Get 20% OFF + Free International Shipping + 2 FREE GIFTS @Manscaped with promo code WHITELIGHT at Manscaped.com! Finally. After 4 years, the Watch Dogs series is finished. Hope it was worth the wait.

You played Leagion for 100 hrs😮 jokes on you!

the reason they k ll off the white cahracter in the beginning is because they hate wh ite characters and instead you get a woke collection of sjws

but the game itself is very fun

Thanks for doing a vidoe on this game. I was a bit hyped when this game was announced because the idea of playing as any NPC was a cool concept ,but they half baked it by taking out all the other systems form the previous games

I still defend Watch Dogs 2 as an immerive sim on its own. It is amazing finding a way to skip a mission basically through tech

Legion in some aspects can be played as a sim as well. I found out and came up with many strategies of how to complete certain missions without even setting foot in the mission area, like tossing a spider bot on top of a car and driving it into a mission area. One of my favorite things to do, which was actually a trick I learned from an early video on the game, was walking up to a guard behind a blocked off gate, using to antagonize emote on the emote wheel to aggravate them, and wait for them to open up the gate to confront me before neutralizing them and getting in without the need of a key.

​@@m.a.k.dynasty4504I once used the drone and made a car drive into the box you need to destroy to get in, that felt pretty cool

true but its so cringy lol. still like it alot. one of the best ubisoft games

@@Ant1ev0 yea the outdated 2010 9gag humor really pissed me off at times, but besides all that it was really an amazing game

If only it wasnt cringedawgs then it would be better received. People dislike the characters and the plot, not the gameplay.

“Watch Dogs deserved better than to be made by Ubisoft” Damn, that quote is powerful, because it's the absolute truth.

Actually the same can be said about a lot of ubisoft IPs ..far cry , assassins creed,the division.. all very creative ideas..

Yeah, I agree.

Considering that I did especially love Watch Dogs 1 (more) & like Watch Dogs 2 yeah...

I find it strange that WDL has such forgettable PCs, when games like XCOM 2 get you to have an incredible connection with individual, recruitable characters who can die in any mission, get injured, tired, develop phobias and traumas, etc. Losing an soldier you had from the start of the game is genuinely gut wrenching. Some characters have a story arc that is entirely made up by the player. Each blank face is somehow full of personality.

Why do you find it strange that one thing is bad while another thing is less bad

@@Szanth Xcom 2 came out in 2016, having multiple characters wasn't the main selling point of the game, etc.

@@kolkonut But they weren't made by the same team or anything. What does that game have to do with this one.

Full of personality? Let me laugh so it don't go to waste: Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha can'tlaughenough ahahahahaha omghelpIcan'tstop AHAHAHAHAHA *coughs blood*

@@Szanththe point is one game did it better than a newer one

Me personally, I found it really ironic. When the game was only fun when the Adian dlc came out. And you were playing as one single character. Defeating the whole purpose as recruiting anyone. But since this character had actual voicelines and acting, it was actually fun. And not being able to recruit anyone didn't really matter to me when the character actually felt real.

Is the Aiden stuff separate from the main game though or.

​@calluminkster6892 he has a dlc with him and wrench that is its own separate story but you can also play as both characters through the main story as well.

Ubisoft are so infuriatingly good, at building a massive amount of potential for their game franchises, and getting so tantalizingly close to fulfilling that potential only to change/destroy all of that in the proceeding game/s. They bring the franchise to such great heights that you can see the peak of its potential so close, only to throw it all away by delivering something more barebones than the first ever experience in the franchise (Ac:U -> Valhalla, Fc 3/4/5 -> Fc 6, Watchdogs 2 -> Legion, Trials Fusion -> Trials Rising)

Far Cry 6 was actually amazing. Story wise it's always FC 3 -> 5 -> 6 -> 4 but gameplay wise it's FC 6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3.

I can feel the pain and suffering of being a lifetime ubisoft fan in this comment 😂 lol. Me too bruh... Me too lol

​@@lilitch123far cry 6 was not BAD... But it did fundamentally leave behind a lot of what made far cry FAR CRY. FC5 was the last one that actually felt like a far cry game.

I really enjoyed Bloodlines, and WD1. I really like Aiden from WD1, he was a refreshingly dark and morally ambiguous character. I honestly wish they would make a whole new game around Aiden. He's one of the most interesting characters Ubisoft has ever made and he's still totally under-developed and under-utilized. I got WD1 for free when I first played it, coupon code came with some hardware purchase, and I went into it with no real expectations, and I loved it. It's really too bad Ubisoft messed up on the E3 reveal so badly, WD1 is such an underappreciated game. Far from perfect, but the WD series would be so much better today if Ubisoft had just made sequels to WD1 that refined the gameplay rather than trying to change the theme so much with each game. I thought WD2 was a big step down from WD1 in it's overall fun-factor, and as someone who enjoyed the dark setting from WD1, I thought WD2 went way too far in the other direction to the point of feeling like a cartoon. Legion is just bad, except for Bloodlines.

