riffles and normal frag grenades may be a touch on the lethal side. It is your infiltration, it is your choice: fisticuffs or shotguns?

You may want to choose a non-lethal option sometimes, as it could affect your ability to get Clive; who you found wandering around Notting Hill. When the game is demoed or there is a piece of gameplay footage shown in a video, Ubisoft employees are quick with the line “If you kill their friends, they will begin to hate you.” There is a collective that does hate Dedsec, and no matter how righteous you feel killing a member of Clan Kelly to stop human trafficking, it could cripple you in the long run, according to these developers.

Personally, I find a majority of this game to be ambitious, and I do think those that are hopping on that hype train to London may be disappointed. I do believe Ubisoft could pull off their plans, however, I am adjusting my expectations according to the previous two games. I hope I am proven wrong and Ubisoft does make Legion a resounding success. Though I am excited for March– Mostly because every game ever comes out in this time period, and I’m especially excited for Watch Dogs: Legion on March 6th.

Nevertheless, that’s what we know so far, what do you want to see? On a personal note, I hope to see a second and third save slot. Something Ubisoft are not too happy about proving to console users since, possibly, Far Cry 3. However, I do believe we already know this will not happen. If the online co-op is anything to go by, you will be restricted to one slot to make this section of the game easier.

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