Playing as Anyone in Watch Dogs Legion

In which I look at Watch Dogs Legion's play as anyone system, and maybe get a bit back on my role playing hobby horse because that's my wont.

[@Maksie0]

20:58 Funnily enough, I got this cutscene with an Albion officer who, when asked if she was with Albion, said that she'd never work with them. While wearing the uniform.

[@thelastgogeta]

One of the reasons why I think stories built around a single fixed character/cast deserve more credit for simplicity. Whether that's Watch Dogs 1 or 2. They could have designed dialogue which acknowledges your prior role, ethnicity, pronouns, age, gender or iconic hat but that is much harder to do with this variables. I think there were multiple cutscenes where I was called "DedSec" both by allies like Lau (who should know your name or be more friendly even if you weren't the specific person who helped - I was though) and enemies (who shouldn't care but they hate specific members who knew identities in some cases).

[@AspelShuyin]

Every review of Watch Dogs Legion is basically "this is an amazing technological achievement that they did nothing with". Every review of Watch Dogs Legion also just makes me want to play Watch Dogs 2.

[@celestesimulator6539]

Hell it isn't actually that much of a technological achievement. Dwarf Fortress has been doing this since 2006

[@levilukeskytrekker]

I'm fascinated by how Errant Signal will usually construct his criticism around one mechanic or set or mechanics, but he always ends up with a better insight into the game as a whole, as a consequence.

[@jupiterdoomsday7032]

RIP Christopher Butler! He died too soon! We will remember him fondly for his dapperness!

[@blarg2429]

His eulogy should be full of bad jokes. It's what he would have wanted. For real though, I could watch a whole separate video just about Errant Signal's WD:L characters.

[@LavendelBrei]

When I was playing the Kim Kardashian mobile game I made my character a hobbit who was only trying to get famous so she could travel the world and eat at the world's best restaurants. she would take all of her dates to restaurants and would spend the entire time just eating and ignoring them. Best mobile RPG ever.

[@DeanRands]

As someone from England, since seeing my first bit of footage of this game, it's felt incredibly jarring and uncomfortable to see a well-realised depiction of London lean so heavily on guns. I haven't played the game, but from what I've seen, it hasn't really made use of the setting to approach combat any differently from a game set in urban America. I assume that it's just a case of a "AAA" open-world action game being safe and predictable, but I wonder whether the design team even considered making guns a rarity in a country that hasn't established "the right to bear arms". (Edit: I just remembered how uncomfortable I felt when I saw armed police in-person here, since it's so uncommon. I think I've only really witnessed people openly carrying any weapons when there's been a terrorism scare.)

[@ErrantSignal]

Even as an American who's never been to England, it felt bizarre how often you'd scan someone and the first perk of theirs is "Owns an MP5" or "Owns a grenade launcher". The game *tries* to sidestep a lot of this by leaning on the idea that DedSec has "non-lethal" weapons, but really all that means is that they have pistols, shotguns, and SMGs that make little electric fizzes when they hit to indicate that they're "stun" bullets instead of real bullets (they also do substantially less damage than anyone with real lethal arms). But yeah, the game leans hard on gunplay because that's what Watch_Dogs combat is like, and it definitely feels incongruent with the setting.

[@DeanRands]

@@ErrantSignal Christ, the mention of a grenade launcher in such a casual sense is just beyond surreal... Like, this is a country where it's kind of a faux pas to own a knife that's not designed for cutting a steak. I feel like it's kind of in line with how you mentioned everyone's ability to hack things. It could have been more interesting for someone to own any kind of weaponry if it meant that they'd have a significant advantage in situations over other characters, on top of potentially saying something about that character's background. But no, this is a Watch_Dogs Open-World Action Game: The Video Game, and if it doesn't have guns, how will people have fun?

[@iam9991000]

@@ErrantSignal I mean you can square this by having it be a response from Dedsec to albion, who you can say brought an "American" style of enforcing the law. One that British people hate. This could be a reason for recruitment that they are are afraid of guns power, or the police shot a relative accidentally or something, or a reward if you reject guns entirely by having more people more easily to your cause or extra work to recruit people, or explore Dedsec's and Albion's justifications for using weaponry like this, or Albion calling Dedsec hypocrites if you decide to go down this exploratory route if Dedsec decides to go lethal. We may not be able to explore the individual in a system, but if we are going to do an organization vs organization structure, talk about the organization like via intel files. The problem is that the gun thing is both "tell the player no" and too explicit a controversy for ubisoft to be comfortable with.

[@lexman7179]

You can get guns in England although obviously you wouldn't be getting a grenade launcher. You can get a shotgun or a rifle but not handguns and everything has to registered. Anything more than that would have to stolen from the authorities or smuggled in. I think you could make some interesting game mechanics around the use of weapons in the UK but it seems like they didn't really bother.

[@TapDat52K]

I feel a lot of this boils to their core game mechanics not fitting the setting and story due to who they expect to be their core audience. But mentioning that specific term opens up a discussion that will most likely get someone flamed in a manner of seconds.

[@LateNightHalo]

It’s got that classic Ubisoft problem of “just being too surface-level, like an AI algorithm designed the game” I’m not sure why Ubisoft seems to genuinely struggle with making their modern games feel like cohesive, fully realized visions with a “soul” and point to existing

[@TapDat52K]

I think certain ubisoft games do better than others at that. but they definitely are not their major AAA projects. I think it comes from an awkward corporate structure and the umbrellas of its game development companies they are related to.

[@Kane615]

When you've got millions on the line and share holders expecting a dividend by the next quarter you're not going to take risks or even allow your staff to take risks. They've found a formula that can be built within a certain time frame and pushed out while being guaranteed to move a certain amount of units and they're going to keep using it until the model becomes unprofitable. The creative staff just end up there to decorate flat pack furniture, not figure out a new bold way to design and build the furniture.

[@pierstaylor5521]

I think it's a problem of scale. When you have different teams of people all working on disparate parts of the same game - sometimes even in different countries - It becomes difficult to maintain a cohesive artistic vision. The big-wigs at Ubisoft are faced with a choice: Make a game that is limited in scope with a nuanced, well thought-out design; OR make a huge game of AAA scale that is narratively simplistic or confused. Only one of those games you could charge £60 for, and only one of those games could allow a £20 DLC pack piece of content, made by a different studio.

[@MrRudesku]

Ubisoft used to have a very centralized creative approval process, in which very few individuals (reporting to Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoet) had a say on the projects that got greenlit. This led to Ubisoft unifying their "Ubisoft Open World" formula across all their franchises. This, in combination with an unusual high number of employees which are shuffled around from project to project, led to the creation of the modern Ubisoft creation process.

[@MrRudesku]

As a followup to my comment: Ubisoft STATES that they changed their process following Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's financial flop in late 2019, but it's pretty clear that Far Cry 6 and Legion were too ahead in development to apply it for these titles. Jury is still out if Ubisoft is really going to change or if that was just an empty promise.

[@JeanLucSeipke]

I think my ideal version of Legion would be a game that leans into player-created narratives and focuses on encouraging that with its systems. So for example, say the game knows you used Christopher Butler a lot by tracking how often he was used and can make the reasonable assumption you have an attachment to that character. So when he dies you get a special cutscene where everyone is morning his death. And that cutscene only happens once.

[@aceman0000099]

Great idea

[@ariehuybregts9875]

The whole description of roleplaying really makes me think of xcom where I was always coming up with relationships between soldiers and playing out reaction to missions. It really occurs to me that legion could have benefitted from a team-based approach to missions so that it actually really matters who you bring along.

[@thewriter1008]

Honestly? Part of me really feels this game should have been designed to either switch characters on the fly or should have been built around co-op. Characters with totally different ability sets are what makes co-op play shine, especially if you've got friends who can get into personal narratives that exist between you and the game.

[@kato1kalin]

Like christopher odd!

[@Dengarultra]

There's a very brief hint of that in the last mission of the game where (very minor spoiler) you switch back and forth once or twice between two operatives in different locations. It was nothing close to the hot-swapping of a game like GTA V, but it hinted at something more interesting. Honestly if I were to play the game over again I would probably set a hard cap on the number of operatives I recruit at one time, maybe 8-12. It's much easier to keep track of your characters and create story lines for them when you don't have such a massive roster

[@planescaped]

A grandma dressed like a middle school boy wearing cyber GUI goggles and sporting 4 lip rings... I actually do expect to see this in 2050... >__>

[@richmcgee434]

I suspect you're overestimating the time frame involved in that degree of cultural shift. :)

[@planescaped]

@@richmcgee434 Well I'll be dead by 2080 so I don't expect to see it then!

[@kato1kalin]

@@planescaped 2080 is the projected time when we run out of usable top soil. That and most of the world lives on coastlines so when we lose those and the population has to push inwards while running out of top soil to make food along with the push to 9-10 billion people. I figure we'll see ww3 for resources by 2050. 🤪

[@politicalnerdV]

The phrase "a child who clearly has no friends" resonated with me probably more than it should've.

[@Crocogator]

My takeaway from this video: I missed out on Watch Dogs 2.

[@RatchetSly]

It's a fun game with a fun cast. Very Ubisoft-open-world-y, of course, but the game has a charisma that makes it worth playing.

[@RatchetSly]

@Hamly 39 Yeah, the fact there's gunplay at all feels seriously out of place. Should've been based entirely around stealth, hacking and being creative, cuz that's much more in line with the cast.

[@Mirality]

It definitely has better characters and mission framing, but perhaps because I did play the original first, I got tired of its gameplay a lot faster. Both games now sit in the "maybe I'll get around to finishing that someday" pile.

[@AntiSuccess]

it really breaks my heart that they replaced the cool, fun, chill vibe of deadsec in the second game with this bland, impersonal pyramid scheme of an organization. deadsec was fun to be a part of because they were a scrappy gang of friends who liked each other and went to burning man and stuff together. in this game it feels like yet another shooting game where you're a faceless shooty man getting orders from a robot. might as well play destiny or halo also is it just me or do those procedurally generated "protagonists" all have faces that look like they're made of play doh?

[@amit212543]

My thought with these games is always "I hope the next one is better so it will be worth be playing"

[@colinr0380]

At least that is the opposite trajectory to the usual way things go!

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

Blume: predicts Marcus and Josh to become criminals. Marcus and Josh: Hell yeah, let's become criminals!

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

We're all criminals when the algorithm is in charge. How many people have had false DMCA claims on KZbin? Too many.

[@mrdrprof8402]

This is kind of what I do with XCOM. I create little headcanons and stories for all my various troops. I had a mission go really bad and the next one was entirely rookies because all my best guys were in the midday or dead. It was a massacre yet somehow one of them walked out alive due to an incredible Stroke of Luck. Had a whole running thing with him as this desperate loner with a death wish and survivor's guilt.

[@dyldragon1]

The end bit about roleplaying actually made this game sound kinda cool

[@Fachewachewa]

I feel like the best part of this is game is hearing stories that people came up with while playing it

[@dachshund_gaming]

@@Fachewachewa where are you hearing these stories? I’m fairly active on the subreddits for Watch_Dogs and Legion, but i mostly just see clips of glitches and posts complaining about how the game sucks in one way or another. That’s a genuine question since I would actually like to read these stories

[@Fachewachewa]

@@dachshund_gaming Nowhere in particular, sorry :( I don't really follow this game but I've seen some threads on twitter or stories in reviews mostly, I couldn't say exactly where

[@Robert399]

It is cool but it only works as an accompaniment to a compelling pre-written narrative. XCOM is the best example for me. I still remember my stand-out soldiers, their backstories and their accomplishments (and ended up recycling them for things like Shadowrun) BUT, even though that's what I remember best, I only kept going because the narrative was compelling enough on its own and used fixed characters (i.e. Bradford, Vahlen and Shen) when it needed to.

[@KenTWOu]

@@Fachewachewa Don't listen to him, I followed WD subreddit shortly after the game release as well, and there were more than enough pretty cool emergent stories involving the game systems.

[@didnt_ask_for_handle]

Couldn't missions be solved if they designed their levels around not any ONE character can solve it but a group could? Like have a selection of a stealth guy, a shooty guy, a hacker guy and be able to quick switch them or something GTA V style. Then you can add different abilities for their class that can stray further because at the base of it you still have the 3 fundamental answers in your arsenal at all times.

[@el-xy1tq]

That sounds awesome. Combining this procedural character system with GTA 5's multiple protagonist system could've made this game amazing.

[@aceman0000099]

Even just two people at once would work. Hopefully that's one of the things they are considering for next time

[@pedroscoponi4905]

Both you and Jacob Geller uploading in the same day, surely it must be my birthday or something

[@andreapiuma5920]

If you don't know him you should check out Leadhead, he has the same vibes of Jacob

[@TapDat52K]

@@andreapiuma5920 Oh hell yeah. Leadhead can release some pretty good stuff.

[@staltheclown6352]

I was thinking the exact same thing

[@bw000m]

my exact thoughts! helps that i have notifs on for both so they were right next to each other lolol

[@DreBourbeau]

The choice to implement the play-as-anyone system isn't befuddling at all - it's a reaction to Marcus just like he was a reaction to Aiden. Watch Dogs 2's crippling flaw was that Marcus was written as a twee, cutesy idealist who genuinely wants to do good, but once you control him in the open world you can violently assault old ladies and run over dogs with your car. Legion's designers obviously understood this, and Hocking's solution was to do what he did in Far Cry 2 - give players a basic-as-possible outline for a character and let them mold that character through however they choose to act in the world. It's just a shame that that choice was always going to be tethered to a shareholder-approved UbiGame.

[@TheSliderW]

I actually finished the game without using a gun and I wish there was a game mode where Marcus refused to pick one up... X )

[@TheSliderW]

@@ascissors Haha, yeah, that's how I played but unfortunately they still had an uncomfortable presence in the game considering the cast and mostly non violent activism portrayed. The lack of discussions around the act of 3d printing weapons, which is and has always been a controversial subject, by the cast felt wrong. But more notably some side activities and the online features didn't allow for non violent approaches and I just wish there were some.

[@grandsome1]

@@ascissors The game was more fun going the non-lethal (does melee count as lethal?) way anyway.

[@Maxx__________]

@@TheSliderW I think the game's lack of acknowledgment of the player having taken these actions and their impact on the character is the missing piece of the feedback loop.

[@CharlesAngelus]

That kind of reminds me of how Agent 47 is supposed to be one of the best assassins in the field, but when you actually play as Hitman your first instinct is to toss a proximity mine at your target in plain view, then make a mad dash to the exit, but not without throwing a screwdriver at a random bystander because he said something rude when you bumped into him.

[@lexman7179]

The problem seem to be that making AAA level games requires a lot of box ticking so you can't really do anything too difficult. The game has to be completable by everyone and they can't become stuck so requiring people to adapt to different play styles is out.

[@TheSliderW]

Well, you can very much have various difficulty settings for people to play with in case they feel stuck. It's up to the devs to invest some effort into those options and the way they affect gameplay (reducing the amount of guards or their senses, increasing the number of bodies you can insta hide, etc...). The main issue is mostly that the various mission locations have too many basic approaches to complete them and that every character has access to the skills and tools and knowledge required (if necessary). A solution would be to reduce every characters physical ability to make better use of everyone's personal abilities and tools and redesign the locations in order to have some routes require those special abilities. Not everyone should be good at sneaking or fighting so it should be up to the player to recruit and form the perfect team like in the Mission Impossible series/movies and switch from one to the other in order to complete a set of tasks in order to get the best outcome.

[@lexman7179]

@@TheSliderW There seems to be a trend to move away from difficulty levels as nobody wants to play on easy and scale stuff dynamically. I think the recruiting idea would be good, I guess that having to go to the effort of recruiting would have put some players off though.

[@Selestrielle]

That's partially true. AAA games definitely try their best to have the broadest possible appeal to cover their ridiculous production costs. Unfortunately, that means eliminating any potential element of frustration from the game that would turn off more casual players.

[@TheSliderW]

@@lexman7179 I wasn't strictly thinking about difficulty levels you set before starting the game but more like gameplay options that could be chosen by the player in order to personalise the experience. You can disguise them as bonuses the player could unlock and activate or as items. If I take the example of reducing the number of guards, you could imagine an option that would, in text, send someone beforehand to drug their food for a fee. The player could decide if they want to invest in that or save the resources for later or simply aim for an "I'm a badass" achievement or level rating ( think Hitman 2016/2018 or MGS V).

[@wacesferpit]

14:40 "and when everyone's super *ha ha ha ha ha ha* no one will be"

[@nkanyisoinnocentkhwane3752]

😂

[@levinmenekse1912]

The way you talked about your characters in this game reminded me of how I feel about my soldiers in XCOM. Most of my attachment to my soldiers doesn't come from the text (they have zero personality aside from different voice actors) but because I went through hell and back with them. Crucially though, they have different skills sets and abilities which really lends a hand to my brain when it comes up with stories for them -- which it seems like Legion doesn't. I also suspect the brutal nature of XCOM where death is frequent makes me attached to my soldiers a lot. It will be interesting when they finally nail a game with this level of ambition and procedural generated content AND a genuinely interesting story.

[@josephjarosch8739]

As a game this is a little underwhelming, but as a tech demo and experiment i would say that it was a fantastic success. No modern game has done something like this. I can imagine five years down the road a smaller studio doing something similar with more personality and then 'play anyone' becoming its own subgenre five years further down the road. Imagine a more Tactical RPG esque XCOm game where the generation engine coudl give the soliders a more distinct personality. Furthermore, since we are speculating anyway, maybe it will include a text-to-speech engine advance enough to allow for a more involved script.

[@varzin6140]

I initially thought the idea of playing as anyone was interesting but I found myself seeking out specific attributes for my preferred play style and just ignoring everything else. That's the point where I started asking: can I just make my own character please?

[@joshualane1716]

It's like they took all the premade character starters in a tradition character creator and just dropped the character creator.

[@PutkisenSetä]

@@joshualane1716 More like the shuffle button. Premades rarely include cyber granny with lip piercings and a gymnastics hobby.

[@blarg2429]

@@PutkisenSetä Well then premades need to step their game up, no pun intended.

[@EezhamDemon]

This was one of your best videos yet. The way you connected all these game systems and articulated their strengths and weaknesses was just terrific, I felt very engaged emotionally.

[@MrShinyObject]

What kind of game thinks it can slap a couple random details on a few stock archetypal game builds and trick us into thinking that each one is a wholly unique character? What idiot would fall for that? No thanks, I'll stick to playing animal crossing.

[@locorco1]

Reminds me a bit of the Pokemon Nuzlocke challenge, that thing where players will restrict themselves to only catching one Pokemon per area and declare a Pokemon "dead" if it fainted and cease using it; back when it was its heyday there were tons of people creating their own narratives and comics wherein they dramatized their adventures. The challenge upped the stakes (every individual battle now had consequences since a Pokemon fainting meant losing a valuable asset), created a cast of characters (since you were limited in your selection of Pokemon people tended to get very attached), and provided events/story beats that weren't in the game (catching/losing Pokemon). It was cool to see how just two simple alterations to the game system could fundamentally alter how people interacted with the game and it really got the creative juices flowing. I'm a big fan of single player roleplaying in this respect because I love to make up my own story in my head, but I don't know if a game providing a good sandbox for my mind to play in can be counted as a feature.

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

There's a difference between an impressive game and a good game.

[@barryherbers6090]

finished the video, fucking wonderful! My favorites of yours are always the ones that dive into generative narrative, because you're so aware of how much untapped potential the concept has, but also really charitable to any game that even attempts it! Even here, with the barest effort imaginable by Ubisoft at generative storytelling, you managed to find worthwhile elements while still not pulling any punches. Loved the video!

[@microwaveman1234]

I really enjoy your in depth look into games! You deserve way more subscribers, but I am glad you still put out such high quality content regardless.

[@Prockski]

Watching this makes me miss Christopher Butler...

[@exquisitecorpse4917]

Paleontologist making 13k a year, rising at dawn to commit vandalism, investigating smuggling rings............oh to be nineteen again!

[@GmodPlusWoW]

*1:* Welcome back, Chris. It's good to see you again. *2:* I reckon half of the conversations in Watch_Dogs 1 were based on staff overhearing executives, 'cause Ubisoft is a fucking Prison Rape Tea Party, and Yves Guillemot needs to have his limbs pulled off after we burn the entire company down to the foundations. Not just to the ground: to the very foundations. *3:* I'm gonna be honest, being able to choose from a whole roster of characters in a game like this does seem intriguing. Though due to how many there are, I doubt that all of them are as fleshed out as a single protagonist would be. *4:* They thought so hard about if they could, they didn't stop to think about if they SHOULD. Which is basically the whole industry in a nutshell. *5:* To be fair, being able to make your own little stories through characters is both a cool thing and a bit of an indictment of the game. On the one hand, you can have fun making your own story, but on the other hand the actual story doesn't seem as strong. *6:* Pour one out for Christopher Butler.

[@TechyBen]

If you play 99% of games as the devs crying out for help and the story/gameplay as illustrative of their torture/company policy, games make a *lot* more sense.

[@Personal_Chizo]

Uhhh, folks, did we just *hack the planet* ?

