Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs: Legion sparked conversation around its “play as anyone” gameplay system, with many concluding that the novelty of super-spy grandmothers didn’t overshadow a bland narrative and necessarily repetitive gameplay. In a world with so many options hitting the market every week, Legion already feels like ancient history, but Ubisoft hopes that players will return to check out the game’s upcoming multiplayer co-op offering. While nothing in the multiplayer is downright awful, there’s also nothing in the missions and modes that rise above what was already in the single-player experience, and certainly nothing that will recapture an audience that’s already moved on, making Watch Dogs: Legion multiplayer feel a little bit too little, too late.
Watch Dogs: Legion‘s online mode is a wholly separate experience, so players will have to recruit a new cast of characters and spend upgrade points on a new set of abilities. Set after the Watch Dogs: Legion main campaign, the missions on offer come in several different flavors, but most of them revolve around things players were already doing in the main game. A gang of street toughs or corporate goons are guarding something valuable on a computer system, and only the members of DedSec can get their hands on it and avoid capture. Missions play out a little differently now that one teammate can ride to the rooftop on a cargo lift while the other infiltrates the office to push a button, but it’s all very much in Watch Dogs: Legion‘s wheelhouse.
For all its sameness in execution, having multiple players in the game does add a palpable sense of chaos. If one player trips an alarm or gets bored and decides to hack a car for fun, the rest of the team will spend the next ten to fifteen minutes fighting off high-powered enemies. This can either amplify the fun or throw things completely off the rails, but it’s more often the latter. Even in times when the extra action becomes enjoyable, players are burning through their DedSec team with every “death.” If players only kit out one or two characters before loading in, they could be forced to try to salvage the last half-hour of their lives as a random bank teller with a hip problem that doesn’t have any weapons. That’s a novel situation, but it’s not particularly fun, especially since it can come about through no fault of the player.
Outside of missions, the open world of Legion serves as an online lobby of sorts, and that includes public combat events that spawn in from time to time. There’s also a Spiderbot deathmatch distraction that is likely the most fun thing in the whole online suite, but it’s also much too slight to carry the mode on its own. The focus remains on the missions, whether they be single bite-sized excursions or overlong multi-step heists. There’s fun to be had in that, but it’s the same fun players had in the single-player campaign, and one might argue that anyone coming into the game fresh would be better served with the more story-driven solo content anyways.
After spending a lot of time with Watch Dogs: Legion‘s multiplayer, there are more questions than answers. What player is going to want continuous seasonal drops of Legion‘s repetitive missions? Who at Ubisoft thought that a Watch Dogs battle pass of all things would be a good fit here? It seems plausible that a co-op Watch Dogs experience made sense on paper before release, but it falls apart in practice when it’s coming months after the game’s debut. When push comes to shove, Watch Dogs: Legion is slightly more enjoyable with friends, but it’s certainly not enough to warrant a lengthy return to Ubisoft’s dystopic London for all but the most dedicated DedSec vigilantes.
Watch Dogs: Legion is available now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC and Stadia.
