Ubisoft is going about the promotion of Watch Dogs in a different light; instead of focusing on downgraded graphics or playing up the “next-gen” factor, they've decided to do what Rockstar did to promote GTA V: focus on the gameplay and world interaction.
The trailer is pretty straight-forward, talking up all the exact same interactive world features that Rockstar Games did with GTA V leading up to the game's release. Everyone was excited, the media salivated and the game finally launched with the 360 and PS3's hardware whimpering under the game's massive load.
With Watch Dogs, Ubisoft is playing up the player's ability to interact with a massive game world where the NPCs are more than just backdrop fodder and moving artwork assets.
The trailer puts a strong focus on how the game world will “come to you!” I assume this is to address the common open-world problem suffered in most games where players sort of aimlessly wander around not knowing what to do, or doing nothing until a mission sort of coerces them to. If you want a perfect example of seeing aimless lemmings, check out a bunch of newbs who spawn into Planetside 2 and spend majority of their play time either standing around, wandering around or trying to put certain vehicles where they don't belong.
The idea of having the game come to the players makes some sense, but I wonder exactly how this will play out in between missions without seeming forced or annoying like Roman in Grand Theft IV? It's a fine balancing act when you're dealing with open world games.
One of the other interesting topics of discussion on the Reddit thread centered around a few images of some off-the-wall features in Watch Dogs, including this picture of what looks like Blood Dragon-mode.
Some gamers have pointed to a Watch Dogs ARG that ties-in via mobile devices, but I don't keep up enough with mobile ARG news to make an educated comment about that.
Another image that also had some gamers throwing question marks all the way around the thread centered on an image of a giant robotic spider clinging over the edge of a building. I have to say that it baffles me as well; and even though Watch Dogs is supposed to be in the future, this looks like some Deus Ex meets Robocop stuff.
If there are special modes that you can unlock or partake in, that would be pretty rad. Otherwise, if Ubisoft is hinting at another total conversion mod based on the Watch Dogs engine the same way that Blood Dragon was made from the Far Cry 3 assets, then there's no complaints from me about that. In fact, I might be more interested in the total conversion than Watch Dogs.
You can look for the open-world hacktion title to launch on May 27th of this year for current generation consoles and new generation consoles. The Wii U version is being slightly delayed.