[@colinr0380]

That makes me think that Watch Dogs: Legion sounds like the best game of 1995

[@Miniike]

great video as always, certainly got me thinking a lot with the talk of singleplayer role-playing at the end. i am like so much of a hardline artistic relativist at this point (been trending that way all my life) that i borderline dont believe in the idea of "the text" anymore but obviously yr not that and i do see the reasoning and appeal, believing the things i believe can certainly feel like you're letting the art/artist off the hook, or giving them an excuse to be lazy. i imagine this is especially exhausting when you spend time playing and thinking on triple A games where a seemingly omnipresent problem is paying lip service to potentially interesting ideas without actually exploring them. but honestly i think the singleplayer roleplaying topic is something that really illustrates the limitations of trying to have a pure textual experience with something, like when u say the game only gives you prompts, and they were prompts that clearly made u respond, i kinda think thats like, close to the height of what a singleplayer systems-driven roleplaying experience should be? the game acknowledging what you project onto it is always really cool and certainly an ideal to strive towards, but like all ideals, its not something that can ever be perfectly achieved (at least not with our current understanding), and i cant help but feel like the effort would be better spent on much more achieveable things, like, say, creating scenarios (or systems) that are stimulating enough to warrant projecting your own ideas onto them. the best roleplaying experience i ever had was bloodlines, and there isn't ultimately that much systems-wise you can do to express yourself in that game especially as you reach the rougher , less considered back end of it. but the world it presents, the scenario of having your previous life completely yanked away and being unable to ever see humans as equals ever again, there's a LOT of responses someone could have to that, and all of my playthroughs have been spent in the mindset of someone internally psychologically working through and developing their reaction towards it. this is all in spite of the game having almost no emergent elements, or even the most expressive player dialogue choices. you can say its extra-textual ig, but it was one of the most stimulating, rewarding, memorable experiences i've ever had with a piece of art, and even if the game doesnt deserve credit for the specifics of what i thought, it DOES deserve credit for making me so invested in the first place. a game without a player is even more incomplete then most pieces of art because it requires human input to even function, and the same applies to roleplaying. just like a game deserves credit for its systems or its "game feel" even if its not as directly responsible for the enjoyable time you might have with it, i think a game deserves credit for the various prompts (the generated characters, the permadeath, ect) even if its not directly responsible for your (very cool imo!!) story of christopher butler and co. but i also think its important to know that, whoever deserves the credit, it doesnt erase or invalidate the experience you had! thats my take on it at least, i'd be very curious for a whole video on the subject tbh! :)

[@ErrantSignal]

I swear I am slowly building up to a video on single player role playing some day, but my thoughts on it are still so under-developed and the writing on the subject so borderline non-existent that I keep chasing myself off from doing so. Like, a fair criticism of this piece that I've received has been that trying to draw a line between "single-player role playing" and "headcanon" is itself fundamentally misguided. Like, I think this tweet exchange encapsulates it really well: twitter.com/Campster/status/1336010032455032833 It may well be that expecting a text to just reflect your will may well be a presumptive perspective held from privilege, and that, in the context of a single player role playing experience where the "story" only really exists in your head to begin with, expecting systems to respect your thoughts on the narrative is not just limiting but fundamentally misguided. You can tell infinite stories in your head, you don't need a computer system to tell you what's possible! But at the same time, there are games that make an active attempt to accommodate that sort of player-system-story discourse! Games that say "this is the space in which you're operating, but go to town - we'll try to accommodate your story or character! And I'm not sure I want to discount them for that effort? But inevitably there are limits there, and role playing folks tend to bristle at that notion because traditionally it's a collaborative effort with very few hard rules. It's a big, complicated messy conversation and I've yet to put enough time into sorting out my thoughts and doing enough research to be able to really be ready to talk about it on the show. But you (and others!) raise excellent points, and I'm more than welcome to hear criticisms of these ideas because I can't find a ton of literature on them that isn't either slanted towards systems-focused stuff or pen and paper role playing with multiple players.

[@Miniike]

@@ErrantSignal im absolutely looking forward to anything that comes of it! its frustrating theres so little out there on this topic but at the same time idk im definitely enjoying trying to explain and conceptualize things for a very young medium with the (admittedly probably v inflated in my head) feeling of “trailblazing” , or at the very least leaving more resources for anyone who might also be interested in the future

[@Skullkan6]

If you talk about Single player roleplaying you GOTTA talk about Kenshi. The entire game has a ton of stuff solely for stuff like this. You can sit down in chairs for no mechanical purpose in a game that is... already bursting at the seams with ambition and lack of budget.

[@rs-flamingo]

I feel this way with the recent Assassin’s Creed games too. Yes, you have an upgrade system to choose between melee/ranged/stealth but ultimately you have access to all of them and you can upgrade everything. I feel like Ubisoft open world games don’t want to ever close off any path to the player, they should be able to access everything

[@planescaped]

They would have been far better served just making a dozen or so fleshed-out characters and letting the player mix and match any combo of them, with different "team comps" allowing for completely different ways of playing the game. Instead we get no real characters and the same basic principle, only much lazier... how very Ubisoft. At least Watch Dogs Legion does have some fun and unique ideas to be had, even if it is deeply flawed... which is also so very "Ubisoft"

[@Selestrielle]

I dunno, I think the procedural approach could've worked if it had been baked into game systems more toroughly instead of what amounts to a trivia sheet about the characters you recruit. If recruiting a 75 year-old lady with mobility issues meant you had to commit to stealth/infiltration playstyles, and you could build up character perks on top of that, your old lady operative would be much more memorable. Like: "Oh, the next story mission is an infiltration mission. I'll sent Suzan, she's sneaky and she got that awesome perk in her last mission." Wouldn't necessarily make the characters iconic, but at least they wouldn't be so interchangeable.

[@aceman0000099]

@@Selestrielle and things like injuring characters could make them low mobility, or drinking too much making them alcoholic, giving you the tough decision to retire players and be more careful about what you do

[@joshuafalck_]

This makes me think of how Rimworld creates and invites procedural narratives.