I essentially just wrote a very similar comment - good to see I'm not alone :D I fondly remember me and my friends really enjoying the dark setting of WatchDogs 1. It made everything feel serious and had some "weight" to it. Whereas WD2 just seemed like a overly cheery hipster version of how someone imagines hacking. But good to see that a lot of people liked it. But you're right - I'd love to see something about Aiden again - WD1 is one of the only games where I actually finished the story.

Yeah, WD2 had better gameplay but the characters and the whole vibe of the game was a massive downgrade.

Biggest weakness of Legion is Ubisoft refusing to actually engage with the systems they put in. As you said, this game would be so much better if I could use Operators without actually controlling them. Being as getaway drivers, support snipers, medics etc. there's like a whole undiscovered world in that game. Also, the dumbing down of the hacking system was a letdown.

play liberal crime squad

@@jaighter think this is the first time i've seen liberal crime squad mentioned outside of bay12 forums

@@jaighter Man that was a blast from the past. I sucked at that game. Might gotta replay it.

The setting and writing was terrible too. It was unbelievably tone deaf,as if it was written by ideologues who had no clue what happened in UK. Dedsec is different only by political ideology basically.

Perhaps the worse was that originally there was gonna be way more with each character having a sortof perk tree you could unlock more of as you used them. Giving special benefits and encouraging a wider range of characters to choose for their skills and abilities. But then they gutted it out for the system currently. And then gutted more of the watchdogs stuff out with hacking

1:32:40 and fun fact, in the French dub of Watch Dogs 1, Aiden was voiced by the same voice actor as for the French dub of John Wick, which adds to the relevance of the comparison, for French players at least!

I loved the BrocaTech/Bagley story, as it showed what WDL could have been. More black mirror, with a mix of disturbing but fascinating story.

There's an expression where I'm from that says: "always missing 5 cents to have a pound" and I think Watch Dogs as a franchise really embodies that. They never reached the potential, there was always something missing. It never was what it could have been.

I think WD2 is the peak of the series but I found my fun in Legion by characterizing the people I populated London's Dedsec chapter with. My three most played characters essentially became Dedsec's evasive leaders. One of them was a hacker and she handled Dedsec's data infrastructure, working closely with the other hackers and members with tech backgrounds. She was Scottish, wanted by Albion, and typically wore a facemask or her hood up when she was outside. The guy I had working behind the scenes was very much like the boxart character, late 40s, always wore a suit. He mostly worked in the shadows, recruiting and finding his way in the ear of powerful people in London, him being a conman allowing him to sneak into places where any bookish white guy in a suit would blend in seamlessly. And my starting character and most played character was a younger woman, an artist who emigrated from China with her sister. She essentially did Dedsec's "PR" and worked on clearing their name and rehabilitating their image following the attacks that occur in the opening. She felt like a character that had something to lose, her sister got arrested and threatened with deportation. The artists, anarchists, and other counter-culture people who gravitated towards Dedsec did so because of her actions. And it bled down to every member of Dedsec until I had something on each member of them that made them fit in like a glove, my first spy was a rogue MI6 agent born in India and she worked feverishly against SIRS and the human trafficking gang and brought other MI6 agents into the fold. My hitman was a former SAS commando who also always wore a suit Dedsec contracted the services of. My heaviest hitter was a Polish carpenter who just liked getting into a good bar fight. My anarchist was a tumblr girl with a shaved head, and my drones expert was a 71 year old woman who was covered in tattoos and had the doomed trait, and to me, she was like this long-standing member of Dedsec who had been around as long as Raymond from the first two games, and she had an ailing heart and knew she was living on borrowed time, and when she did finally die, it felt like an impactful character death.

That's way too much head Canon I might as well just write a fanfic and call it a day. Not bagging on you but I don't think it's fair to expect every player to basically make an entire universe in their head to compensate for how bad the characters and interaction is in this game.

You can't knock em they made a great narrative with there own campaign

@jand1144  Yes but it in no way makes the game less shit. I can RP or headcanon any game but like the point of this discussion in this video is the quality of the game.

@SkilledKill  lmao trust bro I'm with you I don't do all that either Just from gamer perspective I can understand the nostalgia one can make in a game from there imagination 100 percent agree with you though 💯🎮👌

Hof yap

I still go back to Watch Dogs 2 specifically to walk around SF, take photos (yes, like a tourist), and play around with the hacking, creating all kinds of chaos in the process. I usually start off telling myself I'll be good, but always end up causing multiple catastrophies. WD2 is the only open world sandbox where I feel compelled to play around with its mechanics and cause haos. Such a shame that Legion couldn't live up to that.

I put about 10 hours into WDL. It was pretty boring. I found one recruit that I had any fun with. One. 1. It was a little old lady named Maggie. Maggie was a former spy. She had a bunch of cool perks and a silenced gun that basically killed in one shot. She did have a major setback though. She had some heart disease that would cause her to die permanently at some point. That's when I gave up. Doing random missions in London for about 5 hours as a little old lady and then she died of a heart attack in the middle of a mission. Then I turned the game off and deleted it. R.I.P. Maggie.

