Watch_Dogs™

Watch Dogs 1 is one of those games that I feel was judged a little too harshly, but at the same time, I don't want to pretend Ubisoft delivered a perfectly polished game because they absolutely didn't. The game had its problems, especially technically, and the gap between what was originally shown and what we actually got was pretty noticeable. There are also repetitive activities, some rough animations, awkward driving and certain parts of the open world that feel very much like classic Ubisoft design. So I'm not going into this review as someone who's blindly defending Ubisoft. I'm judging the game for what it actually offers: its story, characters, world, atmosphere, gameplay ideas and how well everything comes together. For me, Watch Dogs is a solid 8/10. The biggest thing that makes Watch Dogs stand out is its atmosphere. Chicago doesn't feel like just another open-world playground. It has a darker, colder and more grounded identity, especially when you're playing at night or during rain. The entire world revolves around surveillance and technology, and you constantly feel that through cameras, phones, traffic systems, security networks and people's personal information. There's something genuinely interesting about walking through a crowded city while knowing that almost everyone around you can be profiled and watched through ctOS. That feeling of surveillance is probably what I remember most from the game. Aiden Pearce also grew on me throughout the story. I completely understand why some people don't connect with him because he's extremely serious, emotionally distant and obsessed with revenge. But I think that's what makes him work within this particular story. He's not supposed to be a perfect hero. He's a deeply flawed person who keeps going further into Chicago's criminal and technological underworld because he believes that finding the truth about what happened to his family will somehow give him closure. The more he gets involved, the more complicated everything becomes, and I think that makes his character more interesting than simply having another charismatic protagonist. The hacking is still the game's strongest gameplay element for me. Being able to jump between cameras, profile people, distract enemies, manipulate traffic, trigger environmental hazards, control infrastructure and use the city itself during missions gives Watch Dogs a personality that most other open-world games don't have. It isn't just a gimmick where the protagonist has a smartphone. Hacking is actually integrated into how you approach situations. You can go in aggressively, stay completely stealthy or manipulate everything around you before the enemies even understand what's happening. That idea of information being power is what makes the game feel like Watch Dogs rather than another third-person open-world shooter. The story also holds up better than I expected. The whole concept of ctOS, Blume, surveillance and the amount of information that can be collected about ordinary people still works extremely well. There's a genuinely interesting idea underneath the entire game: if you have access to everyone's private information, how much power should one person actually have? And when Aiden starts using that system for his own purposes, it raises the question of whether he's really that different from the people he's fighting. The game doesn't explore every part of that idea perfectly, but the foundation is genuinely strong. The supporting characters are another reason the campaign works. Jordi is unpredictable and entertaining, Raymond Kenney brings a lot more context to the technology behind ctOS, and T-Bone became one of the characters I appreciated the most. They give the story different personalities instead of making everything revolve around Aiden's revenge. One thing I also want to mention is my use of mods, because I don't want that to affect the rating. I completed around 50% of the game before installing Living_City and The Fall of Windy City. So I experienced a significant portion of Watch Dogs in its original form before modifying it. The mods weren't the reason I'm giving the game an 8/10. I installed them later because I wanted to improve my personal experience. The graphics, weather, lighting and overall visual presentation added a lot more realism and atmosphere to my playthrough, while Living_City added additional life and content to the world. They made the game feel better to play and look at, but I'm still judging Watch Dogs itself based on its story, characters, world, atmosphere and gameplay rather than giving Ubisoft extra points for what the modding community added. And then there's Watch Dogs: Bad Blood. Bad Blood is an 8.5/10 for me. Honestly, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Switching from Aiden to T-Bone completely changes the personality of the game. Aiden is serious, controlled and driven by his obsession, while T-Bone is chaotic, sarcastic and unpredictable. That difference gives Bad Blood its own identity instead of making it feel like a few extra missions thrown onto the original campaign. I really enjoyed getting to see more of T-Bone as an actual character. He's not simply the eccentric hacker from the main story anymore. The DLC gives him his own problems, relationships and motivations, and it makes his character much more interesting. The additional gameplay mechanics also fit him perfectly, especially the remote-controlled vehicle. It feels exactly like something T-Bone would build and use, and it gives the hacking gameplay another layer. Bad Blood also benefits from being shorter and more focused. It doesn't try to be bigger than Watch Dogs 1 or completely change the universe. Instead, it feels like a proper side story that gives us another perspective on the world. I actually think that works in its favour. There's less filler, the focus stays on T-Bone and the story feels like a nice continuation of the world established in the main game. So, after finishing Watch Dogs 1 and Bad Blood, my final opinion is that Ubisoft had a genuinely great foundation here, even if the execution wasn't always as polished as it should have been. Watch Dogs 1 has technical problems, repetitive content and some gameplay systems that haven't aged perfectly, and I'm not going to ignore those things just because I enjoyed the game. But the atmosphere, hacking mechanics, story concepts, characters and overall identity are strong enough that I still think the game deserves to be remembered. Watch Dogs 1: 8/10 Watch Dogs: Bad Blood: 8.5/10 The mods made my personal playthrough look and feel better, but they aren't what these ratings are based on. I'm rating the games themselves. And despite all of Ubisoft's shortcomings with the original release, I still think Watch Dogs 1 is a seriously underrated game with an identity that Ubisoft unfortunately never fully realised.