Watch Dogs 2 is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to 2014's Watch Dogs and the second installment in the Watch Dogs series. It was released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows in November 2016, and for Stadia in December 2020. Set within San Francisco Bay Area, the game is played from a third-person perspective and its open world is navigated on-foot or by vehicle. Players control Marcus Holloway, a hacker who works with the hacking group DedSec to take down the city's advanced surveillance system known as ctOS. There are multiple ways to complete missions, and each successful assignment increases the follower count of DedSec. Cooperative multiplayer allows for competitive one-on-one combat and connecting with other players to neutralize a player who is causing havoc.
Ubisoft Montreal studied player feedback from the first game to assess what could be improved in Watch Dogs 2 and the setting was researched by making frequent trips to California. Ubisoft Reflections was responsible for overhauling the driving mechanic. Real hackers were consulted to validate scripts and game mechanics for authenticity and references to real-life hacktivism were fictionalized, like the Project Chanology protest. The original soundtrack was composed by Hudson Mohawke. The game was released to overall positive reception from critics which praised the game for improving upon the original Watch Dogs in areas like the hacking, setting, characters, and driving controls. However, the characterization and frequent technical issues – later patched – were cited as imperfections. Watch Dogs 2 had sold more than 10 million copies by March 2020. A sequel, Watch Dogs: Legion, was released on October 29, 2020.
Gameplay Similar to its predecessor, Watch Dogs 2 is an action-adventure game with stealth elements and played from a third-person perspective as Marcus Holloway, a young hacker. The game features an open world set in the San Francisco Bay Area, an area more than twice as large as the Chicagoland setting from Watch Dogs. It consists of four different areas: San Francisco, Oakland, Marin County (including the city of Sausalito), and Silicon Valley. Players can navigate the game's world on-foot or by the various vehicles featured in the game, such as cars, trucks, buses, cable cars, motorcycles, quad bikes, and boats. The driving mechanic was overhauled and designed to be more accessible. The player can shoot their weapons while driving. Marcus also has improved acrobatic skills, and the ability to parkour around the city. The player can use different methods to approach the game's missions, choosing between the aggressive approach, in which they defeat enemies with guns which are made with a 3D printer; explosives, like mines; or Marcus's own melee weapon, a billiard ball attached to a bungee cord. Alternatively, the player can use the stealth approach, in which they can evade enemies or paralyze them temporarily with Marcus's taser. Watch Dogs 2, like its predecessor, places a particular emphasis on using environmental apparatus and the terrain to Marcus' advantage. For example, a player may hack an A/C unit to produce an electric shock when an enemy nears it. Marcus may also employ his own modular taser devices and explosives to use tactically against enemies. When law enforcement witnesses the player committing a crime, or is alerted by a non-player character (NPC), police officers will attempt to arrest the player. The game upgrades system is a returning feature, with items being divided into three categories: Ghost, Aggressor, and Trickster. Upgrades can be customized according to playstyles.
Marcus can hack into various electronic devices connected to the ctOS system with his in-game smartphone. For example, Marcus can modify the personal information of NPCs to have them arrested or attacked by one of the various gangs such as the 580s, the Tezcas, the Auntie Shu Boys, the Bratva or the Sons of Ragnarok, hack and manipulate every mobile phone featured in the game, disrupt traffic by hacking cars and traffic lights, hack into monitoring cameras, and carry out "mass hacking", which hacks the electrical equipment of a large group of people. The player can also gain multiple options while hacking the same object. For instance, if the player attempts to hack a car, they can gain direct control over them, or have the car lose control and crash in a random direction. Unlike Aiden, the protagonist of the first game, Marcus has an arsenal of advanced equipment, including a quadcopter and remote-controlled car, both of which can be used for remote hacking and scouting. Marcus' apparel can be customized with over 700 articles of clothing, available for purchase in stores that maintain fashion styles unique to what is worn by the denizens in each area. The game features several main story missions, and side-missions known as "operations". Once completed, Marcus' follower count will increase.