R.i.p Maggie you will be missed

RIP MAGGIE...So badass only her own body could end her

her body was the only thing in the way of her taking back london 😢R.I.P. maggie 💔

And so that was Maggie's Journey; : The Game

Ngl i kinda like the heart attack bit.

My biggest gripe with it was mostly all the traffic, lack of a ded sec garage so you could get around faster, and the river in the middle of the map exacerbating the issue. Youve also already highlighted some other gripes with limited equipment. It isnt something I'd put in my perminate game library

Never played any of these games but you got me invested in the downfall of this series. Towards the end I felt sad for Watch Dogs fans. I felt disappointed at the missed opportunities. I even grieved for what could have been, during your eulogy at the end. Amazing review as always!

Man after seeing this I wonder if its possible for someone to make a mod that combines the great elements from WD2 you mention, and then also make the city seem more alive. Its a great location, so itd be a shame if it didn't get a "living city" mod like the first game

When I played WD1 I played like John Wick, using slo-mo and sick gunplays with hacks. It was fun and I was surprised to see everyone else play different.

Welcome to the Watch Dogs 1 fan club!...we are few. But we are true

This video through its entirety made me feel it was going to build up to a reflection of what this series is and my expectations got exceeded. Never seen people put into words what's so important about these games. Great video.

Holy hell… The trilogy review series we never deserved, but the one we needed

Thank you for actually getting the line the correct order. It feels so bizarre to say “this is the one we deserved” as if we’re entitled or some shit.

No one said google en passant

yall actually watch the whole thing?????

​@@nibin2259 yes

@@jokerissurprised5482 damn

My first introduction to the Watch Dogs series was Legion. As an outsider, it was pretty fun tbh. In a time where Assassin's Creed has gone down a weird RPG lot grind path, Legion felt like old school Ezio/American AC. But damn, after watching this I need to go back and play Watch Dogs 1 and 2 now.

I like how I’m just now learning you can temporarily turn off electronics in WD2 with the stun gun. As someone who plays these games as a staunch pacifist (or as pacifistic as you can be) the stun gun was the only thing I used in WD2, and I’ve finished that game several times now. That said since my usual MO was to drone my way through literally everything while staying outside of the danger zone as much as possible I guess it makes sense I never saw this mechanic.

One of the issues that you didn't mention is how painfully obvious it becomes that Sabine is Zero-Day. She literally vanishes near the end of the main campaign and nobody questions it, if that doesn't make it obvious enough.

She is also pretty much the only named non-auto generated character left in the story that hasn’t been excluded when the “twist” happens.

Watch Dogs Legion holds an interesting place for me, because while it is not that mechanically good (and I haven't finished it for years due to that and performance issues), I still remember a few of my characters easily. I remember Lloyd, 69 year old genderfluid diplomat with a green suit and a flatcap. I remember "Keith" (not his real name), who was an MP who looked exactly like Keir Starmer and constantly got kidnapped. I remembered the construction worker lady I play as who was sort of the "fixer", she handled the dirtier work like getting "Keith" back from kidnapping. It's a very good concept buried in Ubisoft's general problems. I really like it, I think, but can't be sure.

I think if they give you an option to upgrade your characters, so you'll get more attached to them would have helped a lot.

No police and no hacking = no fun

With Legion i realized how much i missed the grayer tones of the first one, Aiden even in a Good Guy run was extremely violent and vindictive, the way he punished was brutal whether lethal or not. I wish we had more of that, with even more cool hacking and tech skills

this happens when they removed skills tree from both watchdogs legion and far cry 6

Watch dogs 2 is still my favorite out of the series but 1 got a lot of things rights

Funny how I can change the optics on a murderous sociopath on a revenge path when I compare it to the absolute lack of characters in Legion. And people complained Aiden was boring and one sided

@@MCellation aiden was somewhat onesided - in legion the characters are zero-sided. they dont feel one dimensional, they feel generic

I would love this game so much more if they kept all of the features from the previous 2 games. There were so many features that were absent here it actually made me appreciate the first game. I like that the map of London was pretty accurate. Quite close to the real London.

Starting gang wars in Oakland and just sitting back and watching was my favorite part of the game.

I was looking foward to this video for a while. I’ve played and loved all three watchdogs games and just like you said. It’s not all great but the things they do good stand out so much to me.

40:25 I think this is honestly the greatest tragedy of Ubisoft to me. They have some of the best environment artists in the industry, without question. But, those environment artists are forced to work on games that ultimately don't seem to care much about their environments and view them more as background noise than a meaningful space for the player to engage with.

1:02:10 It happens even right now in certain countires. even without all those bad capitalsts and PMCs. Guess what, when police are given a "plan" to unveil certain amount of crimes by their bosses, it just so happens that it incentives them to find loop holes to inflate the number of crimes they unveil, who might have guessed?

