Watch Dogs is an action-adventure game, played from a third-person view. The player controls hacker Aiden Pearce, who uses his smartphone to control trains and traffic lights, infiltrate security systems, jam cellphones, access pedestrians' private information, and empty their bank accounts. System hacking involves the solving of puzzles. The game is set in a fictionalized version of Chicago ("Windy City"), an open world environment which permits free-roaming. It has a day-night cycle and dynamic weather system, which changes the behavior of non-player characters (NPCs). For melee combat, Pearce has an extensible truncheon; other combat uses handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers. There is a slow motion option for gunplay, and the player can use proximity IEDs, grenades, and electronic lures. Lethal and non-lethal mission approaches can be enacted.
Pearce can scale vertical surfaces, hack forklifts and aerial work platforms to reach places otherwise unreachable, and can crouch behind walls to hide from enemies. The player has an array of vehicles with which to navigate the setting, including motorcycles, muscle cars, off-road vehicles, SUVs, luxury vehicles, sports cars, and speedboats. The car radio is customizable, with about fifty songs. If the player steals a car, its driver can summon the police; if the player has a good reputation, the driver may acquiesce. A good reputation may be gained by detecting (and stopping) crimes, and a bad reputation results from committing crimes. The skill tree is upgraded with points earned from hacking, combat, driving, and crafted items. Money can be used to purchase guns, outfits, and vehicles. There are several minigames, ranging from killing aliens to controlling a large, robotic spider. QR codes and audio logs are included as collectibles; ctOS towers unlock map icons and side missions. Multiplayer mode can host up to seven other free-roaming players, with whom the player may complete hacking contracts and engage in races. The player can also be hacked by others, who will perceive the target as an NPC (leaving the target to find the perpetrator). In-game invasions can be disabled, but this will reset the multiplayer skill rank to zero. Free-roaming with multiple players and decryption mode, where two teams of four are tasked with acquiring and holding data, were excluded from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions.
Plot
In October 2012, hacker Aiden Pearce and his mentor and partner, Damien Brenks, conduct an electronic bank heist at the high-end Merlaut Hotel in Chicago and trigger a silent alarm set by another hacker. Brenks tries to find the hacker, giving himself and Pearce away. Fearing for his family, Pearce drives them to safety in the guise of a surprise trip to the country. On the way, hitman Maurice Vega fires a gunshot which crashes the car; Pearce's niece Lena lapses into a coma and dies. 11 months later, Pearce tracks down Vega at a baseball stadium in the Parker Square district of Chicago. After a fruitless interrogation about Vega's contractor, he leaves Vega in the hands of his partner, fixer Jordi Chin. While investigating, Brenks approaches Pearce with a request to find the other hacker from the Merlaut job. Pearce refuses, and Brenks retaliates by kidnapping his younger sister, which forces Pearce to comply with Brenks' demands. With the help of Clara Lille, a member of the hacking syndicate DedSec, Pearce tracks down the second hacker—gang leader and Army veteran Delford 'Iraq' Wade—and obtains a data sample from Wade's servers. He and Lille discover that Wade has information on almost every citizen of Chicago, protecting his gang from the authorities.
When they come across encrypted data beyond Lille's ability she tells Pearce to find Raymond 'T-Bone' Kenney, whose hacking caused the Northeast blackout of 2003 which led to the implementation of the ctOS operating system. After meeting Pearce and completing several tasks for him, Kenney agrees to help decrypt the data. Pearce assaults Wade's compound, and downloads its server data. Wade confronts him, but Pearce kills him and leaves the compound. Another hacker, JB "Defalt" Markowicz, infiltrates their system, steals the information and deletes it from their servers. Markowicz leaves a recording that discloses Lille's involvement in locating Pearce and Brenks during the Merlaut job, which resulted in the death of Pearce's niece. Pearce angrily tells Lille to leave. When the authorities later confront Brenks about the loss of the server data, he tells them Pearce's identity. Pearce and Kenney find and take down Markowicz, retrieving the data.
Pearce discovers where his sister is being held, frees her, and they drive to nearby Pawnee for safety. Kenney finds the contractor who ordered the hit on Pearce that ended up killing Lena: Dermot "Lucky" Quinn, the Irish Mob boss who owns the Merlaut Hotel. Pearce confronts Quinn, shutting off his pacemaker by hacking it. The dying Quinn says that he ordered the hit because he thought Pearce was searching for secret video footage of Mayor Donovan Rushmore (with whom Quinn is associated), who accidentally murdered his secretary when she threatened to expose his dealings with Quinn. After Quinn dies, Pearce races to Lille (who is ambushed and gunned down by Brenks' men). Pearce uploads the video of Mayor Rushmore, driving him to commit suicide. He tries to find Brenks, who has unlocked ctOS (giving him access to the city). Pearce infects ctOS with a virus that shuts down the system, causing a citywide blackout. He thus reaches Brenks, who is hiding in a lighthouse. Chin arrives, claiming to be on Brenks' payroll, but Pearce injures him and kills his former mentor. Chin calls Pearce one last time to tell him where Vega is kept; Pearce heads there, and decides his fate.
