Watch Dogs 2 [official site] will come out on November 15th, Ubisoft declared today, formally announcing the open-world crime simulator. It’s jetting off to the sunny San Francisco Bay Area and it… looks fun? Not simply fun-to-play fun, but actually having a sense of a fun, with colours and people who look like they’re having fun and no moody uncledads anywhere in sight. Here, jack into this announcement vid-o-rama:



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So! Watch Dogs 2 introduces Marcus Holloway, a young hacker who joins the Dedsec hacktivisit collective after being incorrectly profiled by the city-controlling ctOS computer system. So sure, then he starts actually doing crimes, hacking computers, parkouring over rooftops, flying drones, shooting 3D-printed guns, and twatting people with a pool ball on a string. Take that, The Man!

What else is new? He gets to play with a remote-controlled car and quadcopter, remote-control actual cars with his computer, zap people nonlethally with a zapgun, and parkour way better than old Aiden. Ubisoft speak a lot about making the city feel more alive, which is good news for an open-world game.

I like that Ubisoft’s research into hackers appears to have been watching the peerless Hackers a dozen times. Yeah man, hackers are wild punks with rude ‘tude and they parkour all over the place. It’s so goofy and I’m so into it. Of course, the danger is that they’re taking this seriously but… surely not? They do know how fun and silly this is, don’t they? They must. Oh god, what if we’re meant to take this story of hacktivists and profiling seriously? No, surely not. The pre-order bonus is a mission with a Zodiac Killer copycat, for goodness’ sake. I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted a Hackers game.

HACK THE PLANET!