Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline Review

For many, Watch Dogs: Legion seems to land somewhere in terms of ‘good’ between the first and second games. A rich, yet flawed, open-world experience in post-Brexit London, it brings some highly original ideas to the table, but not all of them work. Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline removed the most promising idea from the original game, which was the ability to recruit and play as anyone in the world, while adding returning characters to expand quite dramatically in the Watch Dogs lore. And in doing so, remind players that Watch Dogs can still compete with other open-world series.

Bloodline brings back two highly polarizing characters; Aiden Pearce from the original Watch Dogs and Wrench from Watch Dogs 2. Love them or hate them, Bloodline offers more insight into their psyche than has been seen before, breathing new life into them and offering different angles on their personalities after the feats from the respective games.

For those who can’t complete the main game’s taglines, fear not! Bloodline is a prequel to the main events that featured a few cameos from the main cast but was mostly found to feature a new villain.

That villain is Thomas Rempart, another sociopath executive in Watch Dogs, who stole ideas from Wrench regarding the creation of combat robots that, in the long run, will contain the mind of the Wrench. people when they work together. In response, Wrench travels to London and tries to steal some technology from a Rempart called BrocaBridge.

But what about Aiden? He gets a call from his old friend Jordi Chin informing him that he has a job in London, which is where Aiden’s nephew Jackson currently resides. He took the job in hopes of mending his relationship with Jackson. However, the job was to steal the BrocaBridge that Wrench was after.

Bloodline allows players to role-play both Aiden and Wrench throughout its roughly seven-hour story, and by reintroducing these characters, there is a greater emotional connection between them and the player than ever before. end with the characters recruited in the main game. They’re basically just random stat reels in the form of a playable character, but in Bloodline it again feels like there’s weight to your actions.

Bloodline also doubles down on some design choices from previous titles. In the original Watch Dogs, Aiden was able to kill people by reckless abandonment, this was thus reduced for Watch Dogs 2. In Bloodline, things go back to more than in the first game and It’s a bit more action oriented. There are choke points to survival and certain sections that require all enemies to be defeated. Aiden’s penchant for violence is mentioned in many cases, almost as if Ubisoft is accepting their design choice in the first title. To be fair, those who’ve played through the first game will get the most out of this DLC, with plenty of recalls to past events.

Both Aiden and Wrench have unique perks: Aiden has essentially been Reloaded Active from Gears of War skills and a very powerful hand cannon, while Wrench has a drone that can throw grenades out. Unfortunately, they can’t freely switch in and out until after completing Bloodline – and even then they have their own unique set of side quests.

These side quests are very similar to Watch Dogs meat and potatoes, and are how you’ll unlock many of the same upgrades you’ve unlocked in the main game. Join, hide/use your Spiderbot and find any information you need.

However, these pale in comparison to one of the missions of the later story. It’s the lowest key, but one of the best quests in any Watch Dogs: Bury Your Dead game.

What starts out as a small reminder of the main game’s Coming Home quest where you infiltrate Skye Larsen’s secret home quickly evolves into something more sinister. Watch Dogs becomes survival horror when you step into the entertainment at the Jackson family home as a child. Only it’s not like what they seem like doors leading to unusual places. It feels like the Scarecrow sequence in Batman: Arkham Asylum mixed with PT Unnerving, surreal and a bit scary. If the next Watch Dogs game doubles this mood, it will eventually find its way.

Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline is easily better than the main game. The removal of recruitable NPCs in place of established characters means that every interaction makes more sense, both between characters and with the players themselves. The missions are a bit more varied than the main game, and Bury Your Dead is one of the best moments in the entire series.

Return to London in Watch Dogs: Legion – Bloodline for £11.99, available on Xbox Series X | S and Xbox One