Watch_Dogs Legion Bloodlines Review

Round 2

So I had my issues with Watch_Dogs Legion. That much is pretty obvious. If you mosey on over to my main game review you'll see my very many colourful thoughts on the breadth of that game, everything they were trying to do and the many ways in which that game fell absolutely flat on it's face. But when I bought the Watch_Dogs Legion 'Gold edition', that package came complimentary with the game's own prequel DLC in the form of Bloodlines, and I thought it only fair to cover. It may strip all off the flagship 'play as anyone' features from the game, and instead focus on a fan-favourite pairing of previous game protagonists in a smash-cut of a narrative; but is there perhaps something salvageable in the absolute wreckage of a package that the Watch_Dogs game present? Is there anything good in the game's blood? Also, why is this DLC called Bloodlines? I can only think of one possible reason and it's a pretty weak one.

Bloodlines is a prequel to Watch_Dogs Legion, set before the fall of the original DedSec London and the eventual rise of it's successor. It follows, career-fixer and part-time vigilante, Aiden Pearce, the protagonist of the first game, as he finds himself travelling to London for a job that brings him careening back into the life of his nephew, Jackson Pearce. The very same nephew he fought to save all the way back in Watch_Dogs 1, now a full grown and fully voice acted adult, who he hasn't seen since sending him and his mother away in the twilight act of that very game. Throw in the middle of that awkward reunion a megalomaniacal tech mogul's son teetering on the edge of a breakdown of his own orchestration and a mid-game cameo from a suddenly deeply sad 'Wrench'; still dressing in the punk spike and mask garb he did in his twenties despite the fact this man is in his forties at this point; and you have perhaps the best snippet of content within the entire Legion package.

This entire game is pretty substantive, probably counting for eighty percent of the time I actually liked playing Legion during my eighty hour torture. It's set in the exact same play space as the main game, but their London lacks a lot of the really obtrusive world elements that get in the way of general exploration and environmental enjoyment. (No auto-spot patrols or missile-mounted roadblocks and an actual proper fast travel system using TFL) Several of the overly used restricted areas from the main game get reutilised again, which is annoying, but Bloodlines does throw in some variety to shake things up with a few brand new locations and even some slightly more interesting mission objectives beyond the archetypal two that the main game loved so much. You'll still be either sneaking into a place or holding off waves of enemies for the most part, but there's some optional time trials thrown into the mix, as well as a totally expansion-exclusive robotic enemy that has a unique manner of fighting. You have to overload it's system (best achieved with non-lethal electric weapons) and then smash the weak point once it exposes itself. (Gameplay variety? I would never have expected it in my Watch_Dogs Legion!)

Much of my nagging problems with the way that Legion plays is still very much present; the clunky shooting controls and general lack of animation fluidity can't really be helped in a single DLC; but there are few mitigating steps taken by the developers to salvage a smidge of enjoyment out of the raging dumpster fire that is the core game. For one, Wrench and Aiden are loaded with enough special abilities to make them play pretty distinctly, shaking up the gameplay diversity and making combat just that inch more dynamic feeling. Aiden specifcally has an ability where his gun damage buffs and stacks during reloads provided he taps reload again at a certain moment, similar to Gears of War, which mitigates the painfully annoying enemy health bars that the main game suffers from. Also, low and behold, this game provides special side mission rewards wherein you can unlock new weapons an equipment for your character! Genuine meaningful advancement so that the player character can feel like they're becoming more powerful and interesting to play? Wow guys, you almost made this close to the standard of a typical Watch_Dogs game!

