Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline

The original Watch Dogs: Legion (Watch Dogs 3) was a bit of a hit or miss. It had serious potential with its sandbox nature of recruiting whoever you wanted off the street to work for your little hacker revolution. However, the implementation wasn’t great. It suffered from weird randomization, like having characters’ looks not matching the voice, massive story issues, and the lack of a central protagonist. The near-future City of London was and still is awesome. It has this cool dystopian feeling to it, with high surveillance and military-esque police patrolling the streets. It got a surprising number of things right. For example, the checkpoint system that now is a reality in London – all for the concerns of the mythical “environment”. All in all, a realistic depiction of the WEF future we all have to look forward to, so what’s not to like? Everyone enjoys a good despair from time to time.

Aiden is back
Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline is ditching the sandbox nature of having random characters as the lead and goes back to what works best – having a set protagonist. It’s not some willy-nilly guy either, it’s Aiden freaking Pearce from the first game (Watch Dogs), and that is not all. Wrench from Watch Dogs 2 also makes a return to grace us with his endless sarcasm. Now, this is good news for us who liked these characters from the two first games. I can’t say that I personally was that too attached to Watch Dogs, nor Aiden, since I never actually finished that game. However, Watch Dogs 2 surprised me. 

Addendum:
I decided to give Watch Dogs another chance after writing this review, and this time I am much more favorable towards it after giving it a serious playthrough. Expect a review in the future!

Watch Dogs 2 had some typical lefty social justice stuff going for it, but it wasn’t overbearing as the characters still came across as likable. Misguided in some places, but likable. It’s not that their main goal of taking down Big Brother (Blume) was some fantasy boogeyman, either. The corporations did bad stuff, with the city of San Francisco’s blessing spied on its population, much like real life. Nobody likes to be spied on, which means it was a noble cause overall. The story, while mostly lighthearted, had some serious drama. It was a fun game with well-written characters that could get a little cringe occasionally.

In the first part of Bloodline, you play as Aiden. He gets a phone call about a job in London and only accepts it because his nephew (the kid from Watch Dogs) lives in London now as an adult. One last job, and having a brewski with the good old nephew – one stone, two birds type of deal. But as it is, London is in a messy state, and soon his job crosses paths with Wrench, who is also after the same thing as Aiden. The whole thing becomes a huge SNAFU, that leads to you playing as Wrench for the second half of the expansion. 

I don’t want to go into any spoilers of why and such, but overall the story is enjoyable, and the characters that make a return for Bloodline are voiced by their respective voice actors. They also act as they should. However, Aiden is much older and might regret some things from his past, which becomes somewhat of a theme for the game. The nephew, now grown up and his own man, is also a treat. At first, I thought he was going to be an annoying punk, but that turned around quickly. Beyond the tech conspiracy stuff, it’s a nice little family drama. The same goes for Wrench. Instead of family, it’s about long-lost good friends, like for example Markus from Watch Dogs 2. One thing that should be noted here, is that Bloodline is a prequel to Watch Dogs: Legion. It has some lead-up to its story, which can be interesting, but for the most part, the story lands on the “okay” spectrum of excitement. Prequels always seem to suffer from this, as you can’t add much without screwing up the main narrative, and this is nothing new. Anyway, don’t expect too much in new revelations.

Tech, shooting & stealth
The basic gameplay format remains the same. You will be sneaking, hacking, and shooting a lot of dudes, with the inclusion of bipedal robots that I can’t remember from the main game. On hard difficulty, you die fast, which I recommend playing on for increased tension. The amount of cool hacks and gadgets you unlock makes even the most impregnable fortress a cakewalk. As noted, there is no permadeath in this DLC, as you play as set protagonists now. This kills some uniqueness of Watch Dogs: Legion, since now when you perish from a bullet to the heart, you just restart close by without any penalties.

Both Aiden and Wrench start out with a few toys and weapons, however, you can get more stuff to play with by doing side missions for various dealers and smugglers. There are no talents to unlock like from the past games – you either do these missions or go with the default equipment. If you don’t do any side missions, the expansion is probably very short and not worth the money. But, I wouldn’t say the side-missions feel like padding since they all come with different objectives, and each dealer has their own little story. There are also a few surprises here that you might like if you have played the past games in the series. Overall, the gameplay is solid and fun, but not having any penalty on death makes it a bit more reckless.

Aiden is still a brutal murderer. He might have some issues with his past, but he has no problem mowing down cops and gangsters alike. His main unlock is a light machine gun, for crying out loud. That’s the life of a super hacker, I guess! If you played Legion or any of the other games, you know what to expect here.

London town
The look of London is still fantastic and ran incredibly well on my computer. 60 FPS+ all the time through with everything almost maxed out except ray tracing on my GTX 3070. The city is alive, and if there is one thing Ubisoft can do is to create cities that feel like the real deal. The near future setting is also brilliantly done. They managed to capture the feel of a city in decay, on its last throes with brutal violence and extremely oppressive surveillance everywhere. It’s a powder keg, and you can tell the explosion is coming soon.

The sound and music are also great, with returning voice actors, and a good soundtrack in the form of radio stations when driving around the city. If the visuals weren’t enough, the city soundscape alone makes a good portion of the immersion. There is nothing to complain about here.

In conclusion
I liked Bloodline, and I think this should have been the main game, but greatly expanded of course since it’s rather short. I do recommend the game, but it comes with a big IF. See, if you don’t already have Legion, this DLC is not worth getting on its own. The returning characters are great to see and play with, but the story isn’t very interesting, as it hardly touches the main game and its narrative. The fun comes from actually knowing these dudes, and with that: I don’t think it’s worth getting if you have Legion, but never played the former games in the franchise. This DLC will probably not do much for you either. So, my only real recommendation goes to those who have played the games, liked them, and do own Legion. Anything else feels pointless, as this little expansion is fan service through and through!

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas