While I did get my review copy of Watch Dogs 2 a few days early, the game is so expansive and all-consuming that I barely finished it in time for the embargo, eternally distracted by sidequests and points of interest scattered around the map. But the final result is that I have spent probably 30 of the last 72 hours playing the game, and at this point, I’ve beaten the main quest, beaten every side mission, and am a decent ways toward hunting down every major point of interest in the world.
As such, I feel like I’m in a position to give you some pretty solid advice pertaining to the game, and some things you probably should know from the start. While my review was more about the quality of the game in general, and how it improves on its predecessor, here I want to tell you some specifics about how you might want to consider playing.
Here are ten things I wish I knew when I started Watch Dogs 2:
1. Just...Don't Use Guns, Ever
I know, I know, this one may seem crazy, but I promise you this is the “right” way to play Watch Dogs 2. The game, like its predecessor, is at its worst when it tries to be Grand Theft Auto, letting players have access to a bunch of heavy weaponry and try to shoot their way through situations that they should be hacking through instead. If you reach for your gun every time you come up against enemies instead of taking advantage of the much-improved non-lethal and hacking mechanics, you will be missing out on 90% of what makes Watch Dogs 2’s gameplay interesting.
On top of that, I said in my review that I wished lethality wasn’t even an option because it makes almost no narrative sense. While it may have been tolerable for vigilante mystery hacker Aiden Pearce to run around killing corrupt cops and gang members with guns, it makes no sense for the goofy, good-natured members of DedSec to stalk through the streets of San Francisco firing automatic weapons at anyone who looks at them the wrong way. Going (mostly) non-lethal is not only more fun, but it will more properly align with the overall tone of the game and stated goals and methods of DedSec. I really regretted when I started out going in to missions guns blazing, and it was only after I gave them up completely that Watch Dogs 2 really came into its own.
2. The First Thing You Buy Should Be the Quadcopter
When you first start the game, you will be gifted the RC car for free, but before you buy literally anything else, you have to get the quadcopter drone. It’s the only truly mission critical item in the game that you can buy with cash, and it’s only $50-60K or so, which you should be able to amass after hunting down a few bags of money around the world and hacking a few phones. The game may prompt you to get the drone eventually, but you are better off getting it as soon as possible.
It’s hard to understate just how key the drone is for everything in the game. It can scout enemy positions from on high. It can set up an entire gauntlet of booby traps without being spotted. It can hack mission objectives and skill points by itself. It can spot ways to reach rooftops which is key in endless locations throughout the map. Get it is as soon as possible, and there will be quite literally nothing out of your reach after that.
3. The First Upgrade You Buy Should Be Car Thievery
Alright, technically this would be the second upgrade you buy because it's tier 2 and you have to purchase the ability to remote drive cars first. But trust me when I say that this is the most commonly used ability in the game, and it will make your life much easier the moment you buy it.
This is the ability to auto-unlock any cars you find on the street without setting off the car alarm. It sounds simple enough, but soon you will start fast-traveling everywhere on the map, and when you arrive, you won’t have a car. You can order one using a phone app (don’t forget to download that, buy the way), but it’s much easier to grab whatever’s nearby. The problem is that if you don’t have this skill and there’s anyone at all nearby you, any car will set off its car alarm and get the cops called on you. Buy this skill and this will never happen again, improving quality of life immensely. This will not let you carjack occupied cars without consequence, however, but there are enough parked cars around where you will never actually have to do that unless you feel like being a jerk.
4. You Will Never Have More Fun Than When You Use The Snitch Skill
It’s not actually called the “snitch skill,” but that’s pretty much what it is. Watch Dogs 2 adds a new ability where you can either call on the cops or members of a local gang to attack a target after you forge evidence against them. Higher tier versions of this upgrade will send the heaviest gang hitters, or entire SWAT teams.
This isn’t exactly “non-lethal” as whoever you send will almost always get in a deadly shootout with your target and their allies, but this is the most fun ability in the game by a mile. You can sit on the roof of a gang hideout, send SWAT crashing down the alley and once a dozen bodies pile up, simply waltz in and take your prize. It’s also a way to ditch heat if you’re already being hunted, as you can escape in the crossfire once you pursuers start targeting a third party, not just you. There are many new hacking abilities in WD2, but this has to be my favorite of the bunch. It’s a lot of skill points to invest, but it’s absolutely worth it.
5. Practically Every Mission Can Be Beaten With Just Your RC Car And Drone
One thing you will eventually learn about Watch Dogs 2 is not to overthink missions, because so, so many of them can be beaten with Marcus doing practically nothing at all, sending his robotic army to do the dirty work instead. I remember one mission where I was tasked with getting into a locked gang hideout. I tried to shoot my way through with my taser, I called SWAT on them, I did everything but constantly kept dying. But what was the final solution? I honked the horn of my RC car at the door, a gang member opened it, and I ran past him, out of his line of sight, and hacked the wall unit I was supposed to reach. Easy peasy.
So many missions are like this. You think Marcus has to execute some Mission Impossible-style antics to complete the objective, but almost always you can use your drone to scout and set traps, and use your RC car to avoid guards, drive through vents, and perform any necessary physical hacks. On rare occasions Marcus will have to do something himself, but I would say 80% of the game’s objectives can be completed by your robots alone. Upgrade their speed boost skill to make them extra effective, and let them carry bombs/stun devices to weaponize them if need be. They should be your first line of attack at all times, if you care at all about not bringing down seven kinds of hell down on your head.
