Now that we have less than one month until the launch of Watch Dogs Legion Ubisoft has been hitting us hard and fast with various updates on what to expect when the game lands along with planned DLC post launch.
Could the Watch Dogs series finally be reaching the potential we’ve been hoping for since 2014?
Introducing Darcy, a member of the Assassin’s Order
With Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launching next month you would expect their Twitter Account to be feeding updates about the latest in the historic series and not have time for much else, but as you can see below they dropped some very exciting news for Watch Dogs Legion.
Included in Legion’s season pass will be 4 Hero characters added post launch and the one revealed by @assassinscreed is Darcy, a member of the Assassin’s Order.
Introducing Darcy, a cunning member of the Assassin's Order, coming to @watchdogsgame as a playable hero character! Available through the Season Pass at a later date.
— Assassin's Creed (@assassinscreed) October 6, 2020
Darcy is shown with the iconic Assassin Hood and Hidden Blade expected of a member of the order as well as what looks like a futuristic mobile phone showing a glowing Assassins Crest.
Very little is known about her character at this point or what role the Order could pay in the post launch content of Legion.
One thing that is worth noting in the tweet is the use of the term Assassin’s Order rather than Brotherhood.
Without getting too much into the controversy Ubisoft has faced recently they have been called out regarding their lack of female protagonists in the Assassin’s Creed series. This started when some inside staff revealed that both Aya and Kassandra from Origins & Odyssey respectively were the original protagonists of their games, until the bosses stepped in to say that female protagonists would sell less games. Have they not heard of Tomb Raider?
Following this, Ubisoft released a video montage to celebrate the return of the hidden blade in Valhalla by showing clips of the assassin’s from previous games using the legendary weapon. Classic protagonists like Altair, Ezio, Jacob and Bayek among others were showing off their skill with the blade. But fans were quick to notice some characters missing, notably the female ones. Shao Jin, Evie Frye and Aya even Aveline was nowhere to be seen.
A group known as #acsisterhood who have been rightly vocal about the mistreatment of the Assassin’s Creed female protagonists were asking why Ubisoft thought this was acceptable, especially following what happened with both Origins and Odyssey.
Ubisoft were quick to release a revised video which featured all the characters shown before with the inclusion of the above assassins.
So referring to the group as The Order rather than Brotherhood going forward would do well to make the group and Ubisoft look more inclusive going forward. Which is a very good move on their behalf.
A Hitman with Assassin DNA?
Another sly link that has been teased is a screenshot of a character called Sandra Cassidy shown on the Operatives menu in game. Sandra is a professional hitman with some high quality weapons and moves like an evasive roll. But what was the most interesting thing to take note of was the search parameter used to find her.
‘Jacob Frye Descendants’
Yes Sandra looks to be a descendant of the one and only Jacob Frye, one of the protagonists of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. This would make sense as both Legion and Syndicate are set in London. Will we see more descendants of assassins or other recognisable characters show up?
Return of the Hack
At the same time that Darcy was announced by Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs made their own announcement via a popular Ubisoft Youtuber, confirming the return of a popular Watch Dogs 2 character.
Welcome to Watch Dogs Legion, Wrench. pic.twitter.com/sPK8Xf1Stg
— Brett | UbiCentral (@UbiCentral) October 6, 2020
Yes the masked hacker of Watch Dogs 2 Wrench will be returning. Considering the emphasis on wearable masks in the pre-release footage of the game this is a nice touch.
Watch Dogs 2 features him heavily as a member of the Dedsec group that works with protagonist Marcus. Wrench is playable for a short section of the game which proved to be very popular with fans so his inclusion in Legion looks to be a good choice.It will be interesting to see how he will get on with his British counterparts.
What does The Fox say?
Another Hero revealed for the post launch Season Pass is The Fox himself, Aiden Pierce. Aiden was the gruffly voiced protagonist of the original 2014 Watch Dogs game. This seems an interesting choice as Aiden had been sighted as one of the more troublesome elements of the original game with players blaming his bland personality as a factor in why the game struggled to connect with its audience.
Are Ubisoft looking to redeem Aiden in Legion. He does already have a connection to the Assassin’s Creed Universe, he hunted down and killed Abstergo Entertainments CEO Olivier Garneau in Chicago. When you scanned Garneau with Aiden’s phone it revealed he was wanted by The Brotherhood.
Many waived this away as a nod rather than a confirmation that the universes are one and the same. But in AC Origins a file can be found on the laptop of the modern day protagonist Layla Hassan, this file shows a CCTV image of Aiden standing over the body of Garneau gun in hand.
As to what Aiden is doing in London has not been made clear but in a recent interview with UbiCentral Watch Dogs Lead Producer Sean Crooks confirmed that Aiden will be playable for the entire campaign for those who purchase the Season Pass, however there is no date given as to when he will be available.
Another interesting thing mentioned by Sean Crooks was that even with permadeath switched on Aiden and possibly the other hero characters will not be lost forever if killed in action but he did not go into any further detail as to how that will work.
No mention was made unfortunately if Wrench or Darcy will also be playable in the main campaign as part of the Season Pass but I am sure hoping I can play as a badass Assassin for the duration of the game.
What the bloomin’ ‘eck is going on?
One of the big questions that has been looming over Legion since its announcement is whether the play as anybody mechanic will leave us without a central character to focus the story around and how that will work. Until recently not much has been revealed about the story of Legion apart from it being set in post-Brexit London and Albion acting as the main antagonistic force, a private military brought in to keep the peace but who only seem to be doing more harm than good.
But a more recent announcement has revealed the larger picture in regards to story and what may be the real antagonist of the game.
The story reveal trailer shows us that a person or group known as Zero Day are framing Dedsec for various crimes throughout the city while they are attempting to bring the city to its knees.
Zero Day only appears in the trailer as a large ominous hologram to make threats to the city and to Dedsec themselves. Does this mean that we will have to contest with dodging Albion forces while trying to stop Zero Day, or will the two opposing forces get the chance to join forces for the greater good of London?
Could this be leading to something bigger?
With the inclusion of an assassin, an assassin’s descendant and members of the previous games making an appearance is this just fan service or the doors being blown open on a wider connected gaming universe.
Ever wondered how these two games could possibly work in a crossover? Well, we have and we’ve delved deep into the lore and rumour mill on how this could happen here.
As for Watch Dogs Legion we shall know more when the game drops on October 29th.
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