However, the franchise – or at least the company’s interest in it – may not be completely dead. Despite Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson recently stating this on his podcast, industry insider shinobi602 responded on ResetEra, “Not exactly.”

Well, sure, because that Watch_Dogs movie is still in production (which Henderson also noted). But when asked if he was referring to this or games, shinobi602 replied, “I am not talking about a movie.” Of course, he didn’t clarify specifically what he meant.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean Ubisoft is going to pull back the covers on Watch_Dogs 4: The Search for Aiden Pearce. Outside of a game, it could mean 60 FPS updates for the current trilogy, similar to what Far Cry 3 Classic Edition, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Classic Edition, and Far Cry Primal received on consoles recently. It’s difficult to say, but even if it wasn’t mentioned as part of Ubisoft’s big organizational reset, Watch_Dogs may be more in limbo than outright “gone.”

Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest is a brutal survival game that tasks players to hold their backs against cannibalistic primals with only a limited few resources to spare. It presents its brutal world with gorgeous graphics and striking attention to detail, and the gradual process of collecting resources and becoming more powerful is one that will keep you hooked for dozens upon dozens of hours. Add to that the ability to enjoy exploring with friends, and Sons of the Forest becomes a great option for a co-op open-world experience.

We are, of course, talking about Watch_Dogs, which was an attempt to create a new-age open-world action game centered around hacking. Over the course of just three major entries, Watch_Dogs has managed to garner quite a following for itself, and the latest entry Legion has been received pretty well by fans and critics alike. However, it’s been close to three years since Legion came out and the lack of any updates on a new entry is rather surprising. So, what the hell is going on here?

The first Watch_Dogs was marketed as a showcase title for the power of eighth-generation consoles, and the E3 2012 gameplay trailer showcased a ton of impressive lighting effects and an open world that looked better than anything else on the market. Trees would sway to the tune of the winds, NPCs would behave in a realistic manner, the rain effects looked slick, and much more. Expectation from fans was at an all-time high, and all that was left for the developer was to deliver on its promise for Watch_Dogs to be a smash hit.

Watch_Dogs would finally release in May 2014, and it was generally well received among critics. A rather respectable Metacritic score of 80 backs that sentiment. Watch_Dogs had some fresh gameplay ideas, and while the open-world was generally cut from the same cloth as other open-worlds – it made for an enjoyable adventure nevertheless. The story surrounding Aiden Pearce’s revenge is compelling in some aspects, but it also felt a bit too bland as the characters lacked any form of personality.

But the biggest criticism by far with Watch_Dogs was its graphics downgrade. It was evident that corners had been cut when compared to that E3 trailer, and the visuals were just not up to those pre-release standards. This in turn sparked a ton of controversy over the internet and outrage. Despite being a decent game, Watch_Dogs is generally deemed as one of the biggest letdowns of that year. Regardless, Watch_Dogs managed to make some impressive sales with over 10 million copies sold in its lifetime. All in all, the developer knew that Watch_Dogs’ IP had a lot of potential, and there was money to be made with a potential sequel that can correct the original’s shortcomings.

Jump to November 2016, and Watch_Dogs 2 was released for consoles and PC after just being announced earlier that year. There was a ton of skepticism surrounding this release due to the first game’s controversies, but most of those worries eventually turned into anticipation as favorable reviews started flowing across the internet.

Watch_Dogs 2 transports players to a high-tech rendition of San Francisco, and you take on the role of a new protagonist Marcus Halloway as he joins the Dedsec organization in an effort to take down the intrusive ctOS 2.0 network. Watch_Dogs 2 ditches the overtly grim tone of the original, and instead presents a colorful cast of characters that have a ton of personality – and it works well to create a markedly more engaging narrative than the original.

The gameplay had also seen major improvements, with the addition of parkour being one of the biggest additions to the player’s set of movements. You also get new tools to play with such as drones and RC cars to remotely hack systems, and all of this beautifully comes together in the game’s set of open-ended missions where you can use these tools in interesting ways to complete objectives. Even the multiplayer component was a lot more fun this time around. It featured a total of four distinct game modes that served as a worthy distraction from the single-player component.