Multiplayer Multiplayer returns in Watch Dogs 2. The game introduces a cooperative multiplayer mode, in which players can meet and interact with other random players. They can explore the open world and complete missions together, which will also help players to gain followers. The game features an emote system, which allows players' characters to communicate with each other through basic gestures. The game can be played completely online or offline. It also features six competitive multiplayer modes: Hacking Invasion: A one-versus-one competitive multiplayer mode, originally featured in the first game, in which a player covertly joins another player's single-player session and steals virtual data from them. The invading player must stay hidden while stealing the data, while the defending player must identify and kill the invading player. Bounty Hunter: A mode introduced in the game. If an online player creates too much chaos in the world, the mode will be initiated. Alternatively, a player can manually initialize this game mode. Police, alongside one to three other players, will join the player's game with the hope of killing the hunted and claiming the bounty, which gives them experience points. The hunted could either strike back at the hunters by killing them, which gives them greater rewards, or escape from them until the bounty expires. The hunted, meanwhile, also can be assisted by another player if that player chooses to join the hunted. Players can manually place a bounty on themselves using the in-game smartphone. Showd0wn: A mode added in an update. In this mode, 2 teams of 2 players battle each other in short missions. Missions vary from the first team to steal the hard drives to the offensive team having to hack the servers the defensive team is protecting in a limited amount of time. Racing: A mode added in an update. Up to four players compete in head-to-head races to reach the finish line with drones, ekarts, boats, and bikes. Man vs Machine: A mode added in an update. Up to four players work together to take down a machine in a narrow time frame. Loot Trucks: A mode added in an update. Up to four players compete in a head-to-head battle to steal a valuable box from a truck, and escape the police and other players. This event has a chance to randomly occur while a player is free-roaming, but can also be manually triggered.
Plot In 2016, three years after the events of Chicago, San Francisco becomes the first city to install the next generation of ctOS (central Operating System) – a computing network connecting every device together into a single system, developed by technology company Blume. Hacker Marcus Holloway, punished for a crime he did not commit through ctOS 2.0, decides to join the hacking group DedSec (composed of hackers Sitara Dhawan, Josh Sauchak, Horatio Carlin, and Reginald "Wrench" Blechman), and conducts an initiation test by hacking a Blume server farm to wipe his profile from the system. DedSec determines that the new ctOS can covertly harm innocent citizens across the city, and thus decides to bring about awareness of their goals through conducting a social media campaign to recruit, by exposing corruption and crimes being conducted through the system, before bringing down Blume.
After several successful exposures, Josh discovers a number of irregularities in their follower numbers. When Marcus investigates this, he learns that DedSec has been used by Blume's CTO Dušan Nemec, in order to sell ctOS 2.0 to those frightened at being hacked. Forced to leave the city for a while, DedSec partake in a hacking event in the desert, and encounter legendary hacker Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney. Interested in assisting them, Kenney joins DedSec as they work to continue their fight against Blume. After hacking the server farm of a major internet company, the group use the data they acquire to pursue and expose corruption amongst law enforcement officers, politicians, and numerous Silicon Valley corporations. During this time, Marcus also focuses on bringing down several criminal syndicates, after one gang murders Horatio for refusing to assist them with their operations, and thwarts Dušan's attempts to disrupt DedSec's operations through a rival hacking group and the FBI.
Eventually, DedSec comes across information about the data manipulation program called "Bellwether", designed by Kenney, and learn that with both this and a new satellite network, designed to bypass undersea data cables, Dušan plans to manipulate world finances and politics, thus creating a monopoly on the entire world's electronic data. To expose this and his corruption, DedSec co-ordinates a massive operation to allow Marcus to infiltrate Blume's San Francisco headquarters by installing a backdoor exploit on one of the company's satellites, hack their servers, and feed the information of Dušan's crimes to the police. While Dušan is arrested for fraud and Blume is put under investigation, DedSec resolves to continue their fight against the company.
In an extended ending scene added in a post-release patch, two unidentified individuals note that more DedSec cells and hacktivist groups have been emerging worldwide in response to the San Francisco Blume scandal, and that it is time to put their own plans into motion. The filename of the recording seen in the ending is a set of coordinates located in Brixton, London; foreshadowing future events.
Development