Watch Dogs Legionhas been out in the world for under a week, and many players are already having a lot of fun exploring an alternate version of London. TheWatch Dogsfranchise is known for evolvingeach next installment in its franchise and turning the idea of what it means to be aWatch Dogsgame on its head. ForLegion, a major selling point of the game is that players can recruit and play as any NPC, whenever they want.
The game is set in a London after Brexit, and revolves around DedSec and their goal on freeingWatch Dogs Legion’s version of London from being a surveillance state. Although there are ties to real-world politics in-game like the infamous Brexit, the world ofWatch Dogs Legionis one step removed from reality. As such, the version of London that the game presents has some key differences from the real world London, and it’s worth delving into those differences and similarities to see what inspiredWatch Dogs Legion.
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The Technology
Like manypopular sci-fi video games,Watch Dogs Legionis set in the near future, opting to include gadgets and technology that are more likely to be familiar to those in the modern world, rather than space ships and aliens. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything DedSec members use inWatch Dogs Legionexists yet in the real world let alone London, but some of it isn’t so far-fetched.
The AR Shroud ability, for example, is a way to make bodies invisible to bystanders after the player has taken them down. While this technology isn’t accessible to today’s world, London itself participates in augmented and alternate reality technology and games. The city hosts events that can be found through ARGNet, but these alternate reality games don’t affect the real world the same way the AR Shroud orWatch Dogs Legion’s Spiderbotsdo. However, various tours and events around London do play into people’s desire to interact with a faux parallel dimension for a while.
The rest of the heavy surveillance tech found inWatch Dogs Legionis probably not something most Londoners will see or interact with, although only the future will tell how closely reality and games will coincide.
The Boroughs
The locations on the game’s map divide London into eight-real world locations, referred to as boroughs, that many locals will be familiar with, although they only represent a fraction of London’s 30+ districts.
All these boroughs give the player multiple objectives to complete, which are all tied in to the game’s themes of propaganda and Big Brother-like government surveillance. However, carousing any of these boroughs will show off some real locations like the Tower of London, although places like other locations like Trafalgar Square are filled with protests ofWatch Dogs Legion’s dystopian surveillance state.
Many real-life landmarks are available for the player to find, like Barbican Center in the City of London, Big Ben in the City of Westminster, the Shard in Southwark, and the Tate Modern museum in Southwark. Some objectives take players to these landmarks or nearby them, which gives players an opportunity to feel more fully immersed into the world of (dystopian near-future London). Most people can name Big Ben, Shakespeare’s Globe, the London Eye, and a few other locations as being iconic parts of London, but it’s less popular locations like Southbank Centre and its artistic venues, Camden Market, and St. Pancras station that makes theWatch Dogs Legionexperience feel so diverseand lived-in.
While it’s understandable that small stores and random trash cans and benches aren’t represented exactly as they are in real life, many players are impressed to be able to see a version of London not so far removed from the real one. To many people, landmarks are what makes a city into what it is. A London resident may be disappointed to see some of their favorite places not accurarely represented, but theopen world ofWatch Dogs Legionis very impressive to many people.
The Size
Distance and crowding have been notably cut down, probably because adding in over 8 million NPCs to represent London’s real-life population would have been a massive strain on anyone’s systems. The game does procedurally generate millions of possible NPCs for the player to inhabit, but many of the locations don’t reflect real-life London crowds and traffic confestion. And of course, the in-game map is much smaller than the real deal. TheWatch Dogs Legionmapsize has been calculated to give players about 9 square kilometers or 3.5 square miles to play on, which is a far cry from the real proportions: over 1,500 square kilometers, or over 600 square miles.
Real-world transit in London is a lot more time-consuming and frankly, less exciting. The average Londoner spends a lot of time in a cab or on the Tube subway system, and standing in a packed subway car for extended periods of time just to get to another borough doesn’t sound like fun gameplay for many people. Thankfully,Watch Dogs Legion’s Fast Travelmakes all this a lot easier on players, as it enables players to travel much more quickly to areas they’ve unlocked by visiting. In-game, the narrative is that the player is using the Tube, but as any Londoner knows, riding the trains can take a lot longer than a few seconds.
It’s clear that the designers ofWatch Dogs Legionspent a ton of time trying to reflect London as it is, and trying to show London as it could be in a dystopian future. Although this game may not be the ideal way to explore a true-to-life London like some would-be travelers might like, it’s a highly detailed approximate representation of one of the world’s greatest cities. While to many people, the NPC recruitment aspect is what really sells the game, the setting detail is not to be ignored and helps makeWatch Dogs Legionas complex and colorful as it is.
Watch Dogs: Legionis available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X versions are coming at launch.
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