6. There's One Combo That Can Take Out Any Enemy
If you do decide to play secret agent as Marcus, and you’re taking my advice about not using any lethal guns, there’s one combo you have to master in order to be effective. The stun gun works as a one hit kill weapon, so it’s great for taking out pretty much any enemy if you align your shots right. But the game also gives you a one hit kill ability in the form of Marcus’s melee move, which is not some awkward series of haymaker GTA-style punches, but a slick takedown that enemies simply cannot block, even the “heavies” you’ll encounter later in the game.
It’s more than a little overpowered, and especially so when you pair it with second part of the combo. It’s easy. See an enemy, tap L1 which will cause their phone to buzz, and they will automatically check it. This will allow you to sprint toward them without even the possibility of being detected until the last possible second, and take them out with your melee. It’s the same in open combat. If an enemy has you pinned down and has already opened fire on you, just tap L1 again, and this time it will painfully disrupt their comms, allowing you to either shoot them with your taser or run up and melee them. This combo fails if there are a ton of other enemies in line of sight who can wreck you when you’re making your move, but there’s no way Marcus should ever lose a 1v1 with this tactic, no matter what your enemy is armed with.
7. Cash Is Used For Almost Nothing But Cosmetics
Watch Dogs 2 makes a big show of getting Marcus to collect cash, be it from running Uber-like driving missions, finding bags of money in remote or guarded locations, or hacking people’s bank accounts. But the fundamental fact remains that this currency system is more or less totally optional. The drone is the only essential tool that costs money. You can buy a few weapons, but again, I don’t recommend this, and you only have two slots anyway, and can get guns from fallen enemies if you really want to. Elsewhere, cash is simply used for clothes, which have no bonuses at all, or you can spend money on cars, which is fun because you can buy some nice ones and trick them out with awesome DedSec paint jobs, but again, you will rarely use your “own” car as there A) aren’t that many driving missions and B) it is almost always more convenient to grab whatever parked car is nearby than hunt down a delivery from your app.
So while currency is fun for buying new suits or paint jobs or an exotic car or two, practically none of this is missions critical, so don’t stress too much if you’re constantly seeing money icons all over the screen and feel compelled to get them. It’s fine if you do, but know what you’re investing in, which is more or less style points.
8. You Will Be Drowning In Skill Points If You Just Do The Major Quests
Watch Dogs 2’s XP system relies on “followers” that fill up a meter, and will get you anywhere from 2-9 skill points when you reach a new threshold. But while the game likes to throw little challenges that will net you 7,000 followers here, or 11,000 followers there, trust me when I say you don’t have to kill yourself doing these side missions to rank up, nor do you have to stress about not reaching many skill points in the wild.
As you get further and further into the game, the main missions and some of the bigger side missions start giving you absolutely massive follower rewards. A four-stage main mission might give you 27,000 for each of the first three stages, and then anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 for completing the final objective. So while random wild skill points and small fry follower missions are nice, they are not necessary, and if you just focus on the bigger missions you will almost certainly have enough skill points to spec into whatever build you’re going for. And by the end, you will unlock most of the nodes without really even trying. Just stay on target, and the rewards will come.
9. Learn What Skills NOT To Prioritize
As much as I like many of the skills in Watch Dogs 2, reaching the end of the game and completing almost every mission has given me a sense of which ones are not terribly useful. Obviously I don’t care about the five or so nodes devoted to lethal weaponry, because of my chosen playstyle, but elsewhere?
There’s an ability that lets you disable pursuit helicopters, but as cool as that sounds, I only ran from helicopters three times in thirty hours, and only once did one ever really cause a problem or me. Not worth it. Similarly, while I did find the “mass comm hack” skill very useful for disrupting entire armies chasing me on foot at once, I think the “disable all city infrastructure” one hurts you more than it helps as all it does is make it dark, but it doesn’t let you hack anything thereafter. Similarly, the “disable all cars” one is good for a few moments, but there are only a few car chases in the entire game, so it really doesn’t seem worth the 8 or so skill points it costs. Also, unlike the original Watch Dogs, I don’t think the “spot cash-rich whales” upgrade is very good because the money they give you is a lot less than it used to be, and cash can’t really buy that many useful things anyway.
Some skills don’t feel like they’d be important but they are, like the ability for your RC car to jump higher and the boost for both the car and drone. Also, even if you aren’t a gadget person, get the ability to make stun/explosives anyway, even if you don’t take it to its full upgrade tree of being able to hold a ton of each.
Photo: Ubisoft/Paul Tassi
10. Avoid A Gamebreaking Bug By Keeping The Emote Wheel Closed
Well, I ended up discovering a gamebreaking bug after I published my review, and it isn’t fixed yet, so I want to post it here. When you press up on the D-pad, you will open your quick menu for guns, skills and equipment. When you press down on the D-pad, you will open your emote wheel which will let you gesture to civilians or other players.
I can’t explain exactly what happened, but in the heat of battle I went to try and do a mass comm hack, and instead mashed my way into the emote wheel instead. When I returned to the correct menu, I saw that the hack had switched menus. One of the emotes was now in the gear/hack menu, while the hack was now in the emote menu, unable to be used. I thought this was some sort of hotkey system I didn’t understand, but as I tried to transfer it back by pressing random buttons in both menus, all that happened was more emotes began to transfer over. So far, I’ve lost access to both my lethal weapons, my stun grenades, and two of my three mass hacks.
Ubisoft has confirmed to me that this is a bug that they may be fixing in a new patch this week. You might be able to get access to your weapons again by going to the 3D printer, but there’s no way to get your gadgets or hack skills back.
My advice is just to never open the emote menu for any reason to avoid this. I can’t say exactly what I did, but it was something with switching between menus, so only open your gear menu, and if you find yourself in the emote wheel, get out of there as quickly as you can. I’m just glad I didn’t encounter this before I finished the main bulk of the game.
Anyway, those are my ten tips, though I could probably go on. I really do like this game quite a bit, and I hope you do as well.
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