Watch Dogs: Legion Release Date, Trailer, Pre-Order And Gameplay

In a world overrun by tyrannical governments and overbearing surveillance, a small group of rebels fights for the freedom of the people. By using cutting edge technology and the latest in hacking techniques, they dismantle the oppressive government, one mission at a time. These rebels call themselves DedSec, and the Watch Dogs series puts you in their shoes.

Rumors were swirling around, hinting at where Ubisoft would take the franchise next. And then just days before E3 2019, the publisher confirmed the title of the next game: Watch Dogs: Legion. Since then, we've learned a lot about the game and its newest setting, London. We also know more about the protagonist (or, more accurately, protagonists) that we'll take control of.

If you haven't been keeping up, we've got you covered. Whether you're new to Watch Dogs or eagerly anticipating Legion, you've come to the right place. We gathered everything you'll need to know about Ubisoft's next open-world game set in a cynical future.

Because this is Ubisoft, there's no shortage of Watch Dogs: Legion special editions to peruse. Pre-ordering any version of the game gives you the Golden King Pack, which contains car, mask, and gun skins.

The next step above the standard edition is the Gold Steelbook Edition. Coming in at $109.99, physical versions get a steelbook (obviously), three-day early access to the game, and the season pass. The pass includes four heroes and missions, along with another exclusive mission, mask, and car skin.

Next up we have the Ultimate Edition for various prices, depending on your retailer. It comes with everything in the Gold Edition except a steelbook. If you want a steelbook, you'll have to order exclusively through GameStop for $129.99. Otherwise, you'll also find the Urban Jungle Pack here, which gives you three characters and masks. Additionally, you'll have four weeks of VIP status, which lets you earn experience and money faster.

Finally, there's the Collector Edition for $189.99, sold exclusively through Ubisoft's store. It comes with a big box, an exclusive steelbook, some stickers, and a poster. You'll also find an exclusive mask replica, which you can use in-game as well.

Watch Dogs: Legion will also go live on a new subscription service called Uplay+. Unveiled at E3 2019, Ubisoft's newest initiative asks people to pay $14.99 a month for unlimited access to a suite of games. Similar to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass, this service promises more than 100 games. Where Uplay+ differs, however, is that so far, only Ubisoft titles are slated to be in its library.

Uplay+ goes live on Sept. 3, and Legion will be available to subscribers the day it launches. Additionally, it's worth noting that those who play the game via this service get access to the most premium digital edition of the game. In other words, you'll essentially have the Ultimate Edition of Legion, season pass and all. You'll also be able to play the game earlier than launch, and if, for example, a multiplayer beta rolled out, that would be included in your Uplay+ subscription.

In February 2017, Watch Dogs 2 received a patch that added a new ending cutscene. Fans thought this alluded to a sequel to the franchise, and that sequel would be set in London. Come 2019, we found out the fans were right, but things are darker than people might have expected.

Legion isn't just set in London: it's set in a post-Brexit version of London. For the characters in the game, Brexit is far in the past. Furthermore, creative director Clint Hocking has carefully laid out that the political issue was not the cause of ctOS's rise in this fictional world. Instead, he claims the problems that caused Brexit are the same ones that cause the rise of ctOS.

Whatever the case, things aren't looking good for the United Kingdom in this gloomy imagining of a technological future. Not only has the nation divorced from the European Union, it's also experiencing its own internal unrest. Scotland left the UK at some point before Legion, and the people of London are antsy. In other words, it's the perfect atmosphere to stage a coup against oppressive surveillance technology.

Much like the last two Watch Dogs titles, Legion is all about using technology to your advantage. Generally speaking, the game is a third-person open-world shooter, and you have an assortment of lethal and nonlethal weapons at your disposal. You can also melee nearby enemies. However, you also carry a few other powerful gadgets that can neutralize enemies and open new pathways.

As an example, you can control a little drone that can infiltrate locked-down locations. This little guy hugs enemy faces to stun them, and he can do so from afar with a stun gun. Additionally, you'll always have access to your smartphone, which is a gateway to all sorts of game mechanics.

In general, you can pull out your smartphone to scan NPCs in the world. This brings up their background information, which helps you decide who to recruit. Furthermore, you can hack certain devices from afar, like enemy phones. This distracts them, opening them up for a takedown.

When you hear the term "permadeath," the roguelike genre comes to mind. Ubisoft isn't selling Legion as a roguelike, but permadeath is definitely a new concept for its open world games. When one of your characters takes critical damage, a screen pops up, asking whether you want to surrender or fight to the gritty death. If you continue to fight, you regain control of your character, allowing you to deal with whatever's killing you however you can. You could run, or you could fight head on and try to win. If you die here, though, say goodbye to your operative forever.

Surrendering leads to that agent going to jail, according to developer Kent Hudson. This means you can't control that character again for some time, but in some cases, that's better than losing them permanently. Although, no one's stopping you from hacking into enemy systems to shorten their sentence a bit. Furthermore, if you recruit a lawyer, they can stop characters from getting jailed in the first place. Nonetheless, the 20-agent limit suddenly seems generous when you know you could lose one at any time.

If 20 agents aren't enough for you, maybe the prospect of multiplayer might entice you to check out Legion. The game will feature a four-player co-op mode, letting you team up with three others to tackle missions. These missions will be exclusive to the online mode, meaning that people playing the single-player campaign can't access them.

You also have access to more than just missions. You can also engage in side activities, like bare-knuckle boxing or street art tagging. There are promises to keep this multiplayer mode afloat with regular updates.

This isn't necessarily surprising. Watch Dogs and its sequel both had multiplayer modes as well. The first game featured online racing, a different take on capture the flag, and a unique cat-and-mouse mode. The second game had co-op missions for two players, and up to four players could roam the open world together.

In a few interviews, Watch Dogs: Legion associate producer Shelley Johnson spoke about the scale of the game. Ubisoft procedurally generates all the people that live in post-Brexit London, and she claims that puts the number at somewhere around nine million playable characters. That daunting scale makes Legion one of the most ambitious projects the developer has tackled.

With all these moving parts, Legion has challenged Ubisoft in many ways. For one, keeping these grand promises is turning out to be expensive for the company. Additionally, its sheer scale has gone beyond the limits of what human quality control can cover. Johnson claims that if more games down the line continue to aim for this level of complexity, they may need to resort to something beyond human capabilities: "We really are crossing over into the need for AI to start picking up some of the heavy lifting when it comes to testing the game because of the complexity."

Nonetheless, she's confident that this game, unlike the first Watch Dogs, will deliver on its big promises.