Interview: Developers of WATCH_DOGS

Apart from few the tidbits we’ve been treated to at events like E3, information on WATCH_DOGS has been quite sparse. So, we decided to hire bounty hunters to get us some more juicy info about the game. And when those lousy cats failed, we just tried to ask the good guys at Ubisoft nicely. Somehow, that worked, and the people behind this much-anticipated title decided to throw us a bone. Here’s what we found out:

WATCH_DOGS’s setting seems to be inspired from the likes of 1984, and to some extent, A Brave New World. Can you elaborate on what your influences are for the game?
Dominic Guay, Senior Producer: Making a new IP like WATCH_DOGS is a long process and we started to craft our vision in early 2009. Our current times, its hyper-connected nature and how it affects our way of life are the core of our inspiration. We focus on how this current technology is creating new vulnerabilities to exploit and ways to do surveillance… and we give those abilities to the player. Every week we see news items that are directly linked to those subjects, and I am sure they will continue to impact our lives and fuel debates in the next few years. It is all fascinating reference material for us.

The plot of the Assassin’s Creed series being as mind-screwy as it is, will WATCH_DOGS be sharing any narrative devices with it?
Kevin Short, Lead Story Designer: Of course, we’ve learned a lot from the great work of Assassin’s Creed. Creating a deep, dynamic story is a very important part of the WATCH_DOGS experience. In our story, we follow Aiden Pearce as he struggles to overcome past mistakes. He’s hunting for those responsible for attacking his family, and he won’t be stopped. On top of this, we needed to pull off a credible, open-world Chicago. We needed to ensure our city was rich with stories that players can explore at their own pace. We’ve given players the ability to hack into any phone, any camera…any laptop. If they can do that, we need to ensure there’s a story on the other end as a reward. A city with so many people has a lot of stories to tell, and we worked very hard to ensure players will feel they are navigating a busy city with lots of people all living their own lives—lives that can be explored at any point in the entire game. Many of these stories will expose players to new opportunities that they can pursue on their own time. Real life has layers and depth, odd stories that intersect with our lives. Stories that don’t always make sense but can make us smile or cringe. Our goal is to bring that experience into WATCH_DOGS alongside Aiden Pearce’s core journey.

The story will expose players to new opportunities

Will Aiden have any parkour abilities like Connor or Ezio? Other than cars, will there be any other way to travel around Chicago?
Danny Belanger, Lead Game Designer: The navigation system has always been a pillar of the game; we wanted it to feel very natural and be easy to use for the player. We even started building it before the shooting! In a city simulation like WATCH_DOGS, it was important to let the character climb or vault obstacles efficiently and react naturally to any event as he navigates the world. Some gameplay, like our foot chases, are based on the fact that the player can make smart navigation choices to gain time and be more efficient. Likewise, the character will also react naturally to dangerous events around him such as bullet impacts and explosions. This really makes the character “live” in the world while feeling very cinematographic.

Dominic Guay: Players will be able to drive any wheeled vehicles, from trucks and motorcycles to boats. This will allow them to explore the city proper, the rivers, the lake and even beyond the limits of Chicago.

We saw some brilliant new AI when you first showed off the game, with civilians doing realistic things like coming to the aid of a car crash. Could you elaborate on the AI in general? Will enemies in the game also employ realistic tactics like flanking?
Jonathan Morin, Creative Director: Realism is core to our game experience. Many games have car accidents, gunplay and explosions, but most of time I feel that the essential part is missing. For me, every real life incident comes with real human drama. So in WATCH_DOGS, you will feel the gravity of each situation you play. This goes beyond realistic graphics, weather and mood. It means everyone involved in any event should matter. Everything you do as a player will have consequences on people’s lives. The media will talk about your approach to these events, and it will have gameplay consequences. So when you play the game, you will have to consider people around you before you make a choice. In the end, it all depends on how you see things and why you play games. You won’t be judged, but your actions will not be ignored. So for all of this to be right, we are working really hard to make sure our game feels real in its graphics, mood, AI, sound, animation, simulation and story. What matters to us is to deliver the serious tone we are aiming for because we believe it is part of what makes our game relevant.

The AI will react in a very realistic way

Danny Belanger: With WATCH_DOGS, we intend to let the players express themselves. We are building an AI that supports stealth and shooting with the transitions required between the two states. This means that the player can take advantage of not being seen to engage in gunplay when he decides. With this angle, using technology becomes a core component of our game.  The player can, for example, use the camera network to spot the enemies beforehand to set up an ambush from the position he feels is most advantageous. He can also take the time to identify all the technological opportunities to gain an advantage; like modifying cover or spotting vulnerabilities in the electrical system to take down unsuspecting enemies.