[@josuebartley7272]

I was literally about to write this, I think part of it is the more simplistic art style makes it easier to project onto where WDL looks realistic so when it doesn't feel realistic it's jarring

[@joshuafalck_]

@@josuebartley7272 That's part of it for sure. However I fell like the games narrative and social mechanics do more. It like the game is adding to the story, where her the stories are just in your head.

[@josuebartley7272]

@@joshuafalck_ Actually yes your right thats a much bigger part of it, theres a a lot more mechanics in terms of how other characters react to each-other. Its just interesting because it never feels like Rimworld is hiding its mechanics or the maths going on in the background but I always felt a lot more immersed in it than most games. Idk if thats just be me tho

[@alexanderhammil6754]

@@josuebartley7272 That intragroup conflict is key, and it sounds like a big part of what watchdogs legion is lacking. rimworld’s stories are compelling because they’re soap operas: colonists fall in and out of love, make enemies, friends, mourn or fear death, go on crying or eating binges, etc etc.

[@mrtestarossa]

it's kinda ironic how a literal AI is more well-written than the other characters in the story

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

Ok, I'm on the same part of the spectrum as Josh, and while I have issues with the term "high-functioning," I actually really liked how they portrayed him (at least from what I saw in this video) and how they at least introduced some of the sh*t we have to put up with? And I...actually want to play Watch_Dogs 2 now? That was unexpected.

[@JohnZ117]

Also ASD, and I'm giving them a pass (on that) because it was made about 5 years ago, and "high-functioning" wasn't quite seen the same way then. And, it was a way for the layperson to better understand Josh through easily understandable terms.

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

@@JohnZ117 Agreed.

[@JohnZ117]

@Toxic Potato I'm not an expert, so go look for better explanations, but... It's because the term is often used to denote "better" autistic people, easier to socialize with, work with, keep around, the less problematic ones. And, that's suggesting that other people with ASD are less worthy.

[@duglikk]

Wanting to play Watch Dogs 2 shouldn't be unexpected, it's a great open world game.

[@reginaldbarclay1637]

@Toxic Potato It's not the fact that autism is a spectrum, it's the value statement imbedded in terms like high and low functioning.

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

Me: Okay, enough procrastination. I'm gonna start taking Finals Week seriously! Chis Franklin: *Uploads new Errant Signal Video.* Me: Goddammit...

[@ElkiLG]

Really interesting thoughts, I think I agree on pretty much everything here. I didn't go hard on personal roleplaying but I still became attached to some of my characters. There are some fun stories in there. Recruiting a spy with a heart condition, waiting for him to collapse at any moment was brilliant, and seeing him suddenly drop dead while running in the street was hilarious and really memorable. My Albion agent was the guy I took with me when I needed or felt like using a big assault rifle, and my 50 years old PI who served as some kind of leader had a surprising amount of character! The whole thing is very flawed, I still got more from it than from the scripted storyline.

[@drewgenel5185]

I think Blaseball has somehow managed to be the best incubator for role playing that I’ve seen. The devs actively include the community-made canon and build a universe and a plot based on collaboration between the community and themselves.

[@thepedrothethethe6151]

This is one of my favorite videogame critic channels. Thanks for making so many videos for us. :)

[@Roooobb]

Clint Hocking when asked about how he felt the Watch Dogs Legion Play-As-Anyone system turned out: I thought that *he* thought it was funny.

[@cartoonfreack9671]

I think the worst part is like recruiting people has nothing to do with a shared hope for the world or any kind of ideology but a for some reason vastly connected net of favors

[@KeldWolf]

Excellent discussion. Always appreciate your giving a background of previous and like games for context. This makes a huge difference

[@origamista1]

I'm always amazed at the quality of your writing, keep up the incredible job :3

[@politicalnerdV]

There's something about a bad guy with a man bun that's just satisfying to me.

[@TWKReviewsOLD]

This video really makes me want to replay Watch Dogs 2. Those characters really were the backbone of the game for me. Also, Watch Dogs 2 is literally the only Ubisoft game I've ever finished and I've put hours into: Assassin's Creed 2, 3, 4, Origins, and Odyssey, Far Cry 2, 3, and Blood Dragon. On top of the characters the way San Francisco is layed out made it infinitely more tolerable than any of Ubi's other sandboxes.

[@ShadaOfAllThings]

Good move stopping the scene's dialogue before it hit the slur. Its those details you don't tend to notice unless they aren't there but that matter.

[@ask5118]

The analogy about action figures makes so much sense...great video as always Campster

[@urallnutz5294]

I find it deeply amusing to guess they picked London as a location because the Brits have a stereotype of painfully proper and formal speech patterns, so maybe that'd cover up the robot voice

[@patrickhealy2954]

One problem I had with WD2 was that tonally, while the characters were certainly more interesting than Aiden, it led to some weird dissonance when I played not in the way the developer intended. Specifically, I rejected the non-lethal approach and had Marcus armed to the teeth for as many missions as I could. While the game didn't break or fail me in all bust the most forced stealth situations, the upbeat and "friendly" demeanor of Marcus and Dedsec San Francisco didn't match the dozens of PMC, gang member, and police I killed to achieve my goals. I know this is because I played the game "wrong," but why offer "weapons hot" as an approach at all if it so drastically clashes with the characters the game sets up?

[@mesastreatexit]

it could actually be cool to write a series of fanfic flash stories based on the "prompts" you get from a playthru

[@davidriley8316]

Funny thing: I love Aiden Pearce. He's a monster going up against bigger monsters. He's far more intetesting than anything Legion can hope for. With WD4, I hope they go with main protagonist but you have to assemble a team.

