It's funny, ever since this game was announced it's been on my radar but I never really made time for it.
I have almost a thousand games on my bucket list but as I'm always so busy either with my real full time job or with the projects I dedicate myself to, video games honestly feel more like a guilty pleasure rather than a hobby these days.
And I mean guilty pleasure in the very definition of the work because I always feel guilty whenever I take 5 minutes away from my work to play them.
Like, it's almost baked into me these days that it's a cardinal sin to turn on my PlayStation because I've become that much of a workaholic over the years.
Nevertheless I've amounted an intensely crazy video game collection over the years, having almost 700 games just on my PS5 hard drive alone, which already is crazy but I've always justified it by giving myself an excuse of 'I'm just saving them for a rainy day', which at this point let's face it, is just a coping mechanism for straight up digital hoarding.
Nevertheless, Watchdogs Legion is always a game I've been interested in but never made the time to actually play.
It was never so much the game itself that really interested me as I've always heard mixed things about the game and well, all Ubisoft open world games in general but it was the setting that really captivated my attention.
We haven't had an open world game that takes place in London since The Getaway series, which is a series I've always personally held dear to me even though those games have aged like milk.
I remember in my teens I used to absolutely lose myself just exploring virtual London in The Getaway: Black Monday.
It pretty much became my weekend ritual during my late to mid teens as I would wake up on weekends, boot up my PS2, turn on my stereo, put on some R&B and just walk around London as an NPC, vibing to my favourite albums while exploring all of my favourite landmarks in the game.
It wasn't until years later when I went back to revisit that game that I realised just how jank the game actually was and how badly it's aged.
Impressive for it's time, for sure. It definitely was, but nowhere near as impressive as I always romanticized it in my own head. I was actually shocked over how much of London was actually absent from the game or how much I couldn't explore.
As an adult I work pretty much around the clock these days but I try to at least treat myself once a month or so by travelling. Really only really travelling to Birmingham and/or London as those are the only two places in the UK I love and are easy enough to get to.
Most cities in the UK don't really interest me and most of the other places that do are too far away or too inconvenient to travel to unless I really desperately need a beach vacation, which is extremely rare as I hate crowded places and, let's face it, visiting the beach any other time of year really sucks. Especially in British weather.
Needless to say I spend most of my free time visiting either Birmingham or London whenever I can.
But it was after a recent trip I felt compelled to dust off my PS2 [Which surprisingly still works just as well now as it did back 23 years ago, if a little dustier and stickier. - Seriously dusty old video game controllers always have this gross, icky feeling to them, I don't know how to describe it. The plastic get's all sticky and just feels wrong in your hands, no matter how badly you clean it.]
But I really felt compelled to revisit the Getaway, set up a playlist of my favourite songs on my cheap throwaway laptop and just revisit the old days, walking around London as Sam and acting like a virtual tourist.
It shocked me however, just how much of London was absent from a game who's main selling point is that it takes place in 'Real Life' London. I had to remind myself it's a PS2 era game countless times but, man Did I ever romanticise this game in my own head.
I was more surprised over how much of London WASN'T there over how much that was.
Suppose that was unrealistic to ask, considering what the game is actually about and what the open world was actually meant for.
[Driving from mission to mission, not actually exploring on foot.]
But I couldn't help but feel disappointed nonetheless.
Anyway, fast-forward to 2026 and I'm pretty much busier than ever. I'm really trying to build myself back up on DeviantArt and have dedicated myself hard to it. I've recently started really dedicating myself to a project I started over 25 years ago in my teens called Katherine & Hippoloid.
This project is near and dear to me because this was the first project I ever started and was pretty much what started my ambitions in the first place.
My dream in life was always to be a video game designer and be one of the greats. Idolizing heroes like Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuki Naka, Yu Suzuki and Peter Molyneux.
Three out of four of those people have let me down over the years in amazing ways but nevertheless the inspiration to follow in those footsteps was always there.
Life sadly took me in a different direction but I never gave up on the dream and always looked for ways to make my goals happen, even if it was out of my own pocket, working as an independent one man team while living in a small apartment and working a full time job to stay afloat. Whatever I got to do to make my dreams a reality is worth the labour in my opinion.
But I have another journal or two where I go in deep with all that.
So, recently I've found myself with a lot of downtime as I have two weeks off work. I always try to use my vacation time to be as productive as possible and dedicate myself to my projects but there's always that one part of you that needs a break from the grind so you don't go crazy and feel your own project is a chore anchoring you down.
I always feel like it's a guilty pleasure to turn on my PlayStation because there's always that voice in my head overwhelmingly calling me selfish and lazy for doing so but when you need a break you need a break.
And... you know how when you turn on your video game system and your met with so many options you just can't decide on anything? That's what it's like for me every single time.
I hate playing new games that are unfamiliar to me because it means I have to get used to the game mechanics from scratch and it just feels like such an overwhelming chore not knowing if the game is even going to be good or if it's going to suck me in or feel like an overwhelming slog to play.
You know that feeling?
I try to limit myself to no more than 5 games at a time and only tell myself to try something new once at least one of those games is 100% complete.
It never happens and I usually end up with like 2 dozen games with a 1-5% complete save file that I just abandon after a single day play session and never come back to it. I hate doing that, but I also find it hard to just laser focus and just play one single game from start to finish.
Was easy back in the day when games could be completed front to back over a single weekend but games these days can take literal weeks, if not months to complete... if ever!
That's the selling point of games these days, to make them as cream filled as possible to keep players invested. For me that's overwhelming. I prefer fun experiences I can knock out in 10 hours or less then move onto the next one but I get it from the developer/publisher side of it as well.
You want players glued to your game and only your game. You want that player retention, you want gamers to spend months in your game and only your game. Is what it is, I get it.
But, for me personally I prefer story driven experiences I can sink myself into. Mainly open world games I can just lose myself in.
Cyberpunk 2077 is really the only game I put aside this year to enjoy without feeling overwhelmingly guilty about it.
[That's how I do it, I give myself at least ONE Hail Mary pass. One game I'm allowed to play without arguing with myself over how I'm wasting my own life. - Ironic as designing video games is my passion, yet playing video games is my cardinal sin.]
[I'm just a wired workaholic I guess? I mean even Hayao Miyazaki hates anime apparently and considers it brain rot. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if you told me Jackie Chan hates watching movies. Workaholics are just wired differently I guess? Hell, even Yu Suzuki hates playing Video Games despite spending his entire life as a game developer. It's crazy when you say it out loud, huh?]
Anyway, anyway I'm going way off topic.
Cyberpunk 2077 is really the only game I put aside to play without feeling too guilty about it but now that game is mostly done outside of actively avoiding meeting Hanako at Embers to do all the pointless, tedious side quests and mindless crap in-between.
But I felt I needed a break from Cyberpunk and wanted to at least try sinking my teeth into something new. That strangely led me back to Watchdogs Legion. A game that's been on my bucket list since it was first announced, has been staring me directly in the face ever since but I never made the time or day for.
[Hell I still haven't touched the Yakuza series despite every single game in the collection just sitting on my hard drive just begging for my affection.]
But nevertheless, I wanted to at least try this game, for two reasons.
One, I really wanted to see how well and how accurately this game captured the look and feel of London. That was always the selling point that got me into The Getaway series back on PS2.
[Hell, it was the main reason I even wanted a PS2.]
And I wanted to see how well London is portrayed this time around.
The other reason is political.
I try to keep politics off of my channel and out of my personal life for reasons that I feel should be obvious but may not be to others.
Things in the UK are bad and frankly I don't like talking about it because... well, if you know, you know... It's more that I feel I can't talk about my personal feelings rather than I simply don't want to.
But Watchdogs Legion recently came up in my mind because of the political situation that takes place within the game world and how it's eerily starting to match events in the real UK almost 1:1, which I don't think was ever the developers intention but nevertheless is uncanny how accurate the politics in the game are starting to mirror the politics in the real world.
This game takes place in a near future cyberpunk dystopia where the people of the UK live in constant fear of their own government and an oppressive security contractor named Albion, who have pretty much taken over the entire country.
[Or at least the city. You never hear anything about politics outside of London in this game world, you only hear of London as if it's become it's own sovereign city-state in a way.]
But it's uncanny to me how the politics in this game are mirroring our day to day life almost toe to toe in a nightmarishly accurate degree. I try not to say this openly but it feels we are one toe in a hot bathtub away from becoming the reality in Watchdogs Legion, it's that uncanny to me.
Albion legit gives me chills in this game. I've never seen an oppressive regime in fiction give me chills like this before, just because of how close to home this actually all hits.
But, politics aside. The other reason I wanted to play this game was to see how accurate they got London.
We haven't had an open world video game take place in our capital City since The Getaway games and it always disappointed me how the third game was cancelled as I was so looking forward to being able to explore London in a next gen gaming experience.
Enter Watchdogs Legion to scratch that itch.
It's funny because I was actually in London not a week before giving this a try so it's landmarks were still fresh in my mind and I really wanted to see how accurate they got it.
That was this games main selling point for me and despite this taking place in a cyberpunk future, I desperately wanted to recreate my recent trip to London in-game just to see if it was possible.
If it was possible to recapture my old play sessions with The Getaway as a teen and just walk around my favourite landmarks as an NPC and just breathe it all in.
It's funny because I was never at the time actually planning to get hooked into this game, I merely just wanted to be set loose into the overworld so I could head to Piccadilly Circus and start exploring from there.
I forced myself to slog through the opening mission, get through the cutscenes, blah blah blah. I really didn't want to be sucked in, I just wanted to explore the world itself.
One thing that surprisingly hooked me though was the insane level of customisation and attention to detail this game offers.
Watchdogs Legions main selling point is the fact you can recruit and play as any NPC in the game and build a roster of playable characters based on the NPCS you recruit [from old ladies to construction workers or police officers], but it never occurred to me just how insane the level of customisation really was. I had no idea you could customize the NPCS themselves, and that the level of customization would almost make Saints Row blush.
Every single NPC in the game can be customised almost down to the same level as The Sims. It's pretty insane how much detail went into every aspect of this games customization. It really is.
There are tons of clothing stores in the game that all have unique clothes you can buy that can be applied to anyone you recruit, allowing you to really have fun with the game and really go nuts with it.
I originally started playing as a default female cosplayer [Harriet Park] as she was the only semi-attractive character I had at my disposal at the time.
Once I learned I could remove her default clothing and customise her look to my liking I found myself completely hooked and falling in love with this character.
She became my sole protagonist and I saw no reason to play as anyone else and was solely recruiting people for mere collateral and nothing else. I think you can have up to 20 members in your team. I could be wrong.
But I was just recruiting NPCS that seemed interesting for the sake of doing so, I had no plans to play as anyone else throughout the overwhelming majority of my playtime.
I mean I do the same in other games as well. Once I have my character just the way I like them I see no reason to change. Why mess with perfection?
I've clocked in around 400+ to 700+ hours with Cyberpunk 2077 and I think I've only changed V's look like 3 times throughout my entire play session, and even then I keep referring back to my 'Corpo Marylyn Monroe Look'. Why mess with perfection?
It just looks badass playing as a Merc in an executive suit. You know she means business. Literally.
She's dressed as a professional hitwoman you don't want to ever fuck with.
Anyway, bringing thing back to Watchdogs. I'd pretty much made up my mind that Harriet Park was my number one gal, my waifu, the type of gal you'd want to share a sundae with and take down to lovers lane to watch the sunset over 1950's suburban Minnesota. My special one time gal.
Sadly though, Harriet Park sucks in combat and almost every single encounter I would have I would find myself either arrested or in the hospital, out of commission and forced to play as another NPC until she recovers or is let out of Jail.
Thankfully I had the good graces to turn permadeath off. I just wanted to dip my toe in this game, I really didn't like the idea of characters I invested my time and energy into dropping like flies over a single mistake.
I already find encounters terrifying enough and cower like a bitch relying on spider-drones for everything. Last thing I want is my character straight up dying if I mess up.
I get the appeal, but... ehh, permadeath in video games is too much of a pill for me to swallow.
Even in The Sims I strictly play with aging turned off.
I do not spent 700+ hours on my look, just for my character to experience the same mortal burdens we all must face.
But either way, Harriet Park was no longer doing it for me so I set to build up a new character from scratch. This led me to creating my new favourite character who I proudly dub 'Femboy Chav'.
A crossdressing femboy influencer who just so happens to be an amateur MMA fighter who grew up on the streets and has the chaviest accent I've ever heard in a single piece of media, and I love it.
This is my new main character now. I'm gonna be playing as him for the rest of the game.
I feel that's how this game is meant to be played TBH. Just having endless fun with the insane character customisation and giving your own characters their own crazy backstory.
Like 'Hypnotic Mildred' who got evicted from her council estate block for selling morphine to children and hosting illegal dog fights.
Or 'PC Peeping Tony' who was a former chief constable who got kicked out of the force for doing a John Lasseter and constantly following female police officers into the ladies bathroom and peeping under the stalls, telling them how lovely and ravishing they look every time they pull their knickers down and try to pee.
