Back when Saint Row 2 first came out, I loved everything about it. 

It felt like Volition blended everything I liked about GTA San Andreas and added a little bit of their own special seasoning to it, creating a truly unique open-world experience. 

Then, I got the news that Saints Row 3 was getting released. Reminiscing on how much I enjoyed the previous Saints Row, I couldn’t wait for it. Long story short, I was disappointed beyond belief with what Saints Row had become. 

Yeah, Saints Row 2 was over the top, but it was never supposed to become the outrageous game that Saints Row 3 was. It was a shock to the system to see how much Volition had changed the series up, and I couldn’t understand why. Fun fact, did you know CD Projekt Red helped create Saints Row 2? Go figure.

You may be wondering “What does all this have to do with Watch Dogs?” It’ll all make sense in a bit, read on.

What Happened To Saint Row?

A part of me believes that the devs wanted to differentiate themselves from GTA, so they thought to themselves, “What makes us different from GTA,” before coming to the conclusion that outrageous antics was the answer. 

So, they doubled down on hilarity and ruined the series. Fast forward to the present and Ubisoft is doing the same thing with Watch Dogs Legion. 

And, to be fair, I’ve made a comparison between Watch Dogs and Grand Theft Auto, to the protests of my friends. But, this comparison is justified. To be honest, it’s justified to compare all three games mentioned in this article.

All three games have:

-Open Worlds

-Wanted Systems

-Shooting mechanics

-Similar Driving mechanics

And a lot more similarities that make these games fun open-world experiences.

When it comes to Grand Theft Auto, however, Rockstar has managed to solidify themselves as the juggernaut of robust cities and enticing stories and they proved it with GTA V. Sadly, Saints Row couldn’t keep up with the Rockstar’s progress, and neither can Watch Dogs.

What’s The Connection To Watch Dogs Legion?

Watch Dogs has a lot of potential.

To this day, I still can’t think of another open-world game that managed to keep me more entertained by watching bystanders living their lives without my interference. Seriously, there have been times where I would listen to someone having an entire conversation on the phone, while I followed close behind them.

There was even a time where a random lady walked up to a parked SUV and began hitting it with a baseball bat. As she damaged the truck the owner ran up to her, pushed her away and they both went about their day like nothing even happened.

These random events were the highlight of Watch Dogs 2.

The only problem is that these events overshadowed the actual story of Watch Dogs 2. The story just wasn’t interesting enough for me to finish it. In the back of my mind I thought to myself, “Ubisoft just needs to polish the story and parkour and this game would be amazing.”

The Watch Dogs Legion trailer showed me that Ubisoft took a different approach.

What These Games Fail At

Do you remember Agents of Mayhem?

It’s the last game Volition created and it wasn’t great. Despite the many upsets that I had from the last Volition games, I still decided to buy this one, hoping it would be different. Sadly, it was more of the same, if not worse.

You played as multiple heroes and heroines who all had their own specialized abilities. The gameplay was still fun, much like the Saint Row series, but the game wasn’t intriguing enough to finish. The problem was, the multiple characters were just gimmicks, and they didn’t add to the story.

The entire game just felt cold.

Now, we have Ubisoft doing the same thing with Watch Dogs Legion and I feel there is more disappointment on the way. The minute I saw the construction worker with the nail gun and skills to hack drones, I knew I wouldn’t get the story I needed from Watch Dogs Legion.

This is all speculation since it hasn’t come out yet, but I’m not excited about what I saw. The whole premise of Watch Dogs Legion is that you can recruit almost anyone to join your squad, which gives you the opportunity to play as a huge amount of characters. Don’t get me wrong, this could be fun, but it’s not what I wanted to see from Ubisoft.

Is Character Swapping The New Trend?

All three games mentioned in this article have incorporated some sort of character swapping. GTA V managed to do it correctly as each character added to the story. Trevor, Michael, and Franklin performed in such a well-written story, that I had to practically pull myself from the TV so I could get some sleep before class. And unless Ubisoft dumped an overwhelming amount of resources into all the characters you can play as in Watch Dogs Legion, I don’t see it being as good.

To be fair, it doesn’t look like Ubisoft wanted to focus on a well-thought-out story. It looks like the fast-paced gameplay and gimmicky characters are supposed to present players with a unique experience.

Playing as different characters is fun, but I need a story that will keep me interested in order to exprience the full potential of the game.

I hope I’m wrong and Ubisoft surprises me. What do you think?

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As always, thanks for reading. Stay Gritty, Gamers!