The narrative delves into the very many inner conflicts that Aiden has lived with over his long decades as the Vigilante, up to the point where now, in his fifties, the man really has nothing ahead waiting for him in life until he can properly confront the demons of his past. It's a fluke that forces the man to reconnect with his Nephew, and the process of them getting to trust and rely on one another is done in a suitably natural and ingratiating manner. Jackson wasn't really much of a character in the first game, and more of a 'child in peril to up the narrative stakes', but here we see Jackson represent the promise of a new smarter generation primed to be better than their forbearers were, on which Aiden comes to rest the burden of his guilt for the life that he's lived and choices he made. Oh, but did I say: Confronting your guilt? But that can't be done subtly in a Ubisoft product, now can it? Not at all, no! Instead we've got to invent some dream hopping brain reader device for no other reason that to satisfy one of the most tired and over-used clichés of every modern Ubisoft game- the prolonged drugged dream sequence! (Oh god, how I did not miss you!)

As Legion had no central characters, their iteration of this dream sequence cliché was drab and largely forgettable, instead focusing on the life of one of the side villains, Skye Larson. In Bloodlines we get to dive directly into Aiden's head as Jackson (Yes, we play as Jackson randomly for this section. There's no real reason to control Jackson here; Ubisoft just really wanted this scene to happen.) and you walk through the Pearce childhood house as you explore and unpack Aiden's unaddressed trauma over the murder of Lena which kicked off this whole franchise so very long ago. Conceptually this is somewhat touching and interesting, if ham-fisted and strangely exclusionary. By which I mean, Lena appears to be the only thing in his life that he has regret over, besides his general murders which he kind of feels bad about too. (Not bad enough not to pick up killing again the second after the DLC is over.) There's no talk of anyone else he's hurt over the years like his sister Nikki, Jackson himself or, hell, what about Clara Lille? The girl who got herself killed before Aiden had the chance to forgive her for her part played in Lena's death? Or, I don't know, how about the thousands of people who's blackmail material he carelessly leaked to the whole world at the end of Watch_Dogs Legion in a move which that game, somewhat erroneously, portrayed as a triumphant win? Are we just pretending that any information we don't want hitting the public is immediately vilifiable? Because I have a problem with that characterisation! (But I have to point out: yes, I did immediately recognise the PT hallway during the dream sequence. Nice reference game there, Ubisoft. Half point.)

Wrench has himself something of a personal arc too, which is not something I thought I'd been saying about a mascot character who was more style than substance in Watch_Dogs 2. Legion's Wrench is a couple of decades older and has accumulated a ton of baggage in that time, to an extent that his characterisation here is surprisingly fleshed out and vibrant compared to his only very lightly explored pervious iteration. I found a really 'human' and identify character in this Wrench who bought a personable and involved element to the antagonist of this DLC where it was otherwise missing in the shoes of Aiden. I think his special abilities kind of sucked, relying too heavily on Legion's pair-backed hacks, but I enjoyed seeing his very human, and somewhat depressing, life splay itself out. Also, I did not know that Jordi Chin and Wrench would make such a fun double team; their dialogues were genuinely humorous, I was pleasantly surprised.

Overall, Watch_Dogs Legion is a much more traditional take on the Watch_Dogs formula in a narrative and gameplay that strips all the innovative tech that the main game relied on and instead focuses up a a narrow lens story with acts and arcs and character motivations. And it's the best content in Watch_Dogs Legion. Every the hammy boss fight as the end was at least fun to overcome, if not to actually fight. Still, the raw controls are just annoying to wrestle with and this DLC doesn't hold a candle, in terms of gameplay, to previous Watch_Dogs games, but if you were like me and endured the entirety of Legion until you found yourself spiritually scarred to the point you couldn't even remember why games are fun anymore; Bloodlines might just be the remedy to remind you what enjoyment feels like. Still, it's not worth the price of the Legion main game just to play through, even for the overall story revelations (of which there aren't very many) so I do not recommend it. And even on it's own merits as a standalone campaign, compared to the other Watch_Dogs it's still largely a disgrace to consider it a follow-up, so I will award this game no higher than a C- Grade in my arbitrary review score system, one third of a grade above failing. This still hasn't convinced me that Watch_Dogs needs to be continued as a franchise, but at least I can smile again.