While Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has said that the dormant Watch Dogs franchise is important for the company’s future, he also hasn’t yet committed to a new game being developed, at least for now. According to Game File’s Stephen Totilo, there are no new entries in active development, indicating that Ubisoft as a whole isn’t quite sure where to take the franchise following 2020’s ambitious Watch Dogs: Legion.
The only confirmed new project in the Watch Dogs series is a live-action film adaptation, which has already wrapped up production and reshoots. However, Ubisoft is yet to kick off any marketing for the film, which would imply that the company still hasn’t decided on a solid release date for it.
The few details we do have about the Watch Dogs film come from actor Tom Blyth, who spoke about the project’s script, noting that it “tears apart this world we live in today”. Blyth is likely referring to how the franchise has traditionally targeted the role of technology in the world, with its main focus areas being things like mass surveillance and the unchecked power being consolidated in the hands of a few of the companies’ leadership teams.
“I think the way they wrote that script…even though I’m not particularly a gamer myself, I knew the games. They took it, and they made it about the world we live in today. I will say that I do think that the film really tears apart this world we live in today, which is this online setting, the dangers of everything being interconnected and online in the way that the games do. Yeah, that was a vague answer, but that’s all I can say. Sorry, man.”
The franchise made its debut in 2014 with Watch_Dogs. The title featured Aiden Pearce as its protagonist and used a futuristic version of Chicago as its core setting. While featuring many open-world gameplay systems that one would expect from a Ubisoft game with an urban setting, Watch_Dogs also introduced concepts that would go on to define the series over the following decade, such as the ability to quickly hack into nearby tech to, for example, cause a car to suddenly accelerate.
It would be followed up in 2016 with Watch Dogs 2, which took the franchise to San Francisco’s Bay Area. This time around, the protagonist was Marcus Holloway, who sets off on a mission to clear his name after being arrested for a cybercrime that he didn’t commit. The key supporting cast members in the title are members of rebel hacker group DedSec, who work with Marcus to take down the city’s mass surveillance system, dubbed ctOS 2.0. Check out our recent thoughts for more details.
2020 would then see an ambitious follow-up with Watch Dogs: Legion, which takes place in a dystopian version of London, England. Crime and terrorism have been on the rise, which in turn led the city into becoming an authoritarian police state ruled by private military contractors. As a member of DedSec, the player takes it upon themselves to fight for the city’s freedom. A major new addition to the franchise with Watch Dogs: Legion was the ability for the player to recruit just about any NPC into DedSec, turning them into playable characters with their own traits and abilities.