[@alecsarcade555]

Liked because of the open ended role-playing bit. This is one of your best videos.

[@timothymclean]

9:30: The "Play As Anyone" system feels like it was born from marketing. It's really cool to say that Watch Gods Legion lets you play as _anyone!_ But the Ubisoft formula wasn't changed to account for this; I wouldn't be surprised if the game's core systems were roughly complete, if unpolished, by the time "Play As Anyone" was brought into the picture. (I _hope_ that's not what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised.)

[@SoulGameStudio]

Whenever I think you're done dissecting a game design idea, you manage to find another, even deeper, abstraction to wander off into, tangling everything in a beautiful meta-mess that makes me think back on how much this medium has grown, and how rich our interaction with it have become. Cool!

[@tealeafonthewind]

I love watching video essays that use clips from multiple video games cuz its like: hmm, that random hacker bad guy sounds a lot like matt mercer. Hmmmm, that random orc bad guy sounds a lot like matt mercer. Hmmmm, that random-

[@DeadlyFateSk]

oh wild this reminded me i had watch dogs 2 in my epic games store library also i would totally read your watch dogs fanfiction tbh

[@selkieskins]

I absolutely love Watch Dogs: Legion; I have loved playing it and interacting with the "play anyone" system". Yet I completely agree with this video. Very well presented, really really love the writing and agree with the ideas presented 👍

[@SoShiBias]

Nice work explaining the problems of the role-playing aspect built upon a procedurally generated system. Looks like the skepticism I had upon hearing the concept when it first announced was a fair one after all. It sounds like a very daunting task to approach in an open-world format. If anything I still respect they tried even though the result tells us we still have some ways to go. Though in a more strictly controlled design space, it might work wonder. Piqued my interest on Mooncrash a bit.

[@StrangerYann]

Feels like you've been out for months or years even, man - like an old memory from another life, almost - great food for thought - welcome back, fam :)

[@CarelessFoolFallsFlat]

This video echoes my feelings pretty well. I had a fun time fleshing out my recruits in my imagination, but it's inarguable that I put more work into them than the game did.

[@Maxx__________]

"how hands off can a game be before the player is doing all of the work?" I've been asking myself this about difficulty settings in game menus a long time.

[@aceman0000099]

The best option is to let the player choose how much choice they want (at the start), although you would have to point them in the right direction as they might not know what they want

[@tommyvercetti9434]

Ubisoft implementing a half-assed mechanic that ends up being irrelevant to the bigger picture of the game? Who would've thought?

[@cindica1106]

dude, I will always advocate for single player roleplay. I spent my teenaged years conjuring headcanons for my many fallout 3 playthroughs. It doesn't matter to me that the game doesn't "recognize" a lot of the narrative I build in my head, I still consider it a story that I crafted with the game.

[@mill_ania]

The part about Legion somewhat of an RP prompt for the player to take makes me wish there are more games like Heat Signature. Same system of "roguelike-esque" permadeath of randomly generated characters with possible headcanon prompted by strating set of skills and later emergent gameplays.

[@benjoe1993]

Wow, why did I skip this video when it was uploaded? Great stuff as always.

[@alexwilliamfisher]

Watchdog: fanfic edition. Did you prefer the second one?

[@mayah.586]

was very excited to see a new errant signal video pop up in my feed

[@lincon127]

That ideal open world, play as anyone game you describe already exists: Dwarf Fortress Adventure mode

[@ShutItKyle]

We are all Ubisoft open world protagonists.

[@ReviewShark]

I had never put much thought into Watchdogs 2, but some of those cutscenes were genuinely adorable and almost make me want to play it just to see more of these characters. Having to deal with a Ubisoft sandbox nullifies that, but it's a close one.

[@yodamcyoda]

I feel that having more varied and pronounced mechanical differences between characters would make for more meaningful stories even without building the overall natrative around the procedurally generated characters. I don’t really remember the overall story in Xcom enemy unknown, but I’ll never forget some of the missions my procedurally generated characters went on. It doesn’t require much for players to become attached to their characters as long as they have meaningfully different abilities, become noticably stronger through use, and there’s a threat if permadeath.

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

One of the things Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas did really well was the perk system - these perks were designed in a way that allowed the game to respond to a player’s out-of-game role playing head canons. You might decide a character is going to be some particular type of character, and chances are there’s perks that can reflect that.

[@TheDudeSmashTrash]

The stuff you said about roleplaying/headcanons really stuck with me. I did similar things in my head with AC: Odyssey; specifically with regards to the mercenaries who I'd recruit to be the captains on my ship

[@brokensilence3268]

To be fair, I have often sworn revenge in front of ATMs.

[@MANBYTHEWIRELESS]

Worth looking at some older gameplay footage. Had a lot more RPG elements and seemed like a far more systems based game up until a few months before release. I feel like the fan push back to permadeath might have played a part in oversimplifying the system.

[@GoneFishingAmalgam]

2:20 The term you are looking for is 'iconic'

[@qtheplatypus]

I wonder if it was intended to have the characters that couldn’t do stuff but it was removed though focus testing.

[@bvenkat9924]

Hey errant, huge fan of your videos and how you deconstruct the narrative of some games. Was hoping you could make a video on how farcry primal with its new survival mode and permadeath option is now trying to raise the hostility of the game world

[@B-019]

As someone who names and gets attached to crew members in FTL, the single-player roleplaying section towards the end made a lot of sense to me.

