I loved all Watch_Dogs games, and that is exceedingly rare because people either love 1 and hate 2 and Legion, or love 2 and think 1 has aged badly and Legion is dumb.
But I like them all!
Here's my reasoning:
The first one was the start to the series obviously and deserves some credit. It kicked it all off, and despite the downgrades and admittedly cliché'd plot it avoided some of the pitfalls of other games that time, I think. Despite falling into the general visual style of "depressing and drab" as many of that era, it had none of this brown filter over it like GTA IV infamously did. The graphics were still extremely beautiful even on last gen (PS3 et al).
It established all of the lore we hold dear nowadays and I don't think it had aged badly in that regard. Blume is an interesting villain of a sort that hadn't been seen before at that time, Dedsec is a great companion group, and, well, T-Bone with Judas Priest?! 'Nuff said. All the scenes with him were amazing, in my opinion. The vibe of going from beaten down city dude to the country, making allies and coming back stronger than ever to defeat all the old foes really reminded me of GTA San Andreas.
The side content was really good and fun, too; I spent hours completing all the gang attacks because they were all tailored to a specific location and the level design was really interesting, allowing for various different approaches that felt natural regardless of which you take. It was basically all the fun of the main missions with all the noncommittal delight of side missions.
Being a vigilante was a blast if a bit repetitive but the multiplayer was where it would shine. Role-play activities such as grabbing a coffee or even playing chess: check.
AR side games for high scores? Check! Overall a great game though a little bogged down by the story being so... 2013. Everything felt a bit heavy-handed: tragic children, stern gruffy white dude looking into the sunset. But it wasn't terrible; Blume was an engaging antagonist and the game had its cinematic moments, but some other antagonists were less than interesting and felt more mechanical, like Iraq.
The second one is one of my favorite games of all time. The hacking mechanics were expanded wildly for this game and allow for intense strategizing similar to a tactical game like XCOM, the parkour was more fluent than ever, the game world itself was vibrant and although I am miffed at the removal of AR games/digital trips and the town sights and stuff, WD2 also had its fair share of side delight in all its collectibles. Some moments in the story wow-ed me completely as I didn't think they would put this amount of effort in it including sets and cinematic moments, like the Scientology knockoff takedown mission, the intricate sets and worldbuilding for the various companies, or especially the (very accurate) Helter Skelter festival; and I thought it was super funny when one o' my partners was at an actual hacker camp and saw the same kind of fire breathing dragon hacking contest as in-game, in real life. I thought it was made up! In general, I thought the structure of the game of non-linearly operating on taking down various enemies was a great one. It really made every one of them stand out in its own little arc that all culminated in a big finale.
To address the elephant in the room: as opposed to seemingly literally everyone else online, I didn't think the characters were cringy at all. People from the actual hacker subculture in real life do act that way, and that is what I find super funny about people online seething at their teeth about the cast. People think hackers are either antisocial neckbeards or subtle professionals, but most hackers I met were among the wildest people around: punks, queers, constantly moving around in the world, absorbed in online culture and memes, all-around silly and good humored. And they all share the same god damn polycule. I also didn't think there was ludonarrative dissonance between them being generally silly and also going around being violent -- because guess what, violent groups also have fun and aren't stern faces psychopaths. I know people who'd knock out a cop any day of the week and they're a blast to be around, kind and empathetic.
The third one, Legion, is an interesting one. It was universally hated or at least called a disappointment, but I also like it very much. I thought the play-as-anyone feature shined when you put it in permadeath mode, and as a roleplayer by nature I didn't have a problem empathizing with any of the characters. They ceased to be randos when they joined my team and I customized them, so I didn't see the issue. Plus the voice line diversity gave them rather unique personalities that I would embrace.
On the other hand, I thought that the resistance this time around was way less political and even a bit more centrist or right wing, which blew my mind. We are trying to bring back the police because they were the good guys compared to the private army? Our Dedsec posters now defend the British monarchy? Sure, corporate police state bad and all that, but that doesn't mean we have to return to the status quo before all of this happened! Why does Dedsec now defend the current UK, with its monarchy and conservative government? In Watch Dogs 2, we had hammer and sickle t-shirts, queer themed merch, random memes, anti-capitalist over- and undertones literally everywhere, and while it was all somewhat corny, it fit with the hacker vibe. Legion doesn't feel like hacker culture at all. It seems as if Ubisoft saw the right wing backlash against W_D2 and thought "we can make more money by pandering to the rightists this time around". Doesn't surprise me, what do you do, it's a corporation. They even left out all the anti-capitalism and substituted it with cartoon villains.
The side content was greatly dumbed down this time I feel, with the football game not catching me in the same way as chess or the AR games did, but darts was always fun.
But then again, it lifted itself up with the incredible story beats that even turned into existential horror here and there, with a bit of actual horror sprinkled in. The story was much darker this time around, but also a bit further removed from reality: I can't buy the premise oftentimes, and the setting feels a bit artificial and on the nose. I mean, come on, Albion projecting their ads from Buckingham Palace? It had none of the subtlety of the first two. In those games, Blume felt like any other corporation in that they had normal offices, normal people working for them, and felt situated in the 21st century. In Legion, it was all bleak and brutal, and everyone was either a corny freedom fighter with a one dimensional personality or an evil cyberpunk villain. I didn't buy that, it felt unbelievable.
Gameplay-wise, I thought the spiderbot was a fun diversion, although I wish it could climb walls. The hand-to-hand combat was amazing though and I really loved the shooting. The best part of it all was the play-as-anyone feature though, as I thought it gave way to a great deal of variety. I think people complaining about variety and thinking everyone feels same-y are the same ones that minmax their characters and only recruit the same few types of people and play them exactly the same way without even attempting to roleplay a bit. If you roleplay, it suddenly all makes sense.
Generally, I love all of the games, and that seems to be a really rare opinion online.
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