I love how much fun you can have with this game.
As for the game itself. It's eerie how much this gives me Cyberpunk 2077 vibes. It's not as polished as Cyberpunk. It's almost there but the driving controls and combat leave a lot to be desired, but going from Cyberpunk 2077 into this was surprisingly easy.
You fit right into the gameplay mechanics shockingly more comfortably than I was ever expecting to.
Playing a new open world sandbox game usually intimidates me because these games are designed to be huge time sinks that eat up a huge chunk of your free time, have 100's of side quests to keep you engaged and usually have mechanics you have to learn from scratch.
Meaning if you spend a year playing GTA V then immediately switch to Cyberpunk or Far Cry or whatever, it's never as easy as you wish it could be. You have to have those game mechanics memorized to muscle.
That's why I hate starting new games because I always worry my brain can only hold and process so much information and if I learn the game mechanics of one game, I'm gonna forget how to play another and would have to start that game over from scratch when I go back to it.
Thankfully it's never happened and thankfully this isn't too hard to get into if you're already familiar with Cyberpunk 2077.
The game feels less polished, but it almost has the same feel and vibe. Your smartphone capabilities almost being one to one to net running in Cyberpunk. It's that similar.
As for the game itself. It's not perfect for sure, but I'm enjoying it far more than I ever planned to.
Like I originally said, my main goal with this game was to explore London to see how accurate they got it, and while it's not a perfect recreation of London, I was surprised over how well it captured the 'feel' of London.
Kind of how GTA V captures the feel of being in LA, even if it's not a perfect 1:1 recreation. Or GTA IV with Manhattan. You have to remind yourself this takes place in an alternate reality, and the minute you do so, that's when you can switch your brain off and just have fun with it.
That said, I am surprised at how much they did include though. Even going as far to include Charing Cross Station, St. James Park and a lot of the iconic statues I'm used to seeing whenever I visit London IRL.
It was a pleasant surprise just how much I could explore that I didn't think they would of bothered to include, even if a part of me was disappointed it wasn't a 1:1 scale or that the real shop advertisements don't exist in this game. [Boots, Waterstones, Burger King, Etc]
One other thing I do want to bring up is the game mechanics.
The amount of customization you can bring to your characters is uncanny and I'm having way more fun than I thought, recruiting all these fun and wacky characters into my game.
I originally planned to play it straight and not get too invested as I knew permadeath was a feature in this game.
Thankfully it's optional and can be turned off, but I never planned to get too invested in the random NPCS I recruited because I just assumed they'd be interchangeable and disposable.
Thankfully recruiting NPCS and getting to shape their backstories is where the meat of the game really hooks you in but the same sadly can't be said for the game mechanics.
Even though this feels right at home for fans of GTA or Cyberpunk 2077, the areas where it should really matter feel... 'just good enough'.
The driving mechanics feel 'good enough'. Driving any vehicle never feels like a pleasure in this game, especially considering how you're 'supposed' to be the good guys so you want to avoid ramming over pedestrians or driving recklessly.
The cars in this game really have no real weight to them and every time I get behind the wheel, it never feels pleasant. I almost try to avoid driving altogether because I never feel comfortable behind the wheel in any scenario.
Even the in-game radio is easily the weakest and worst aspect of the game. The one thing you would of thought should be a priority in any GTA style game and it fails miserably.
The music in this game is horrible. No love or thought was put into any of it and there is seemingly no way to even turn the radio station up so it's like the music is constantly stuck at 35% volume.
I'm using expensive high end headphones with an expensive personal setup rig so I shouldn't be hearing music that sounds like it's coming from a dollar store Bluetooth speaker. They put no effort and love into it whatsoever.
Even the combat mechanics just feel ...'good enough'.
The martial arts feels like it's trying to mimic Sleeping Dogs but gave up halfway. The shooting mechanics feel 'just good enough' but nothing has that OOMPH to it. That weight to it.
Shooting in Cyberpunk 2077 feels like an orgasm. Every single bullet has such a weight to it, it's a hard feeling to describe, it's like, blowing up a watermelon in slow motion with a laser guided rail gun, it just feels so damn satisfying.
Here, the fighting, shooting, driving... it almost feels like an afterthought. Like they just wanted it to be good enough, just be passable to sell you on it being an open world GTA style game, without actually caring if it feels like one.