In defense of the assassins creed mission. The death scenes in AC aren’t necessarily caused by the animus. In AC unity it’s directly referenced in the story that Arno can see their memories. The explanation for him is that he had a high concentration of Isu DNA and his own brain could act like an Animus when he assassinates someone. So basically that he can see their genetic memory using his eagle vision. for other characters like Bayek and Basim who’s scenes take place in the duat it’s a lesser version of what Arno can do with it being less of seeing their memories and more of they can interrogate their targets after they’ve died.

I loved the AI and random interactions in Watch Dogs 2. That was the only thing that made me come back to the game even after finishing it. So disappointing to see how they nerfed it in Legion.

350+ hours in WD2, not a second regretted. That AI and SF being the best digital city I've ever experienced always keep me comin back.

It’s AI in WD2 felt the most alive I’ve ever seen in a Ubisoft game. The setting and NPC AI were what kept me playing even tho I’ve never completed the game, I just kept messing around in the game world.

A moment that I'll always remember from WD2 was when I hacked this guy, saw he was arguing with his partner on texts, and I think he even threatened violence or something along those lines. I then pressed the "send police" hack thing, and then it said "DOMESTIC ABUSE SUSPECT". That feeling I had like "holy shit, I actually influenced a dynamic event within the world in some way." will always stick with me.

@@tugrul5165 I like to mess around with this system too. Basically, I walk around and imagine myself some policeman from a twisted totalitarian version of USA, who makes the police come after anyone who can slightly be suspected as anti-government. I know how it sounds, but that got me into a couple of funny situations

There was a moment in watchdogs 2 that i'll never forget: I was infiltrating one of the many enemy outposts guarded by security and so I used that SWAT team call in to try and get one of the guards arrested since he was standing guard near a gate leading up onto a catwalk. The Swat guys showed up and the guy resisted arrest with one of the other guards coming over to try and diffuse the situation and vouch for the guy. The SWAT and gate guard then started talking to each other, most likely the gate guard trying to clear his name. (though I couldnt hear anything I was simply watching what was happening) this back and fourth happens for god knows how long, with the SWAT guys I had called in finally realising they had false evidence on him, so they packed up into their armored car and drove off. The ONE sure fire thing I had relied on in the game to help clear out locations had somehow failed me.

Just a couple of things to add on. One, the human upload thing you referred to when it came to Sky uploading her own mother is further elaborated on with side quests showing that the ctOS car system was ran by the former consciousness of a taxi driver, and a couple of other ones like that. The mission chain unlocked after the credits similarly reveals that Bagley was Skye's brother, Bradley, and after deciphering major events in his life and hearing back his story in fairly poignant audio files, you even get to briefly meet the real guy in a care home, a once happy man debilitated by a disease that shattered his life. It's hard to tell if he really understands what Bagley is when you introduce him to Bradley. Also, damn, you showed the P.T. corridor homage in the Bloodline breakdown but didn't call it out by name? A hell of an easter egg to include in a mandatory story mission as part of what could be the last campaign in the series. Perhaps the developers at Ubisoft felt some kinship with Kojima about their publishers mishandling their work...

Kojima and Ubisoft did tend to reference each other, even going as far as including an Altair outfit in MGS4

@@superdrinkingpepsi and in turn, Raiden was a skin for Ezio in AC Brotherhood.

Watchdogs is and will always be 1 of my favourite franchises, from the story to the parkour, the clothing physics and animations were on point. I'd spend hours walking around Chicago, Aiden's hands in his pockets whilst the wind blows, Wd2 I'd be enjoying sunny Francisco (my dream city) parkouring or walking around exploring all landmarks. Watchdogs legion was great to although many aspects were letdown, the story was forgettable, the clothing physics are a mess and the parkour was crap but I still love it as equally as I do the 1st 2. I'm from North London so being able to visit London in game and seeing how well and realistic it looked was amazing. Legion has the best online imo but I did miss invasions, they aren't great in Legion.

I always hate it when a story, usually in a game but sometimes in other media, has the heroes go around casually taking out and killing wave after wave of grunts. But then when it comes to the big bad final boss who's behind it all, they have that big "killing is wrong" moment and decide to spare the main villain. It's like um excuse me, but what about the hundreds of people you casually murdered up to this point? They were all just random security officers doing their job they didn't really have anything to do with this. But the one guy who actually deserves to be killed? Naw he can live cause he's a named character.

I was really looking forward to your review on this game and it really delivered. I barely even noticed two hours of my life passed me by and it was refreshing to see someone talk about the faults of the DLC and not just it being a "masterpiece".

WD2 was one of the most pleasant surprises for me with it's improvements to both the hacking and the world itself. It always makes me sad how this is one of the few ubi franchises I genuinely kept up with/enjoyed and it'll likely be the one that dies in the end.

With Whitelight videos you’ve never realised you’ve sat through 2 hours worth of content till it's over. Great video

"i zoned out while watching this video" great compliment dude

@@remondx8880 What he meant was that he was too engaged, bruh. NOT that he zoned out.

