of the near-future is violent and authoritarian. Is DedSec, and therefore the player, innocent in a world where bodies are disposable? Ubisoft gets around this a bit by imbuing each of the people with backstories, unique traits, and one of a few select personalities, but when the player might look at their team members as disposable, are they any better? Even if you complete objectives to free boroughs (more on this later), Albion presence is still active.Įven more incongruous is the idea that everybody is playable. You can interrupt and rescue a person being handcuffed, but they just get to run away. Is the hope democracy will return? That anarchy will ensue? You can enact larger change in the main quests, but smaller things work as bandaids. You're tasked with bringing down the organizations in power, specifically the ones that framed you for the bombings, but there's no plan after that though. That's why the existence of DedSec in this world is both heroic and confusing. Watch Dogs: Legion is immensely political and consistent in its messaging. Bodies are expendable because in a fascist world, all that matters is power and those who can hold onto it. The head of Albion believes that humans have limited potential and are just "bugs in the software." Another tech CEO believes that bodies are limiting. The unemployed are protesting on multiple corners, and potential recruits want you to find out what happened to their jobs. Albion and other tech companies are replacing workers with drones in multiple industries, putting people out of work but also blanketing the skies with moving machinery. in Watch Dogs: Legion is dealing with issues concerning autonomous work. That's just the start of what it does to undocumented people it considers a danger to the country.īeyond immigrant discrimination, the U.K. has been giving hysterectomies to people at the border and separating families, as just one example. However, the government's potential for bodily harm is expansive, considering the U.S. Your brain might initially deem this as the plot of a mad scientist, (the literal dehumanization of the most marginalized communities and turning them into profit is the perfect combination of Brexit-era anxieties and late stage capitalism). For example, you learn that one of the organizations, a criminal gang with deep connections, has been trafficking refugees and harvesting their organs. The fact this sort of oppression is happening in many countries as fascism rises across the world makes it feel less far-fetched. They'll either be tackled and handcuffed or worse. Even if they claim to be documented citizens, it doesn't work out well. Albion officers are stopping people on the street on just about every corner and checking their "legal" status. Fears about immigrants taking jobs are on full display, covering ad space on bus stops and spewing from the mouths of pundits. into political and societal chaos (and out of the EU). Watch Dogs: Legion is a post-Brexit game and heavily draws upon the xenophobia and classism that threw the U.K. The organizations involved, all powerful in their own way, have their own motives, but all involve reducing humanhood and agency, especially of marginalized immigrant communities. Most importantly, they're all thematically consistent. They're all separate, but intertwined in small but meaningful ways. The main storyline of the game involves taking down multiple organizations that had a hand in the bombings. We've seen similar procedurally-generated systems before, but none are quite as robust or work as well as the one in Watch Dogs: Legion. Creative Director Clint Hocking, from Far Cry 2, was brought on to helm the project and has said in interviews how much work the team put in to making this system work. Recruit them to your team and use their skills to counteract fascism. Everybody you walk by on the street, from businesspeople to artists to old women and beekeepers, are playable. The open-world game has marketed itself on a neat gimmick: it allows you to play anybody you encounter. It's both Ubisoft's most ambitious title and the one least like other studio mainstays, and that's all good news for players. However, Watch Dogs: Legion manages to stand out among the holiday clutter. That isn't to say Watch Dogs is an unpopular franchise - previous entries have sold quite well - but it doesn't have the same clout as a new Assassin's Creed game or even the new Far Cry game due out next year. Watch Dogs: Legion has been the underdog of Ubisoft's holiday and next-gen lineup, falling behind powerhouses like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and new titles like Immortals Fenyx Rising.
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