There were still some apparent technical flaws within the experience, which were later patched, but by and large – Watch_Dogs 2 was a worthy sequel that corrected almost every shortcoming of the original. Fans absolutely loved it, and the game once again sold pretty well – despite originally having fewer pre-orders than the first game. The developer reported that Watch_Dogs 2 sold well over 10 million copies, and now that the franchise’s reputation was restored once again, the future was looking pretty bright for the IP as a whole.

Fast forward to 2020, the industry saw the release of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X | S. A new Watch Dogs subtitled Legion also joined the party. The game followed a similar pattern of a relatively short marketing cycle with an announcement in 2019 and a release set to align with the new consoles’ release in late 2020. Set against the backdrop of a futuristic London, Legion offered a brand new twist to the Watch Dogs experience. Instead of playing as a fixed protagonist, you have the option to recruit any NPC to your cause and play as that person.

It’s a rather fresh mechanic that was executed well enough, though Legion was not immune to some inherent flaws that come along with this new system. Each NPC has their own set of abilities and special tools that enable more personal expression in the gameplay, but the lack of a well-written protagonist also means that you don’t get a story that involves any personal stakes.

As for the gameplay, Legion builds upon what came before – and refines the mechanics in some neat ways. The systemic open-world design of prior entries was brought over but since there were different characters to play, it also meant that there were different tools, gadgets, and styles to play with. The open world of futuristic London also looks stunning with excellent attention to detail. It’s a mostly great game, but reception seems to be somewhat divisive as some fans didn’t really jive with the play-as-anyone mechanic.

The developer tried to solve those complaints with Bloodline, a post-launch DLC. At the end of the day, despite some problems, Legion seems to have largely turned out to be a successful venture. We don’t know how much the game has sold to date, but Legion reportedly sold almost 2 million copies in just three days – which was an impressive start to say the very least.

It’s already close to three years since Legion released, and there’s little information on what’s next for the future of the franchise. Looking at release patterns of prior entries, The developer has churned out a new Watch_Dogs game every three to four years on average. Between this and the impressive sales of Legion, it’s a rather curious case as to why we haven’t heard anything of a new Watch Dogs in development.

As you can already imagine, it’s pretty hard to pinpoint why that is the case exactly, but all speculation point to Mirage being the biggest fish. In addition to the upcoming entry this year, we have Red, Hexe, and Jade in development right now alongside a VR game and a standalone multiplayer game called Invictus.

As such, the developer might just not have the bandwidth to undertake a new Watch_Dogs project at the moment, though we suspect that this will change at some point in the near future. Sales figures and critical reception are proof that there is a lot of potential in the Watch_Dogs IP, and it’s very likely that the developer will eventually circle back to this franchise. Exactly when, though? That is one question that will likely will not be answered for a while.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Days Gone

While the Freaker Hordes tend to be powerful threats, many of the Bandits in Days Gone are just dumb. It’s extremely easy to sneak up and kill them within a few feet of their allies without causing a stir. You can murder heaps of enemies from a bush simply because the others fail to react when one goes down. To think that these stray humans managed to survive when the Freakers are clearly smarter.

Some controversies in 2014 were odd, like Hatred which ignited public outcry due to the fact that you could murder innocent civilians. Did anyone who complained even play Grand Theft Auto? We’re just saying. Watch Dogs’ visual degradation and boring gameplay was a subject of much controversy, especially when you factor in all the bugs. It only set the stage for a bigger controversy though.

It was odd to see the controversy created over Rise of the Tomb Raider being exclusive to the Xbox One and Xbox 360 when it releases in Holidays 2015. Forget the fact that it’s a timed exclusive, Microsoft was looked at in a negative light for paying extra to net a third party selling point for their console. Of course, then Capcom announced Street Fighter 5 as exclusive to the PS4 so really, third party exclusives in this day and age aren’t a major shocker.

