Three weeks before Watch Dogs 2's release, hackers co-opted millions of connected devices around the world - principally security cameras, but also other web-connected domestic devices - and combined their power in an attack that took great swathes of the internet offline. For most of us, the attack, by perpetrators whose identity remains unknown, was both a short-lived inconvenience (Netflix, Twitter, Reddit, Spotify and even the UK government's website were successfully brought down) and a sobering reminder of the risks of installing wifi in a kettle. The game's development team, by contrast, must have been giddy with satisfaction. The news story precisely mimics the plot of the game in which you play as a member of an elite Bay Area-situated team of hacktivists known as DedSec, a name that echoes real world groups such as GhostSec and LulzSec, who plan to takedown a prying corporation ("Like Big Brother and Little Brother all rolled up into one") by using the internet of things.
During the early days of reviewing Watch Dogs 2, the game's seamless multiplayer, which ambiently draws players into each others' worlds, allowing them to team up for co-op and competitive missions, was working. This functionality came at a major cost, however, causing the game to periodically lag (especially while driving around the city at speed) and even crash the game entirely. Recognising the problem, Ubisoft temporarily disabled seamless multiplayer, instead requiring that players manually connect for these missions. A patch to fix the issue and re-introduce seamless multiplayer has, Ubisoft assures us, been found and is currently in certification by Sony and Microsoft, although it will likely not be ready in time for launch.
Your character, Marcus, a black twenty-something wunderkind hacker (his race is not incidental; it's sometimes used to lightly comment on bigotry) is DedSec's newest recruit. His aim is to inspire as many people as possible to install the group's malware-riddled app on their phones in preparation to issue the mother of all DDoS attacks. Watch Dogs 2's timely theme is not entirely a fortuitous accident. This is an open word adventure that liberally cribs from recent headlines, barely bothering to disguise recent tech-related scandals as it recasts them as missions. From chasing down a rap-loving pharmaceutical company executive, widely hated for raising the price of leukaemia drugs, to hacking into the emails of film studio executives, Watch Dogs 2 is that rarest of things: a blockbuster video game that threatens to have something to say.
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