What about 7 hours I have rewatched death stranding video 4 times so far

I hope they still continue WD series, I hope they do something better and don’t mess up

The game becomes 10 times better in the dlc it has an actual story to tell cuz aiden didn’t really have an arc in the first game (still love him tho) it shows how actually traumatised he is and all that blunt cold voice is an act that’s the actual story they should have told in the main game

I LOVED Watch Dogs 2 and I waited over a year before playing it because I was sceptic but it was the game that got me to finally finish a SP-game in a year all the while getting me hype for more great SP experiences. I caught a glimpse of WD:L at release and knew it wasn't it... It made me sad.

When it came to fist fighting, I found out that stoping the striking combination while the enemy was blocking compelled them to attack, though there was just enough time for me to start attacking again. Basically there was no necessity to guard break and I was able to always easily trespass their guard into a full combo

I just found this channel, I love it the reviews are so fair and balanced

WD3 is a monumental achievement - but as a simulated world, not a game. They went all in on the systems and setting, but forgot the fun along the way :(

This right here, pretty much. I have to give Ubisoft credit for attempting to innovate, and actually investing 4 years of development into the concept. Too bad it doesn't make for an interesting game, at least in this first iteration.

Agreed. I hope this system receives use in a more interesting game because that part was great

Apart from the player character system, I think I'd disagree on the simulated world being an achievement. I loved the previous watch dogs games but I found the world to be incredibly dull. There are only three types of buildings you could enter (from what I can remember), that being places with enemies, hideouts and pubs. Clothing shops were just terminals and there is even less interaction with the vehicle side of things. All shop fronts were closed, many repeat bland business fronts and so on. This game was such an interesting opportunity to expand on the world by going to a new continent with a unique character system but unfortunately, I find the other games, especially watch dogs 2, to have worlds which are more alive. Not even to mention missing multiplayer at launch, unlike watch dogs 2 and then not bringing cross generational play until sometime after the multiplayer component was added, when interest had died down further. Really a shame what happened with this game.

​@@Spyrotastic141 I agree, though now that they have the system the next game they make with it should be much higher quality since they can focus on things other than building the system.

Your reviews are academic, criticizing design philosophy and its absence, its what we need. Games are art to some degree, we should critic them as such, in order to understand where to do we stand, what we want, what they have to say.

I finished the game again today since I had some weird longing to go back to it. It's heart breaking to see what a disaster 3 was. There's a few things I do hope they keep, Like Harriet and Darcy (I know Darcy isn't cannon to the AC games but I can dream). Every time I played Harriet I thought to myself that her voice actor could really make for a solid character in a game that actually *had* personality. A good handful of the prestige operators really could have made this game genuinely good if they had actual personalities and lives. It's such a shame, and I hope this didn't put Dedsec's story in the ground.

if they decide to go with a watch dog game with character custom it would have been great if they added the same level of things to do like in watchdog 1 story and 2 gameplay

I never, ever, thought i could watch a 2 hour long video without even feeling the length of it ! Tremendous work !!

Watch Dogs 2 is easily in my top 10 favorite games of all time, I have so many good memories with this game. Marcus is one of my favorite protagonists in any game, and it really makes me sad that it failed so badly. Watch Dogs 2 has so much charm and personality to it, it's such a visually beautiful game. There are so many good aspects about it that waaaay too many people didn't get to experience.

I felt the same way about my hometown, Chicago, in WD1 as you do with London in 3. It's not only that the cities LOOK accurate, but FEEL accurate as well. It's hard to describe, but impressive that they always pull it off

I wish more open world games took place in Chicago

I’ve never played WD1 but I used to live in Chicago and now I’m tempted. Is the recreation pretty accurate? Like if I want to go hang out in Douglas Park, can I go do that?

@@evantiesman4165the first watch dogs will prob blow your mind

I wanna go to all 3 cities but sadly they are all cesspools now 😢.

42:00 As someone who was super hyped for WD3 after watching a playthrough of 2 and loving it, to then be disappointed when I heard the bad news, this has convinced me to give it a go at least to take in this aspect of it. Especially since its a city im fairly familiar with.

Whitelight I've been waiting for this video for so long, as a former fan of the franchise your videos on the first two games really resonated with me so I can't wait to hear what you have to say on this one

Another great video. For me, Whitelight is the most underrated gaming/video essay channels. Thank you for your content

Whitelight's review of Watch Dogs 2 convinced me to buy it last year and I've been having a blast with it ever since. As someone who doesn't enjoy stealth modes, mostly because I suck at it, I never imagined I'd enjoy an entire game that's built around being stealthy.

WD1 is still one of my favorite games ever, nothing really tops the enjoyment I had on launch with that game and met so many people in the online mode that I was friends with on xbox for years. I was slightly disappointed by WD2 but still really enjoyed it and had my fun but it just didnt feel the same as the first. Never bothered playing legion but maybe one day ubisoft will get their company together and make a good game again.

Man, that wonderfully written ode to the first two Watch Dogs games that starts at 1:54:40 was such a joy to listen to as someone who decided to play these games—and eventually fell in love with them—because of this retrospective series. Whitelight just has a way of gushing about the things he loves so earnestly and with such precision and style that it's impossible to not vicariously feel at least a little of that love yourself. You know that old saying? "Every time someone mentions Deus Ex, someone will reinstall it"? That's as accurate for Deus Ex as it is for any game covered on this channel.

this. my love for the Farcry series came from watchinf Whitelight retrospectives. never played a single one till i watched his one on 4 and now Farcry 5 is one of my favourite games of all time

Great comment!

