The track record for each Watch Dogs story has been pretty average overall, never overtly bad but never outstanding either. With each game there’s been a slide towards satire and easygoing hacktivism, with Watch Dogs 2 never taking itself too seriously. That notion is further elevated in Watch Dogs Legion, taking the story all the way into a futuristic surveillance state full of London caricatures. The world and the characters of Legion are all charismatic rebels taking on a comically villainous leader of a private militia.
This year’s iteration of Watch Dogs finds itself in a unique position for a lot of reasons, but especially from a storytelling perspective. Since there’s no static protagonist, and there are multiple playable protagonists, the story of Watch Dogs Legion needs to be especially adaptable to all characters and backgrounds. While the city of London depicted in the game is struggling under some extraordinary circumstances, it does mean the storytelling won’t treat every player equally.
Pro: Not Taking Itself Too Seriously
Frankly the best thing that happened to Watch Dogs in general was when the story never took itself too seriously. The first game set a precedent that it was meant to be a serious revenge story, with Aiden Pearce avenging his dead niece and rescuing his sister from a hitman from his past. Many criticized the first Watch Dogs’ plot because it did not match the gameplay loop in any way, both from Aiden’s perspective and the player’s perspective. Watch Dogs 2 remedied this by adopting a much more campy carefree story, bolstered by Grand Theft Auto-esque gameplay. Now Watch Dogs Legion intends to do the same, with its wacky playable characters and charismatic story of rebellion against tyrannical martial law.
Watch Dogs Legion’s overarching storyline features relatively serious themes, but from a realistic perspective only seems plausible. In a way this is a genius approach to narrative, as it presents players with a rebellion born from the clever hacking group of DedSec. Every member of DedSec in Legion is a charismatic but vocal opposer of the tyrannical Albion militia that’s taken over London. These characters don’t seem unrealistic because in a lot of ways it’s a reflection of modern world politics and the people’s attitude towards them. Plus martial law and systematic oppression of citizens is a good reason to justify the variety of violent gameplay Watch Dogs Legion is highlighting.
The Problem of Leveraging Gameplay with Story
Although with multiple playable protagonists in Watch Dogs Legion, this presents a problem. There’s no centralizing anchor point for players to keep themselves grounded or get attached to. Plenty of players have their favorite video game protagonists, but not having one static playable character is something video games really haven’t done on a mainstream level in a long time. Watch Dogs Legion is proposing that not only does that not matter, but that the narrative largely takes a backseat to gameplay anyway. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, the game is largely advertising the takedown of Albion being the primary objective of players in Watch Dogs Legion.
Assuming Watch Dogs Legion is gunning for the Grand Theft Auto-esque approach, it could be at a severe deficit to the story the game is trying to tell. Story-wise, given that every character is playable and has their own respective back story, that’s a lot of writing work to be done for several people. Even if each character in the game eventually leads to the same conflict with rebellion, it circumstantially lessens the impact of each character’s backstory, considering they all arrive at the same conclusion of hating Albion because tyranny is bad, etc. Every character beats to the same drum, likely at the cost of nuance and justification of each character’s actions.
Con: Legion’s Story Could Take an Unfortunate Backseat
In the end, it may not matter if the gameplay is good enough, but this is something Watch Dogs has struggled with before. The aforementioned Watch Dogs 2’s plot featured a reckless and charismatic hacker Marcus Holloway as the main character, but the gameplay didn’t fully reflect that. One of the biggest criticisms of Marcus as a protagonist was the ludonarrative dissonance between his personality and the potentially violent gameplay he could partake in. This may not exactly become a problem with Watch Dogs Legion, but the elimination of this dissonance means every character will have a streak of violence in their character. Even if players prefer to avoid confrontation and play stealthily/non-lethally, the game will need to leverage that with players who want to play guns blazing.
Therein lies a problem for both, as the game never leans too far into either side of those types of players. On the surface it seems like Watch Dogs Legion is building this large and engrossing world full of unique characters. Upon closer inspection, these characters run the risk of seeming hollow because of their shared desires to takedown the oppressive militant forces occupying London. Theoretically every character will have a personal reason as to why they’ve joined the resistance, but the game will need to justify that feeling. Grand Theft Auto 5’s single-player has centralized characters for this exact reason. The game was confident enough to let its gameplay stand on its own, but tailored the personalities of its characters to match that level of violence players were capable of.
Watch Dogs Legion’s story will be interesting to see unfold because it runs into a problematic middle ground of story vs. gameplay. If Legion’s gameplay truly is strong enough to stand independently from the narrative, then there won’t be a problem. But since Watch Dogs games have consistently attempted to tell compelling stories of rebellion, the impact of said narrative may suffer as a result.
Watch Dogs Legion releases on October 29, 2020 for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. The game will also release on launch day for PS5 and Xbox Series X.