Even when exploring London, the one thing that really put me off is the lack of any real world advertisements.
I had to convince myself that this takes place in an alternate universe just to get sucked in but even something like GTA would go above and beyond with it's in-game advertisements to sell you on this world.
Burger Shot instead of Burger King. Clucking Bell instead of McDonalds, Sprunk Soda instead of 7UP, Weazel News instead of Fox News. Actual thought was put into making this world feel believable and 'lived in', y'know?
The fact that this takes place in real world London constantly throws me off when I see 'Generic Bank' where Boots should be in Piccadilly Circus. 'Generic Starbucks Clone' instead of Burger King in Leicester Square. Generic Cinema instead of the ODEON or the VUE.
At least TRY and give a damn about the world you're trying to create.
This really does give off mixed messages on where the games priorities were when making it because I can tell real effort and passion went into crafting the experience and selling you on the idea that this is a cyberpunk dystopian London where any single person could be a rebel who fights for freedom, but at the same time you're constantly reminded that this is a game that also exists to please a million dollar publisher and release within budget and on a deadline.
No effort was put into getting licenced music in the game [And if they did I sure as hell can't hear it because the volumes seemingly stuck at 30% whenever I get into a car]
Little effort was put into the combat and driving mechanics. I almost feel like Woody Allen every time I get into a dangerous encounter. Even just taking on a single Albion guard I'm like "This is where I die."
I don't know if you get stronger as the game progresses. I sure hope you do, but so far it feels like who I am is who I'll remain until the game's over.
Could be wrong, but I think the games whole selling point is that you're playing as a disposable NPC who experiences permadeath whenever they take a bullet.
I don't think care was actually put into building you up in any meaningful way.
'Could be wrong'.
All in all I love what this game is trying to be but I wish they had a little more time to see it all the way through. I'm still early in the game so time will tell if my opinion changes or if it's like Cyberpunk where you start off weak but feel like a God of pure wrath by the end of it.
I remember starting that game feeling like Woody Allen in a Maximum Security Prison and by the end of it felt like I could take on an entire army with a single revolver and not even think twice about it.
I hope this game gives me the same feeling but, I dunno. I'm gonna have to get more sucked into it first.
I'm loving that it makes me want to though.
------
Just wanted to throw in an update.
I've been playing the game more since the last update and have been finding myself getting really sucked into it's world, a lot more than I originally thought I would.
I still stand by a lot of my previous criticisms, they are valid but they really haven't hampered my enjoyment of the game in anyway. The more you play the more you really do get sucked in.
I do love how what you do in the game actually matters and affects the world as a whole. As you complete missions and side quests the NPCS being victimized by Albion eventually work up the courage to rally against their oppressive government. I figured that's what the game was going with, but I really love the way it's implemented as it really helps make the side quests feel less tedious and really motivates you to want to do every single thing the game has to offer.
I'm really a sucker for when open world games do that, I honestly wish all of them did. It makes what you're doing feel like it actually matters as you're not just doing it for a mere cash reward or just to tick off a checklist, it actually affects the world around you and you see in real time how your every action makes a difference.
Even recruiting new members and watching your underground movement grow is immensely more satisfying than I ever gave it credit for.
I just saw the members you recruited originally as disposable NPCS you could swap between and just used them basically as an 'Extra Life' if my main character gets shot or arrested during a mission, but the characters you recruit actually DO matter and I love how they're actually out in the open world doing their own thing and actually making a difference even while you're out there in the world trying to make a difference your way.
It actually goes a long way into selling that this 'IS' an organized underground group of people who are all trying to make a difference in the world and not just a bunch of random video game NPCS you can recruit for the sake of doing so.
I really didn't give Ubisoft enough credit for how much effort went into this, I just assumed this was a gimmick to sell the game, not something they actually put a lot of thought and care into.
It's interesting getting notifications of what the other characters you recruit are actually doing in the world and really does go a long way in making you feel like you're actually part of a group YOU created, rather than just you doing everything while you have a bunch of random NPCS you can swap between when you get bored or need a break.
I wish more games would take note of this, it's a really great feature.
I also ended up creating a new main for myself as well. I call him 'Cockney Asian Femboy'.
I couldn't resist. I just love how crazy detailed the customization is in this game, you can really have fun with it.
Honestly I think this might be a new favourite game for me. I'm really loving this world far more than I ever was planning to. I honestly just wanted to see how well they captured London and be done with. I really was not planning to get sucked into this.