Watchdogs 1 always got crap but I think it was and is, very underrated.

Very based.

Amazing review like always. Hope someone at Ubisoft sees it.

Yet another incredible video, truly can't get enough of your content. Not sure how you deal with suggestions for videos but to throw one out there nonetheless, I think ac origins could be a great fit for your style of content - for me the atmosphere of that game was truly something impressive.

I still think Legion's core idea has a lot of potential. I really hope they don't completely abandon it if they do end up doing another WD. But I guess at this point, who knows if that'll even happen.

honestly i love the first one the most ive played it 3 times, only the story but the others are also good although i have not finished either of the sequels

I haven’t seen many commentators who talk about various Ubi games of recent years go into detail about this, but I’d really love to see some analysis on the influence of Ghost Recon Breakpoint and its abject failure on the games that followed (Valhalla, Far Cry 6, and Legion being the big ones). See, GRB went looter shooter with tiered gear score and health bars and all, and was such a buggy, broken cash grab of a game, the pinnacle of Ubisoft’s homogenization trajectory, that the resulting crash and fire of its disastrous release sent ripples outward. The three mentioned games all got pushed back (and this was before the pandemic) to get some panicked restructuring because they, too, were built under this homogenization—they also all had tiered loot and were grind-a-thorns with cash shops. And they were minimum viable product cash grabs. Legion was the closest to GRB in terms of style and content, including sharing some themes and even assets (drones, they share some takedown animations, clothing and character models share meshes and sometimes more). It’s telling that multiple games had to be delayed because of the failing of another, and what’s more, the legacy of their shared DNA is still present in all of those other games, in my opinion. Legion feels like it, too, would have been a minimum viable product cynical cash grab just like GRB was, and it only barely had time to sand off some serial numbers. Anyway, I’d love to see you look at Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint, because I noticed your appreciation for certain Ubisoft details matches with things in those games as well (when you talk about the detail and vibrancy in Legion’s London, I couldn’t help but think of the detail and effort that went into Wildlands’s Bolivia).

Max difficulty and permadeath mode makes the game significantly more enjoyable, and I remember a developer interview where they essentially said they wanted that to be the default experience but were worried it would turn people away. I think the recruitment and NPC system is a good first draft, and I really hope the franchise lives long enough to get a sequel to expand it. Bloodline is one of the best things Ubisoft has put out in years, and a fourth Watch Dogs game with a fixed named protagonist, who can use the legion system to recruit controllable support characters would be fantastic.

The biggest problem is less hacks. It's a hacking game bro, no matter how good other aspects are, the hacking needs to be significantly better than what it was for it to matter.

Do we really need a 4th game? Characters like Aiden Pearce and Wrench were cores of the franchise and their stories ended and on a pretty good note aswell so do we really wanna endanger it by making another game in the franchise? making it something like COD or AC where they should've just put closure to the narrative long time ago yet are constantly trying to milk it even more staining the franchise's name.

I do remember cutting it off immediately when I could.

I wanted to play on permadeath mode, but then Wrench bugged out and killed himself. So I restarted the game, and then Wrench jumped from his drone to the floor instead of onto a roof and died again, so I continued with Aiden, only for him 2 missions later to bug out and not take cover during a shootout. I gave up and removed permadeath, then just played the entire game with Aiden.

I played the game a few times on resistance mode without liberating any boroughs (or just 1 for the weapon unlocks) and the surveillance state just felt much more present, especially with the checkpoints and SIRS posters. I went back on regular mode after upgrading consoles and remembered how completely different the experience was between standard and resistance. Resistance feels like an insurgency while regular just feels like there aren't consequences for anything, not even stealing Albion vehicles. Also the antagonists being motivated by "dead terrorists" just doesn't land when DedSec isn't committing any acts of terror or losing operatives. The TV says Albion is allowed to kill and the story makes a point about recruits surrendering their old lives but Albion typically only draws guns first on resistance. They don't attack you on sight or stop you at checkpoints in regular; you don't get notoriety from being spotted by a drone. Normal mode just seems neutered in comparison.

Damn, imagine how cool it'd be if missions had some permadeath thing where it was perfectly viable to just rush the objective and die but that'd kill the character, or you could try and get then out alive but it's harder. Not only does something like that give some moral choice to our gameplay but it also would just make it more interesting.

I’m so glad I found this channel. Your videos are quite deep and for someone who hates content designed for low attention span, I really appreciate the long essays. From what I’ve seen so far, your takes are consistent and I agree for the most part. And I can’t thank you enough for shitting on Ubisoft for going from a good studio with ambitions, often unrealized, to a mediocre studio with a play it safe game design set in unreasonably detailed environments.

Your video always always leave me melancholic, even if I didn't play the games. You're a real pro.

