Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs

Watch Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game in which players control a vigilante named Aiden Pearce who can hack into various electronic devices tied to the city's central operating system (CtOS), allowing various methods for the player to solve numerous objectives.Examples include hacking into people's phones to retrieve bank data and steal funds, triggering malfunctions in equipment to distract other characters and hacking into traffic lights to cause collisions. Players can also receive information on civilians via augmented reality feeds, providing theplayer with information on demographics, health, and potential behavior. All of the hacking mechanic is done directly from Pearce's smartphone. He carries around a phone that is equipped with multiple applications, namely the profiler and the crime prevention system, but also applications that interact more directly with the environment around Pearce - interfering with mobile communications, traffic lights, etc. Objectives showcased in presentations include finding specific targets to kill, evading the police and following potential victims in order to stop their would-be killers. Combat utilizes a combination  of stealth components and parkour, along with the mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter.

Hacking

The core game mechanic in Watch Dogs is hacking. Aiden Pearce, the game's protagonist, is armed with a smartphone loaded with applications capable of hacking a major part of Chicago's infrastructure, such as traffic lights, bridges, steam pipes, fuse boxes, road blockers, etc. This phone is reportedly capable of over 100 total hacks. Hacking is one of the most heavily marketed features of the game, and is central to both gameplay and plot. Through his profiler application, Aiden Pearce is able to access chunks of information on every citizen of Chicago he meets at any given time. His smartphone  is connected to the CtOS populace database, meaning he can learn people's age and occupation as well as small personal facts about them. Pearce is also capable of reading randomly generated text messages and of overhearing phone calls between two NPC's. These will sometimes lead him to new, unscripted missions. This gameplay feature was designed to make the world of Watch Dogs feel more alive and real, giving depth to the city of Chicago and its people.Additionally, Pearce's smartphone is constantly connected to the CtOS crime prevention system, a fictional tool originally designed for use by the Chicago Police Department. It notifies him when a crime is likely to occur in his vicinity, giving the player a chance to intervene and stop the crime. This contributes to Pearce's vigilante persona. Because of the fact that Watch Dogs' interpretation of Chicago is governed entirely by the Central Operating System  (CtOS), Aiden Pearce has the power to remotely access and interact with things present in his environment - examples of this are traffic lights, steam pipes , blockers, and even the city's lights. He can use these in combat situations to eliminate opponents, create diversions or create cover. He can also use them as a stealth tool to sneak by guards.

Plot

The storyline of Watch Dogs game is built around the concept of information warfare, data being interconnected, and the world's increasing use of technology questioning who exactly runs the computers they depend on. The game is set in an alternate reality version of Chicago, Illinois, which is one of many cities to feature a supercomputer known as a "ctOS" (Central Operating System). The system controls every piece of technology in the city, and contains information on all of the city's residents and activities which can be used for various purposes. In the game's universe, the Northeast blackout of 2003 was found to be caused by a hacker, prompting the development of the ctOS. The game will put the player in control of Aiden Pearce, a highly skilled hacker and former thug. Due to a "violent family tragedy", Aiden seeks to bring his own form of justice to the culprits through the ctOS. The creative director of Watch Dogs stated that the main story will be 35–40 hours long.