[@TheToddbert]

wow you got it to run long enough without crashing to make a video.

[@b.janisch4108]

Man i missed this types of videos on your cannel!

[@oPHILOSORAPTORo]

I love that you mentioned Brad Bird (director of The Incredibles, in case anyone didn't know), cause as soon as you said, "In a system where everyone can do everything (more or less), no one feels memorable", I immediately thought of: "Everyone is special Dash", "Which is another way of saying no one is" / "...and when everyone is super... [laughs menacingly] ...no one will be".

[@JohnnyThousand605]

Because he mentioned Rand/John Galt and Brad Bird I thought he might've been referencing the theory that Incredibles was a nod to Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged. A theory Bird said wasn't intentional but that he also said he was happy for people to attribute different meanings from his film =)

[@prankhan3097]

This articulates so much of what I'm interested in so well. I love permadeath and procedurally generated characters for how they let me headcanon stories because I'm interested in the themes of individual insignificance, characters' personal meaningful experiences of systems that are larger than they are, and moving away from a video game-y clear divide between "these characters are important because they have eyes" vs. "you can kill these characters without guilt because they don't have names so they're not important." But while Papers, Please uses procedural generation to point out how dehumanizing an immigration system is despite knowing factoids about everyone being processed, other games fail because they don't seem to know how to grapple with the inherent dehumanization of game characters. It's not procedurally generated, but a game I think /started/ to ask some interesting questions about how to tell stories about individual people in systems that are far larger than they are is Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn because it makes you play as multiple different factions with named characters and relationships and forces you to fight yourself. So at its best you're not just attacking Soldier A, you're attacking someone who you know and care about, and who you have (some) idea of their friendships and relationships with other characters in multiple armies. Where it fails though is most soldiers are still nameless and in most cases you can "kill" your named enemy soldiers and they'll just retreat, so there's effectively still a clear line between "disposable NPC" and "named character with personality." I want to see a game grapple with these ideas more.

[@Charlesbn88]

Always great content!

[@momtom10]

As Syndrome from The Incredibles said "When everyone's super, no one will be."

[@yarrun]

The bit at the end with Christopher Plumber reminded me of my first time playing Skyrim back in 2013. When given a wide, wonderful world full of flat NPCs and hokey mechanics, my mind compensated by making my own story around my adventures that allowed for the powerful, emotional moments that the story itself was largely unable to provide. I still remember abandoning the Nightingale Initiation because I realized it was selling my soul to one of the Daedra and I swore off the Daedra after Vaermina tried to get me to backstab Erandur. That was all compelling, and I think it marvelous even now, but...that didn't make Skyrim a well-written game.

[@dead_fox]

Awesome video, I was hoping you'd cover WDL I agree with the points you make in this video, I'm enjoying WDL gameplay-wise, doing roleplay and creating headcanon is fun for me, although it is quite sad that the thing that makes this game stand out is also its biggest flaw.

[@OreoTheWolf]

I actually ended up making head canon for Aiden Pearce when I played the first Watch Dogs. Cutscenes were infrequent enough and Aiden said so little that I was able to shift him from objectively terrible to just a bumbling, script kiddie Batman who caused collateral damage sometimes. Even though the morality bar at the top of the screen was binary and half-baked, mine was always maxed out, because I refused to hurt any bystanders or shoot criminals. This isn’t a defense of Aiden; he’s still a bad character. My point is that I don’t think “play as anyone” and the faults of its design are required to have a player-designed narrative. Watch Dogs accomplished it for me just by having a milquetoast protagonist

[@purplegoat2500]

I think the idea here was just an illustration of "we are legion" with the series' anonymous-themed-glaze. I think it's a cool idea and I think you critique the game system pitfalls in a deep and interesting manner and bring up some inspiring ideas

[@SEGAClownboss]

You're still the best Campster, I now have quite a decent interest in Watch Dogs 2. I trust your opinion.

[@BewbsOP]

24:27 Oh my god, that was great. Three lines, and I already love this dude XD

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

_"Aiden Pearce remains one of the most loathesome protagonists in video game history"_ As he should be. I still think that with a couple of tweaks we could've get closest to a _great_ villain protagonist, we ever could. Feels, like somebody at Ubisoft didn't want to commit to the morally grey punisher or full on villain and Aiden ended up in a Limbo between his sad dad look, unhinged self-absorbed sociopath prick and cool(tm) hacker(tm) vigilante(tm). Okay, if you squint a bit, you'd see a noir detective protagonist (of which non-problematic ones are few and far between). Just put him in Mobster outfit and fedora, it all makes sense now, I swear! The dark grey palette, the music, the weather, the murky morality (that should've been). I feel, that Aiden always meant to be shades of grey protagonist, but Ubisoft couldn't pick a consistent archetype and branding. We needed "You don't want to - *you never want to* - be that guy in real life, but damn he looks great on the screen" type of cool.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

You know, you didn't have to kill your vigilante targets, right? Including that first guy. Though the fact, that you can kill criminals after the "justice" is served (you beat them mercilessly into unconsciousness) and your reputation doesn't tank is telling. Anyway, in this game Aiden Pearce kills more innocent pedestrians from the wheel of the stolen cars, than with the guns and hacking combined.

[@TweakBlue]

I'm kind of interested in you doing an entire video on single player rp in different games. How it can affect the gameplay experience and just some different examples of it in various games

[@FoxehReyfar]

Second.

[@johncoleman1930]

I think this play as anyone mechanic would be great for a heist game where you have to build a team keep it small grow together and if someone dies you have to replace them and work to catch that person up while staying on schedule