'Watch Dogs' Producer Talks Customization, Progression &…

Last week we took a deeper look into Ubisoft's upcoming new IP Watch_Dogs, and after watching half an hour of gameplay on the PS4 and hearing a little more about the game's multiplayer features, we spoke with Producer Dominic Guay about the game's protagonist and some of the features players can expect.

Watch Dogs aims to more than just another sandbox game with cars, and not because of its hacking elements, but because of how detailed and refined its gameplay mechanics are and how comprehensive its feature list is. From hacking into everything you could think of, to downloading apps and augmented reality games on your in-game phone, collecting money and cars through online theft, to an open-world sandbox that players explore on their own and online in seamless multiplayer.

We've only seen brief bits of Watch Dogs and much of it remains hidden in secrecy. Media nor the public have had a chance to get hands-on with the title so everything we do know is from very controlled marketing and event showcases. From what has been intentionally and calculatingly revealed thus far, Watch Dogs looks impressive and from what Dominic Guay hints to us, there's much more to come.

Tell us about Aiden Pearce and his goals in Watch Dogs.

People close to him [Aiden] got hurt because of the life he decided to live. So it is in part because of his way of living because he was involved in pretty shady things. Now he wants to make sure it doesn't happen again and that's how he becomes a little bit obsessed with surveillance. And actually there's a side of him that wants vengeance. He wants retribution for what happened.

So that's his initial thrust. That's how the player is going to get into Watch_Dogs. What happens is as he grows his ability for surveillance he starts noticing a lot of other things happening in the city. He looks into a camera sees what's happening there or taps into someone's camera, you start finding other crises happening and he's basically going to start losing himself in those things, basically mixing his own goals with these other things happening. And so that's how it's going to open up… I don't want to spoil anything.

Let's talk about that, then. Aiden's ability to surveil is a progression system of sorts?

Yes, absolutely. There is not only progression in the economy — if you want more tools, more weapons, etc. - but you might have noticed that he gains XP in the demo. We didn't talk about it, but it happened and the player will be able to acquire new skills and decide how he wants Aiden to level up through the story. Also, part of the progression is putting backdoors in the ctOS. So there's many layers of progression: how you start putting backdoors into the ctOS for your control over the city, there's your player and how he progresses with new skills — and you're in control of both of these things. And also the economy; how you acquire more means and you buy new tools.

With the economy and the weapons, is there a progression system there? Is there any sort of crafting with weapons, and even with Aiden's attire — he has a very unique look. Will players be able to customize?

Crafting, definitely. Players can craft their weapons and it's part of the economy. It's fueled by many things, including money. As for clothing I guess you can expect to be able to buy clothes in a city. I'll leave it at that.

You mentioned that Aiden comes from a dark past and that he will come across other characters who can help but who may have different motivations and goals. Can you talk about any of the other characters, good or bad?

I don't want to go into detail on those characters because that would definitely spoil the story but the point Kevin [the writer] was trying to make is that he's not a lone wolf. Even though we haven't given him room to speak in the demos we've shown so far, he's a guy who is able to be charming and he's able to his charm to get his way. A hacker will do that. It's not just about a guy behind a keyboard, coding, right?

He has allies too, but like Kevin said, those people have their own agenda and so the relationship isn't going to be them working for him as slaves, so there's a dynamic there at play.

Are there antagonists that have similar hacking abilities as Aiden?

I won't go into that but I will say this: If Aiden can control ctOS and if he's able to hack, he may not be the only one. We actually already pointed out that other players will be able to do that in each other's games.

Are the other players also their own Aiden Pearce or are they their own multiplayer character?

When we talk more about the multiplayer, things will clarify a bit. But I can say this: there's never going to be two Aiden Pearces crossing path, so there are other characters at play and that involves the multiplayer, obviously.

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In terms of gameplay, some of the stuff we saw today like the Focus System which slows down time and the ability to tag enemies — are these features there to simply enhance the player experience or are they explained in-game through tech Aiden has access to?

They are. We are lucky in the sense that a lot of things we want to do, there's almost a natural, direct abstraction in the real world, like tagging people with security cameras and facial recognition — that's totally possible. You hook up to their cellphone and with GPS know exactly where they are. So all those things are possible.

