Watch Dogs: Legion’s big selling point is that you can play as anyone you please. This means that you can build a squad spanning spies, construction workers, and old ladies. But what if one of your heroes bites the dirt? Are they lost forever? What if you’ve developed a personal attachment to them? Permadeath, according to creative director Clint Hocking, is completely optional.
“Difficulty and permadeath are separate options,” he explained as part of a Reddit AMA. “You can play in Easy, Normal, or Hard, and you can play with Permadeath on or off in any difficulty. You can choose to use one character throughout the game, and as long as they are not arrested or hospitalised or killed, you can stick with the same character throughout – except for a couple of instances where you might need someone specific.”
Hocking added that permadeath will be disabled in multiplayer, as it’s susceptible to exploitation by griefers. However, he stopped short of explaining what the game’s online mode will look like, explaining that further details will be shared in the near future. We’re looking forward to finding out how multiplayer will work, because the Watch Dogs franchise has always been relatively innovative in that area.
[source old.reddit.com, via gamespot.com]
Comments 20
Cool, but I think permadeath sounds like the way to go. Always nice to have the option
The more I’ve been playing of Watch Dogs 2, the more I’m enjoying it. It’s definitely one of those games that takes a few hours to get going and reveal itself as a deeply fun and innovative stealth-em-up. If the map in this game is realistic enough then I’m definitely getting it cause there aren’t enough games set over here.
Define Optional, because I have a suspicion that there is going to be a related trophy, which means for anyone wanting to 100% the game, it's not going to be optional.
It seems like the game was designed with permadeath in mind, so that'll be the way to go.
I wonder what happens if you manage to get all characters killed with permadeath on Game over? or maybe a default character that always there just in case.
@thedevilsjester well I mean that is the point of getting trophies if you wanna 100% a game you should be ready to go for a challenge in so many games they give you difficulty options but to get it 100% (all trophies/Platinum) you need to play on hard mode or be prepared for the challenge. for example (Cod/final fantasy and etc....)
They just give this option to people who wanna play the game enjoy the story and uninstall it.
I like the option but I really planned on using 1 or 2 characters anyway so I may not use it.
@kingtoten I am not disagreeing. I was just posing the question. They are saying it's optional, but what is their definition of optional? Some games don't take difficulty into account for trophies at all, so even when considering trophies, higher difficulties are optional. I don't mind either way (these games tend to be mind numbingly easy anyway), just curious.
@thedevilsjester Oh I see but most likely I don't think permadeath be on the trophy list based on what I have seen from other Ubisoft games but we have to wait and see how they gonna come up with the trophy list!
@thedevilsjester ummm it’s still optional. It’s the players personal choice whether to chase trophies or not. I’d rather have hard trophies anyway. The only thing I disagree with is trophies that force you to play online.
Permadeath is a pretty en vogue concept isn’t it?
@Arnna By that logic, finishing the game is optional as well. Doing anything in the game is optional. You say "chasing trophies", I say "completing developer designed content". We can argue semantics of "optional" all day, what I want to know is what their definition is, since thats the only definition that matters in this context.
@thedevilsjester I still don’t quite follow you. You don’t seem to like trophies from your description of them, so your ‘option’ is to play the game and ignore them.
@Arnna I neither love or hate trophies anymore than I love or hate any other game content. I do not consider trophies optional any more than I consider the rest of the game optional. (If I am not going to get all of the trophies in a game*, I don't even consider playing it). Its always important to me to know what I am getting in to, so knowing if this mode is truly optional in the sense that it will impact no other content (like trophies), or if its just optional in the same sense that anything else is technically optional, helps inform my buying choices.
*At some point
well alrighty then 😃
@thedevilsjester fair enough. The completionist in me likes to 100% everything too but not always, especially if I’m not enjoying it.
A little off topic but it’s incredibly annoying how you can’t delete trophy info when you delete a game.
@Arnna Deleting trophy info is the one feature that I desperately want. It would solve so many problems for me!
There's probably going to be copies of the same type of character anyways. And it doesn't look to hard anyways or is that just me.
@GilbertXI Difficulty is not something easy to quantify. I have played games on Crushing/Nightmare/Critical/Extreme/etc... that I thought were a cake-walk and then read about common complaints for that same game that Normal was too hard. On the other side there have been times where I was stuck, looked up a walk through, and they specifically mention how easy that particular part is!
@thedevilsjester very true. I am notoriously slow and bad at most video games, especially first person shooters, but I have run into the same thing. In my favorite game(hollow knight), I spent hours on bosses and objectives people got first try, meanwhile it only took me 4-5 tries to beat one of the hardest bosses in the game to most people. I don't know about watch dogs though. The combat already looked kind of soulless from what I saw, and the hacking on top of that can make things a breeze. Especially if you have to repeat objectives to recruit different characters, I'll get used to it very quick. It definitely won't be teeth-clenching difficulty for me, I'll say that.
Meh, whatever, I was gonna pass on it anyways, but I might try AC Valhalla, if only cause of the setting and folklore stuff they're bragging about. Literally any other studio could have made a viking game where you raid the English countryside great, but it had to be Ubisoft. Oh well, at least we have skull and bones to look forward to, in 3020 along with elder scrolls 6 and GTA 6
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