I'm gonna be honest, I loved the first game. I fully bought into the hacker noir vibe they wanted, and was/am completely willing to forgive a lot for the sake of that genre. It's WD2 that started the series decline for me. A lot of additions and improvements, sure, but a lot of those were complexities looking for problems to solve, rather than innovative solutions to extant issues. The story flagged in lieu of trying to stuff more into it, and the less centralized nature of the story really pulled me out of potential investment. I still liked WD2, to be clear, but it wasn't the sequel to a game I loved: it was an apology to a media and gamespace that proved shallow. Legion fully decentralized, and committed to "complex but shallow" - not much more to say past that.

Great video an epic! I started playing WD Legion this year and immediately I loved it. I have not played any of the other WD titles and the last Ubi title I tried was AC 2 on the Xbox which I also enjoyed. Loved the WDL London, mostly I found the voice acting endearing and the gameplay, as the idea was new to me felt fresh and interesting. I was playing Legion on Linux via Steam and proton however and after 100 plus hours of play Ubisoft connect stopped working. 3 months later I still miss the WD London especially when in the real London and I hear NPCs phone conversations around me and cheerful shouts of “ Oi! wank*r!” and I'm still waiting for someone to shout out “cockwomble” in the street.

I desperately want another studio to pick up this concept and vastly improve on it. If ubisoft had another year or 2 , it could have been so much better.

To be fair ubisoft hasn't shown they have the capability to create games with meaningful depth, their games always feel half assed and poorly executed these days and they get boring fast.

it wouldn’t , WDL started off with a horrible idea from the start. It would be better just in a few parts but probably still suck.

@@stephencroft1612 The idea totally fits Watch Dogs and as a blast to play with. Of Covid wasnt there, they had 2 normal years of production ontop and it would have been not just a worthy WD3 but actually the best lne of the series.

I doubt that in 1 or 2 years is enough. I think WDL issues are deep and they would only be solved (if possible) by a complete redesign

Had a load of fun on this game when it came out and the dlc was great

Love these games truly hope it makes a comeback

Honestly the recruiting was all done wrong. You should be able to build up Dedsec as a faction. A few core operatives who you can play as (maybe 4 at most) + a network of informants, agents, activists and radicals, the latter of the two being ways you can direct dedsec, as a social movement or as an armed resistance/terrorist group. Also, people should be approaching dedsec and you should play as them for these missions, make them earn their spot instead of us doing a mission fir them.

my favorite part of watchdogs 2 was the simple fact that i could beat every single mission solely with faction conflict, its possible to genocide everyone without firing a single bullet or any melee.

This made me remember how much I enjoyed Watch Dogs 2, it felt crazy like the show Silicon Valley but as a game

It's definitely far from perfect towards the end, but Bloodline having any semblance of closure for Aiden's character was something I really needed. Also the fact we even got a modern Assassin, while could've been done better, was still pretty cool as well.

As a Londoner I actually really appreciate how they retained the mundane aspect of driving through its hodgepodgey streets. I've been spending far too much time physically mapping out the topography for a map overhaul fanart project, and its actually insane how even minor streets of no renown are so closely depicted to their real life equivalents. They're "samey" in the sense that IRL London streets are "samey", which is to say they only look samey when you're speeding through with your brain switched off. When you actually get into google street view or walk IRL and compare street by street, you realise each street is a labour of love from the level designers and artists. They've taken liberties in the translation from 1:1 topography to squashed-down artist's representation, but even those creative liberties are beautiful in a way, when you dig into the real world maps and see how redundancies in road layouts have been smashed together for a more pleasing and walkable design. Many other aspects of the game are underwhelming compared to earlier WD games, but I have to defend the developers against reviewers who clearly have a hate boner for non-American or non-"exotic" cities like London. (Not aimed at you, just in general.) One of my issues with Legion at release was that clear sunny skies were too frequent. It was uncanny, in the same way that the voice acting feels like "Britain depicted as non-Brits think it's like". Then they patched in more realistic rates of inclement weather. The grey dreariness of a heavy overcast daytime with intermittent showers is like a home comfort for me, its a mundane touch that depicts the London I know rather than the "postcard London" that some reviewers clearly wanted to have.

You know what be cool, if they make watch dogs 3 they keep the career for characters maybe three options (criminal,hacker and civilians.) But like Cyberpunk its a single character, maybe different dialogue options or ways to progress the story, maybe a starting mission.

Not having played the game myself, I think all the issues with the story you've highlighted up to the 17 minute mark, could be fixed if Deadsec was allowed to be a bit of a "necessary evil" organization. The moment someone joins, they get implanted with a brain chip that gives one person the ability to use them as a puppet. But it seems to me Ubisoft really didn't like the WD1 protagonist, considering several of the characters in WD2 call him a psycho, and the fact that using guns in WD2 is frowned upon (at least storywise). So even though it would make some sense for Deadsec to be evil, Ubisoft doesn't want any grey areas or moral ambiguity.