The Focus System may require a bit more explanation. It represents Aiden's ability to think on his feet. It's kind of his street smarts, and the strength of this is that if you're in trouble at any point — you know, you're panicking because you're driving at high speed thinking ‘Oh my god, the cops are everywhere' you can hit it and basically, you can look around and you can see all the things you can hack so you can start making a plan. ‘Oh I can hack this, go there.' So it's there to help the player make plans that mix different types of action, that mix shooting with moving around, with driving and/or hacking. And that's why we put it in there.

Another interesting gameplay thing shown that can impact the decision making process for players is the reputation system, where we saw Aiden choose to shoot a cop in the leg as opposed to killing him or running away. How does that affect gameplay and the story?

The one thing we didn't want to do was kind of a branching system where you know, you read on the game forums that if you don't have this amount of reputation at this point in the game you will branch left or right in the storyline. We didn't want to do that because we think it's very binary and honestly, there are two problems with that. One is that most gamers feel as if they're missing out on the other part. And the other problem is that I doesn't necessarily represent something that makes more sense according to what they did. So what we're mostly trying to do is have the city and the media reflecting back on what you did and have a systemic impact on the game. I'll give you an example. So we showed in the demo how a media broadcast reporting something that Aiden did that was drastically illegal can lead to someone using a silent alarm to call in the cops. It's not a game changer in the sense that it's like ‘oh my god!' But it definitely is changing the way you perceive the story of Watch_Dogs.

On the flip side, if you've been playing very efficiently and you've minimized collateral damage, you're really helping people, maybe you're in the streets and you have your gun out because you're chasing a bad guy, whatever, and someone sees it. ‘Oh my god, this guy has a gun!' And then says ‘Oh, it's Aiden Pearce, I won't call the cops. Go ahead!'

So now it's changed your perception of who is Aiden Pearce. It changes the perception of the adventure you live, the same way we can both look at a movie or a painting and interpret it differently. We're hoping that gamers interpret the story of Aiden Pearce differently depending on their own play style.

Is this something players can impact directly? For instance, can Aiden Pearce build a social media following by tweeting a photo or some such thing?

(Laughs) That's a very good question actually because that's a part of the things we're exploring, how sometimes we mix perception or how we take something for granted because it's being reported through social media. It's part of the things we're talking about and this will exist in the world. Now what exactly you're talking about, which is basically doing propaganda from the perspective of Aiden...

He's got that smartphone...

It's something we've explored but there's a drawback to it. We wanted that reflection that the player is getting to be earned in a sense so we actually looked at that really hard and we said that if we do something like that, which is relevant to our game, it's going to make it more about maximizing my reputation. You don't want it to become an end in itself. You want player to enjoy the game, do whatever they want and get that feedback.

This is a new IP, it's the first next-gen game from Ubisoft, is it built with the goal of becoming another big franchise?

That's our hope, definitely. I mean that's how we've been thinking of it. That's probably one of the reasons we've been given so much time and by Ubisoft to build it up.

With that in mind, are there more stories for Aiden Pearce to be told?

Yes. When you create a universe like this one, if you want to do things smartly, you try to do it like ‘what was before and what its after.' So you try to plan ahead. It's really gamers who are going to decide. If they dig the game and want to play more, the team would love to give them more, but right now we're trying to make sure the game feels self-contained. We want to make sure that players don't get to a point where they say ‘Oh, now I have to wait for something,' so we're trying to make sure the game in itself is satisfying. If the gamer feels, they deserve to feel their satisfaction.

My last question is a fun, over-the-top one. With Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon really focusing on just plain fun and being totally different, in your personal opinion, can something equally as crazy happen here, something like a Watch_Dogs-Assassin's Creed crossover for example?

(Laughs) We haven't looked at that particularly but we are aware that gamers are starting to think that way, right?

Yes.

We're having fun with more of the lighter side of things. Blood Dragon went all-in with it, but when we make the AR games that's a little bit of what we had in mind. And that's definitely the lighter side of our universe that plays with fun abstractions like that are definitely things that we are interested in exploring. I'll leave it at that.

Watch_Dogs releases November 19, 2013 for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It’ll also launch for the PS4 and next-gen Xbox.