What was a major shocker was a game’s launch being screwed up so bad that the developer actually had to offer free DLC and games as compensation.

Nominees:

• Assassin’s Creed Unity Broken At Launch
• Hatred
• Watch Dogs Broken At Launch
• Rise of the Tomb Raider Xbox One Exclusivity

Winner: Assassin’s Creed Unity Broken at Launch

We refer to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity naturally. The game shipped with micro-transactions in the interface and asked players to put down as much as $99 for extra currency. We already talked about the gameplay and story issues above.

It’s just amazing to us that Ubisoft could release Unity in as broken a state as it was. The 900p resolution and 30 FPS frame rate for Xbox One and PS4 ruffled a few feathers but it made no difference when everyone had a shitty frame rate to deal with. Facial animations broke at the drop of a hat, revealing horrors that remain etched in our minds till this day. Glitches, save data issues, copy-pasted crowd individuals, disappearing crowd individuals, draw distance problems, co-op problems – you could spend a week checking off the number of ways Unity was broken.

For all the broken mechanics though, it was simply angering that Ubisoft didn’t delay the game. You could make the argument of a yearly release and shareholders and whatnot but even EA delayed Battlefield: Hardline to allow for more polish. When you’ve done worse than EA in terms of disappointing players at launch, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere in life.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.

Boy, was this a year for disappointments.

There were plenty of divisive opinions about Bungie’s Destiny, which had several issues at launch with its core gameplay mechanics and still doesn’t have enough content at this stage (don’t even get us started on the Exotic Upgrades shit-storm). Plenty of people still find it fun to this day but suffice to say, we expected a lot more from the minds that put Halo on the map.

Watch Dogs was an even bigger cluster of insanity. The game went through several reveals where the visuals seemed to be dumbed down further and further. When the game was released, it was rife with bugs and issues. Even worse, the story was simply boring while protagonist Aiden Pearce came across as lame and unlikeable. The hacking mechanics were nice but it stood out as a game that still need a lot of work (keep that in mind, by the way).

Eidos Montreal’s Thief was a much simpler case: For all the delays and development troubles, it wasn’t expected to be good. When it released, it wasn’t. Case closed. It wouldn’t have been considered if it hadn’t been in development for so long.

Nominees:

• Assassin’s Creed Unity
• Watch Dogs
• Destiny
• Thief

Winner: Assassin’s Creed Unity

Why did Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Unity sting so much more than Watch Dogs? Was it because the company won back our trust with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag? Was it because it was looking to improve the core parkour mechanics while focusing on the PS4, Pc and Xbox One only, bringing large crowds and massive, detailed environments to the mix? Was it because we didn’t think the company could disappoint us much further after Watch Dogs?

As it turns out, it was a combination of all of the above and then some. Assassin’s Creed: Unity launched in an utterly broken state with frame rate issues, glitches, horrible AI and unplayable co-op. The worst part of it all wasn’t that Unity was a great game hindered by so many issues at launch.

No, it was simply because for all the hype that Ubisoft put forth, Assassin’s Creed: Unity was simply okay. The large crowds looked pretty, sure, but the missions were unimaginative especially in co-op. The movement system was even more hit-or-miss than ever and the story was odd and simply relegated the whole Assassins-Templar war to the background while focusing on the romance between Arno and Elise. Nothing was advanced or furthered and it didn’t feel like the series really evolved with Unity – and keep in mind, that this is without Ubisoft doing its damndest to break everything about the game.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.

We are kicking off our 6th annual Game of the Year awards with the Worst Game of the Year. With each new year, there’s both a new and existing crop of developers that intentionally or unintentionally wake up and think to themselves, “How can I make a mark on this industry?” Some succeed beyond their wildest dreams, some become encumbered by their own hubris (and consequently sweep our most notorious awards) and some just outright fail.

