Welcome to London
The Watch Dogs games have all focused on The United States so far, but London seems like a natural progression given the storyline that Ubisoft are working with. Set in a Post-Brexit version of the city, Scotland has left the union, Wales is on the flag, and the government has hired a private security group with their own army to keep the citizens of the city in line.
Unlike in previous games in the series, however, there’s a more obvious sci-fi bent. True, advanced technology has always been a staple of the Watch Dogs games, but this time it seems to have taken off in a big way in London, where the citizens seemingly can’t even move for holographic queens, Big Ben projects the current threat level, and drones are constantly whizzing through the air.
We also get some hints at a more political storyline, despite Ubisoft’s claims that the game doesn’t take a side in the Brexit debate; there are separate checkpoints for EU and Non-EU citizens throughout the city, homelessness is rife, and the police can seemingly stop and search any citizen they want to, albeit with the use of smartphone cameras to do so. It’s likely that the game won’t take sides in the Brexit debate, which still proves divisive, but simply took an opportunity to explore the possible repercussions.
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In a lot of ways, the game reads almost like Black Mirror does Brexit, something that’s compounded by the fact that a new Beekeeper class has been revealed, which controls a swarm of nano-bees much like those featured in the episode Hated in the Nation. Given that Watch Dogs 2 made waves with a more fun take on the series’ core concepts compared to the first game’s grim atmosphere, it’s interesting that Legion is seemingly taking a middle ground while still tackling some real-world issues, and given that the game won the coveted Best Action-Adventure Game award at Gamescon 2020, it’s clear that I’m not the only one excited.
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