Video games are boring and safe. There is no risk in another highly anticipated war shooter, depressing hell full of sad people, another obliquely named “action-adventure,” and the same old open world. Yell about one JRPG until it is remastered, I’ll show you ten others. Talk my ear off about a war shooter, I’ll tell you about Spec Ops: The Line being better. Tell me about another Souls-like, I’ll smack you with a trowel before penetrating you with a halberd. It is hard to say games are taking a risk because we have more access thanks to the internet, for all the good that’s given us.

Whether it is Hades and its way of telling a narrative in a Rogue-like, Just Cause giving you literal countries to tear your way across, or Yakuza (0-6) making a man with a brick for a face and a heart of gold one of the most sustainable, relatable, and enjoyable characters in gaming; very few games are ambitious. If they are, they don’t stay as such for very long. There was a time when Bioshock was groundbreaking, and then it became a template, as did GTA‘s large 3D open-world. The venerable Elder Scrolls series became a template to western RPGs, Civilization, Dues Ex, and Minecraft before it all had ambition. In smaller ways, things like Superliminal and Antichamber are ambitious too.

I’m not saying games are bad. I’m saying in the larger Triple-A market, we’ve lost a passion for bold ideas, newer concepts on larger scales, and defining ideas. The last few came from smaller or lesser-known titles, such as Demon’s Souls to what would later be the Souls-like. Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac brought about larger Rogue-likes, and DayZ (the mod before the game) and Minecraft‘s Hunger Games brought out the battle royale. All of these had soon to follow trend chasers, wanting in a piece of the pie. Watch Dogs: Legion is one of the most impressive games available and probably won’t find a trend chaser, at least for a while.

As you can probably tell from my very small amount (sarcasm!) of glee talking about the game either in the video review or the written one, I love Legion. Of course, I’m loving it because it is London. It feels like home to me, which is something I’ve had very few times in gaming. However, what is most impressive is the characters themselves, or rather the system to make the world feel much larger than it actually is. From Nine Elms to Islington and Hackney, with some sections completely cut out; Isn’t very big. Of course, the game doesn’t stretch all the way to the M25. If you know London, if you know the area, you know that London is much larger than this video game version.

If you are old and crusty enough, you’ll remember that guy with the orange hoodie with 12 on it and his purple lady with a 31 shirt in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. You young whippersnappers don’t know how traumatizing it was when she’d break away from him and start holding hands with the shirtless guy with red pants. It was like a whole divorce. A couple of years later, Rockstar would outdo themselves with Bully (Canis Canem Edit for the civilized), as no two kids would repeat, you’d see soap-opera-like relationships form on school grounds every day. Those were brilliant.

Watch Dogs: Legion takes everything (as Madness once sang) “One Step Beyond.” No longer are the relationships ambiguous, now they are what a character is and does during their in-game day. You can watch as people go to work. You can sit and watch palace guards do the full routine of changing of the guard, and you can interfere. This is where it is about to get very dark, and I know part of me sounds like a psycho following this. You can follow someone to a meeting they have with a friend, social worker, colleague, partner (sexual or business), or anything in between, and you can kill their friend or otherwise.

Not only that, but at the point of which their schedule changes, you can stalk them to the moment each day they go and mourn that person. Of course, you can save these friends instead, by simply stopping Albion from performing checks and detaining these people. However, I don’t think there is another game on this planet that generates characters on the fly, and creates fully-formed lives. Even more interesting, you can haunt these people like a creepy palace guard shaped ghost! That’s not just ambitious, that’s going all-in on your first hand before the river has come out for your royal-flush.

It is a bit of smoke and mirrors, as I said in the review. They will go into houses, shops, and other nondescript doors when and where they need to. However, that is still more than most games have already attempted. I’ll go out on a limb and say this, most Triple-A games won’t at least try a small way of featuring anything close to the depth of this system until the end of this coming 9th generation of consoles. Much less having it work in tandem with the center of the game. Watch Dogs: Legion was a risk which is only proven by the reviews and scores.

Mixed is putting it lightly. Some are/have given it 9s, others are giving it the dreaded lowest score possible apparently, with 5s. Of course, some will see the near-endless wealth of the system that is doing nothing but advancing gaming a little step. Others will see the lackluster plot and characterless dystopian nightmare as hitting a little too close to home. However, that’s the point. If you disagree with Fallout fans and don’t give New Vegas 11 out of 10, tell people you don’t think The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt isn’t perfect, or tell a Dark Souls fan you enjoy the third game, you will be shunned. If you didn’t bash No Man’s Sky upon release or you didn’t bow down for king Druckmann and do nothing but praise The Last of Us: Part II, “Off with their head!”

Risks like this, and review scores (for what worth they are) being diverse creates a better discourse around games. If you want to pretend games are an artistic medium, one in which only a few stories can be told, there needs to be an allowance for varied opinions. I disagree with some of what is said in the more negative reviews of Legion, but I understand what their points are. We see it every time there is something a bit risqué or out of the safe bubble. Most of the vocal user reviews are 1s and 10s every time, which adds nothing to the discourse to be had.

Sometimes that risk of doing something different is worth it. It creates a new genre or a sub-genre. Other times it falls flat on its face. This is one of the few times we’ve seen a game stake a whole venture on one thing, and in return, it received a diverse acknowledgment and understanding. Quick, put on your special glasses and look directly at it, because that isn’t going to happen every week. The sad truth is, unlike freak weather storms that are caused by climate change, this should be happening more often. At least once a year would be nice, maybe 6-months?

Legion‘s detailed backstories and lives generated on the fly, with a few stored to keep a small recurring cast, may not seem like the generational leap you were looking for but it is here. Games like Bully, San Andreas, or Watch Dogs, and games about worlds full of people living a life, this is where they are stepping forward. If you thought you were a psychopath for killing hookers, Ethel, or other random pedestrians, to quote Bachman–Turner Overdrive on STDs, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

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