Oddly enough, the over-hyped Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed: Unity netted nominations for the worst games of the year. It’s amazing when you consider that when fully patched and lacking any issues, both games are decent. Since they were marketed to be amazing, however, they automatically become less than great when they fail to live up to expectations. Mix in never-ending heaps of bugs and you’ll likely find them to be the worst games ever made.

Alas, neither is the worst game of 2014 (or any other year). Escape Dead Island was a uniformly horrible exercise, especially when you consider that the events of the game may or may not have happened. There was only one clear winner though and sadly, it’s not the first or second win of his career.

Nominees:

• Assassin’s Creed: Unity
• Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
• Escape Dead Island
• Watch Dogs

Winner: Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric

Where does one begin?

Over the course of his illustrious career, Sonic the Hedgehog has gone from being Mario’s greatest rival to Sega’s biggest running joke. With each new Sonic game after the admittedly solid Sonic Adventure 2, Sega came up with new gimmicks for good ol’ blue. A romantic relationship with a female princess? A talking sword? Colourful little critters? A werehog? An entire reboot of the franchise? It’s telling that Sonic’s greatest success in the past few years has been Sonic Generations which re-captures the magic of the franchise’s highlights.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric unfortunately takes it to brand new lows. From the redesign of the characters to the awful humour and focus on melee combat, Sega was determined to neuter every last bit of the hero we loved with Rise of Lyric. The saddest part? This is par for the course of Sonic and pretty soon, there will be yet another attempt at making him relevant again.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.

Yesterday Ubisoft announced the release date of the much anticipated open world hacking game Watch Dogs. Finally, after a long delay the game will be released across current and next-gen consoles on May 27th. But something was missing.

According to several users, the game didn’t look as sharp as when it was first shown at E3 2012. This resulted in backlash from the community and to make matters worse, the PS4 and Xbox One are rumored to have different resolutions, with the former reportedly running at 1080p compared to the latter which runs at 960p.

Industry insider Ahsan Rasheed, who goes by the name “thuway” on NeoGAF, says that everything is far from rosy at Ubisoft. “Heard folks internally at Ubisoft are absolutely frightened because backlash against Watch Dogs was much stronger than anyone anticipated.”

Rasheed also didn’t believe that console gamers were setting their expectations too high. “Have you seen the Order? Ryse? Shadow Fall? Looks next gen to me. Oh and did I forget, Second Son?”

He continued by tweeting that, “My expectations are in line, the game was built around a foundation that just isn’t what I personally expect from a next gen game.”

What are your thoughts? Does Watch Dogs feel like a significant step down from what was initially promised? Or is this all irrelevant when it comes to the gameplay? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Watch Dogs will be releasing for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, with the Wii U version out later.

You just had to figure that one or the other open world game developers would have something to say on the day of Grand Theft Auto 5’s release. We’ve already seen Volition stating that the “GAT V” DLC is now available for PC, and now Ubisoft is stepping up to the plate in preparation for the November release of Watch_Dogs. The picture above, posted on Ubisoft Nordic’s Facebook page, says it all really.

But are two months really enough in Los Santos? That remains to be seen. As it stands, Watch_Dogs will take a completely different approach, allowing you to hack into various aspects of Chicago’s CtOS system in order to bend the system to your will. This means stopping trains, setting up road blocks, hacking back accounts and generally being the literal super man from the machine that you can be.

Watch_Dogs will be releasing for PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U on November 19th in North America and to the Xbox One on November 22nd worldwide. Stay tuned for more.

Via: Reddit

Of course, gamers can also check out 2014-bound titles such as The Crew and The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot. The lineup will be present at booth #612, with PAX Prime taking part in Washington, Seattle from August 30th to September 2nd. Theater showings, pre-order incentives and companion apps (especially the ctOS Mobile app for Watch_Dogs) are all on the card.

Games like Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and The Crew will be available for hands-on time, with LAN games also planned for The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot and Might & Magic Duel of Champions.