UbisoftWatch Dogs 3 appears to have leaked online, and it turns out it isn’t called Watch Dogs 3 at all. Ubisoft’s third entry in the stealth hacktion franchise will instead be known as Watch Dogs Legion.
The leak was first spotted on Amazon UK before being confirmed by both Kotaku and VG247. As previous rumours surrounding the game had suggested, Watch Dogs Legion will indeed be set in London – a post-Brexit London at that.
UbisoftHere’s the official product description from Amazon:
Play as anyone. Every individual you meet in the open world, has a full set of animations, voice over, character traits and visuals that are generated & guided by gameplay systems.
Both VG247 and Kotaku have claimed that Watch Dogs Legion will allow the player to take control of any NPC. Each character you control in-game will apparently have their very own unique backstory, thanks to procedurally generated AI.
If that sounds incredibly ambitious, that’s probably because it is. Kotaku’s Jason Schreier has heard that the NPC system has “been causing the developers a lot of headaches”, and may have led to “at least one delay.”
It’s also been reported that Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking is heading up the ambitious sounding new game, which takes place in a “post-Brexit world in which society, politics and technology have changed and altered London’s fortunes.”
UbisoftThe product description also notes that London “has one of the highest surveillce [sic] levels in the world making this the perfect playground.” The last Watch Dogs was set in San Francisco, and the original took place in Chicago.
Ubisoft has developed something of a reputation for developing games with a political slant that it then claims are in no way political. Just look at the likes of The Division 2, and Far Cry 5.
With that in mind, it’ll certainly be interesting to see what the publisher has to say about a game that reportedly deals with a “post-Brexit” world. Of course, the idea of a post-Brexit implies one day Brexit might actually be over, which is probably the most ridiculous concept I’ve heard all year.
While the very notion of politics in a game is something that triggers a knee jerk negative reaction from a scary number of gamers, I’m actually pretty interested to see what a fictional post-Brexit London looks like. I imagine there’ll be more Greggs.
UbisoftWe’ll likely hear more about Watch Dogs Legion during E3 next week. In the meantime, we’ve reached out to Ubisoft for a comment and will be sure to update this article if/when they respond.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.