That being said, players who prefer a more direct approach can totally run in and take care of business using a more action-oriented approach. We strongly feel that imposing a style of play on the player is less fun than letting the player explore the game systems and enjoy the game as he wants. This obviously brings many challenges in a game like ours but we feel it is worth it. Luckily, we have a lot of expertise in many genres—be it action or stealth—in the studio and we can profit from this common experience to push the boundaries.

For the fighting itself, we are trying to have a more realistic tone where enemies feel more like real living people than “game ingredients”. Within the WATCH_DOGS universe, we have multiple types of enemies ranging from mobsters to the police force, and these allow us to create interesting challenges without them feeling too “unrealistic”. We also have a full range of weapons at the player’s disposal—from basic pistols to grenade launchers. These can be used anywhere the player wants, and it can create quite the mess when a fight breaks out in downtown Chicago. It becomes even more interesting when you add the range of city hacks and vehicles the player can use in combination with his arsenal.

A lot of Aiden’s hacking abilities seem to revolve around his smartphone. Could you elaborate on some of the things it can do?
Dominic Guay: Most of the hacks that are possible in WATCH_DOGS are based on real-world hacks. Our subject of interest is how the everyday technology that surrounds us; how the hyper-connected cities we live in, are opening up many new vulnerabilities. We give those vulnerabilities to the player and allow him to use them in the quest we set him on. You have already seen a few examples of these hacking abilities throughout our different demos: traffic lights, bollards, bridges, security cameras, ATMs, cell phones, Wi-Fi networks, city lights, billboards… and you will have many more to discover.

How does combat work in the game? Will it be the Batman-esque system we saw in Assassin’s Creed 3? Or are you developing a completely new one?
Colin Graham, Animation Director: WATCH_DOGS is a fairly realistic game, and Aiden’s style is that of a street-style fighter. Everything he does is to gain an advantage, to take enemies down fast and hard. The fights are brutal and violent, but Aiden is also intelligent and tactical—just the right combination to make him extremely dangerous. We want to have this balance between intelligence and violence so the player can adapt the way Aiden moves to fit his style of play.

You can play Aiden as a smart tactical guy who uses a stealth approach to get an advantage on his enemies. For example, if Aiden is in a crowd, you can draw your pistol and conceal it behind your back so that people don’t get freaked out and alert your target. Or you can approach in a stealthy way sneaking from cover to cover to get in position.

But Aiden is also pretty handy in a fire fight, and players who want to go for the frontal assault can use a variety of weapons as they move from cover to cover.

Another weapon of choice for Aiden is the telescopic baton he carries in his pocket, which he can use for takedowns. You can sneak up and take down guards silently or surprise an enemy in his face and beat him viciously.

Also, through hacking, Aiden has the tools to manipulate and distract his opponents to gain the upper hand.  Sneaking up on your enemies and hacking things to distract them is a very effective way to get into a superior position. Players have a lot of systemic ingredients to be creative in their approach.

Guns and batons will both be indispensible tools

Are you looking to form a completely new mythos with WATCH_DOGS? Or will it be a one-off standalone game?
Dominic Guay: The dev team has been working for four years on WATCH_DOGS to create a new IP that is going to give players a fresh gameplay experience; have them experience something unique and relevant. When you have the opportunity to create an ambitious new game, you put all your passion and dedication into delivering something great. If players enjoy WATCH_DOGS, if they appreciate their time spent playing the game, we have succeeded. If they enjoy the game as much as we enjoy creating it, of course, I would love for the brand to continue beyond its first opus.

How does the multiplayer component work? From what we’ve learnt from trailers and gameplay videos, it looks a bit like Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls, where others can randomly invade your single-player game. Could you elaborate on that?
Jonathan Morin: This year at E3, we presented you our “Seamless Multiplayer”, where you will encounter Fixers: criminals for hire who can exploit/hack the grid like Aiden does. In a way, they represent a new breed of mercenaries who quickly learnt how valuable it was to master the art of cyber crime and hacking in order to remain relevant in today’s underground crime scene. In this particular situation, the Fixer was incarnated by another player who was contracted to come and hack this player specifically. Anything a Fixer does, he does for money, notoriety and pride. The more notorious a Fixer becomes, the bigger contracts he gets. Hacking other players out there is one of the ways to progress for them as well as for you.

The multiplayer will be quite interesting

Regarding the technical aspect of this mode, when your console is connected to the Internet, you are automatically in a “session”.  There could be millions of these occurring at once. What we are able to do is to dynamically merge and unmerge those sessions seamlessly. Players can free roam normally, can go about playing their game, and at some point they can either accept a contract or provoke a monitoring scan so that the next thing they know, their objective seamlessly involves another player. Once the situation is resolved, we are then able to unmerge both players, and they’re able to go about their game to pursue their objectives as they were. The beauty behind this is that we can control the pacing at which this occurs and we can give you tools to also control its flow. It is such a natural online extension of what WATCH_DOGS is all about in the end. If we say that everything is connected, we have to consider that everyone is connected too.