Introduction

Watch Dogs Legion is the latest installment to Ubisoft’s smash-hit urban open-world action-RPG franchise. The underpinnings aren’t unlike GTA, except that the street criminal is replaced with a hacktivist (a subculture popularized in the mass-media, with TV shows such as Mr. Robot).

While the original Watch Dogs was set in Chicago, and Watch Dogs 2 took the scene to the San Francisco Bay area, Legion introduces the first European location—the enormous cultural and social cauldron that is near-future London, the latest city to deploy ctOS, an all-encompassing smart-city AI.

The London branch of DedSec is framed for attacks on the Houses of Parliament by a rogue hacker group who is then hunted down by private contractor Albion hired by the British Government. Just before the game plot starts, Albion is contracted to turn London into a police state, replacing the function of police and government. The game revolves around DedSec recruiting and regrouping by liberating boroughs of London from Albion’s clutches in a bid to unravel who’s really behind the attacks they were framed for and clear their name. Much like GTA, most of Watch Dogs’ gameplay involves third-person on-foot action, including parkour moves through the crowded London cityscape. Some mission segments involve vehicles. The vast Underground network handles fast travel.

Unlike past Watch Dogs titles which were based on the Disrupt game engine by Ubisoft Montreal, Legion appears to be using the latest version of Ubisoft’s Dunia engine, which will likely also power the upcoming Far Cry 6. The game takes advantage of not just DirectX 12, but also NVIDIA RTX real-time raytracing and DLSS performance enhancement. It’s also one of the first few games NVIDIA is showcasing its DLSS 8K feature with. RTX brings London to light, particularly in its neon-lit, rainy nights, where RTX powers real-time raytraced reflections. Given these, we expect Legion to push the envelope with performance demands and bring you this mini-review to show how the game performs across our now 30-strong selection of graphics cards, at four resolutions.