I tried the multi-player with a friend and some missions were massive turn offs, especially the bridge mission. We are doing 2 solo segments that are all in high safety zones = we couldn't switch chars and we're forced to doe over and over again until we had a combo that worked and we were used to the mission

There is a little detail that I found awesome: luxury cars have auto retractable mirrors, exactly like they would on typical euopean cars, which is a largely absent feature in US vehicles (okay my GMC has that but still).

Watch Dogs 1 with Watch Dogs 2's open world enemy zones and hacking mechanics is my dream. Looking like the Living City mod is the best I'm ever gonna get... also that invasion at the end of the video was magnificent.

I don't know about wd2. There's no wd2 or legion, that was just a dream, hallucination. Wd is shelved after first wd. It didn't become a series.

​@@IskenderCaglarM41B441wd2 is actually better than wd1, like way better. Wd1 is better in only like protagonist and virtual trips lol

​@@IskenderCaglarM41B441I'm surprised you're still here after all the WD2 praise in the video

@@rudolfambrozenvtuber What you mean?

Metal Gear Solid 5 had a similar system, one that i didnt know existed until my third play through of the campaign. It allowed to you substitute Punished Snake for any soldier you capture. I just find it funny how the whole hook of Legion is a mechanic that eluded me in my favorite game.

Hope the devs build on the systems because they can defiantly work , as you described in a few instances

I Like the way how the Youtuber reviewed this game. Its deep thought and First Hand experienced while using tons of examples to truly analyse it. Im lookin forward to see more similar stuff. To speak in outdated movie phrases: "now you've got my Attention." Ive tried WD1 and i didnt like it. Part 2 seemed better, but the first time 'trauma' and, at that time, the whole Ubisoft Game designing, the usual formula again and again. I also rarely like too Clean Future visions, that all led me kind of naturally skip the series. But i like the potential youve displayed, and i finally realized why it could be interesting to play one day, depending on the price. Peace.

Im really pleased i got this video recommended, for one because i bought legion thinking it might not be as bad as i've heard and i got bored instantly, and second i am now watching all the old videos because im enjoying these video game essays so much even if i've played the games xD i could literally make a 2 - 7 hour long essay on why Whitelight's videos are so enjoyable to watch :P

Never played Watch Dogs 1, but WD2 and Legions were a lot of fun for me, I truly enjoyed myself. Definitely loved WD2 the most

1:49:27 even if it kinda reinforce the fact that this part become a generic horror segment I really love the fact that this coridoor is literally the one from P.T.

lmao it totally is

I actually came here to say this exactly and then I saw your comment! I’m so stoked somebody else noticed!

Pretty sure it has to be a reference

I would love them to make another try at the operative system that let them work together instead of limiting you down to what one operative you choose on a mission can do it wasnt a wrong direction to take, just a vastly undercooked one

i might have cried to this…to say watchdogs meant the world to me would be an understatement

Weird how I kinda love how he does the credits, its slow and readable like in the movies. It's nice to hear some old names and how they are now far from being the last. Since the videos are already movie-length long, we don't get those shitty "50 names skipping by per frame" as it shows them importance even if they aren't the big payers, just like in cinema in which it is just as to show respect to the lighting crew members who somehow only worked on one scene. What im saying is just, those are some nice and do feel the thankful in them

I've never played any of the Watchdogs games but after watching your videos on the first and the second I was excited to hear back from you when you made this video. I was thinking well they made such great improvements in 2, surely Legion must be great! And I was then so disappointed when you said it sucked. For a series I've never even played.

This whole video just gave me back memories and details of WD1. Now i really wanna play it again, love that game

It's funny when people say it's hard to get through sections of the game without being "forced" into combat, when I got through these same missions without ever being seen or having to take anyone down 😅. It's still true that the worst thing they did is remove the things that made Watchdogs 2 great.

Hence them saying "hard" and not "impossible".

This video got me back into Watch Dogs 2, so thank you WhiteLight.

I loved watchdogs legion because it was so boring it made me want to go back and give watchdogs 1 and 2 another chance and I love both of them now! Frequent replays for me now

can't believe i only just found this channel, these have to be the best in depth game reviews on youtube

36:40 That sounds a hell lot like Assassin's Creed 2 where you only waited for enemies to attack only for you to counter and instakill them. This issue got fixed in Brotherhood where some weapons had advantages and disadvantages against others so you could pick a sword and wait to chain-counter everyone when there were guys with polearms or heavy swords.

Been waiting for this one for a while now, and it came out great. Fantastic job as always

Watch Dogs was the first 3A game I ever played after getting my first decent PC. I didn't watch any trailer, no idea what a good game was, and no idea what to expect. And I loved it. I replayed it years later, it wasn't as good as I remembered, but still it had many interesting gameplay and stories and a unique charm that few games have. It's sad to see it devolve into a featureless mess.

It is now time my friend, with how much better your content has gotten the spider-man 2 video has been my most anticipated video ever, keep up the great work.

Honestly things could have been a lot better even if they just put more content into interactivity in the world. Some more light roleplay stuff would have been nice, and a strong variety of radiant quests (even if people really hate that term) would have been perfect for this kind of game since you could keep doing things with new operators you find.