Watch Dogs: Ubisoft’s New IP Looks to be the Best of E3

We hate on Ubisoft a lot here at KBMOD, and mostly with good reason. Today however, I am personally going to praise Ubisoft for bringing the best title to E3 so far. The trailer and nine minutes of game play footage from new IP Watch Dogs is the only thing you need to see from E3 as a PC gamer.

This is a brand new IP, something lacking in most of the E3 presentations this year. Sequels with outdated graphics for underpowered consoles and ‘entertainment innovation’ were the line of the day for most presenters. Watch Dogs is developed by the team at Ubisoft Montreal. The game features open world cyber-crime and espionage and borrows from titles like Assassin’s Creed, Deus Ex and even Heavy Rain. It adds electronic warfare, hacking and gratuitous use of cell phones. Ubisoft are even running fake websites based on the game to get gamers hooked in.

In Watch Dogs, you play as protagonist Aiden Pierce in the not-so-distant future. He wields a cellphone and his fists to get in and out of trouble. He is able to hack the central computer (ctOS in the games lingo) that controls everything in Chicago from subways to traffic lights to cell towers, giving you the power to use the city to your advantage. Everything is connected, all information can be used to figure out who or where someone is or to use as a weapon. Sounds very intriguing.

And then there is the engine. Oh my, the engine. The game play in the demo below will blow you away. The level of detail and smoothness make it appear to be played on a PC, and hopefully it is because this game appears to be able to put a gaming machine to the test. Regardless, the game is slated to come out on PC as well as all consoles according to IGN. There is no firm release date yet.

Now only one question remains: Will Ubisoft DRM prevent us PC gamers from getting any fun out of this extremely promising title or will they finally just let us play?

Gameplay demo: