Watch Dogs 2‘s San Francisco is shaping up to be a much brighter and more vibrant city than the original game’s Chicago, and a new gameplay video from Ubisoft highlights the fun you can have if you ignore the main missions and explore the open world. Additional hacking capabilities and improvements to existing mechanics should also please players left wanting more from the original game.
In the video, protagonist Marcus Holloway uses his “Hacknet” view to quickly find the hackable electronics within his general area, and spots a man complaining about the problems his cell phone has whenever he visits this particular spot in the city. This isn’t just a dead zone — a “Stingray” device is leeching data off of citizens’ devices, and Holloway deploys his new drone to reach the device’s otherwise inaccessible location, which in turn leads him to a shady organization’s warehouse.
Though the warehouse is only a few minutes away, animation director Colin Graham takes this opportunity to quickly show off the improvements made to one of the original Watch Dogs‘ most criticized features: the driving controls. They’re now much tighter, with Marcus able to easily make sudden turns on San Francisco’s windy streets and hills, thanks to the team at driver developer Ubisoft Reflections.
After approaching the warehouse and using Nethack to locate a locked door and several workers on the ground below, Marcus spots an armed guard with an attack dog. Instead of attempting to sneak by the dog’s powerful nose on foot, he uses his RC Jumper ground drone to access the building’s junction box.
Later in the video, we see Marcus working with a second hacker in the game’s new cooperative mode, which opens the door to even more stealth opportunities. As Marcus hacks a guard’s phone to distract him, his partner in crime leaps over a fence and knocks him out. He also marks enemy lookouts with his drone, and this information is also viewable by his teammate.
If player-versus-player multiplayer is your thing, the new Bounty Hunter mode promises some very tense online chases. If you commit a crime and attract the attention of the police, there is a chance of a “bounty event” occurring, which will cause up to three other players to give chase to kill you as quickly as possible. Of course, if you’re skilled enough, the mode just gives you a few online players to mow down if you commit a crime, and you’ll be rewarded for fending off the attackers.
Watch Dogs 2 hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on November 15.