I'm Worried For Watch Dogs' Future
UPDATE: Ubisoft mentions that the sales of Watch Dogs 2 are improving, which is also the same story for both Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege & Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, both of which had rocky launches and have slowly been making their way to even the top of sales charts. Since wiring this, Ubisoft have released multiple expansions and updates to Watch Dogs 2. All of which continue to show that Ubisoft cares about those that support their games. Love y'all.
As you might know, I totally loved Watch Dogs 2. It totally blew the original out of the water for many different reasons, though I would argue the main one would be due to the change of the setting. Not just the place, but the characters and the whole idea of the game being more "fun" and "silly". The type of silly that made me fall in love with the Saint's Row series back in the day... up until the Third anyway.
Going from super serious to fun yet still having serious & intense moments, it's hard to explain without spoiling the storyline of the game so if you haven't played it... you'll just have to trust my word... or watch some of my videos. ;)
Anyway! Why am I worried?
Watch Dogs 2 doesn't seem to be selling so well.
Now I totally understand the source of this issue, the way the original Watch Dogs was advertised and released. Remember that original trailer? Then the release? Yeah they didn't really look the same. Annoyingly in this day and age, graphics are what sell games for the most part. A lot of people disregarded the fact the original game had great gameplay, a great storyline & great progression to shout at Ubisoft about a graphical "downgrade" from the original trailer to the release graphics.
Though focusing on graphics personally winds me up, it's unfortunately still a valid reason for people to say that the game was not the title originally advertised.
Which leads us onto the newest game, so much better in every single way (except competitively online... but nobody really touched that for long on the original. That and playing with more than 2 friends at once) yet it's struggling to even match the sales of the original game that was widely attacked for being a "downgrade" and just generally not what people expected. The new game fixes so many problems I personally had with the first, I was lucky enough to get my hands on it early during the Gamescom & E3 demo's, along with special events for recording gameplay and found it more and more fun every time I got to play a newer build. The feedback seemed massively positive from other media outlets & YouTubers I got to play with at those events... so why isn't it selling very well?
Well it just has to do with the original game, if the previous game isn't up to scratch it just makes sense that the next would be a harder sell. Watch Dogs also had the advantage of being one of the first proper open world action games to come out with the new generation of consoles.
This is where my worry for the future of the series comes in, how will Ubisoft tackle the series from now? Will they give less budget? Less staff or downright scrap the IP? (for now at least) ... I don't have the answer. But I know for sure that I'll forever be an advocate for the series, especially if it continues to improve and listen to it's fans as it has done this far. I know for me that Watch Dogs 2 was easily my game of 2016 and if you haven't yet checked it out then you should at least check out the three-hour free trial available here, then obviously consider giving it a buy to show your support for the future of the series.
It was an amazing feeling to finally have another SOLID competitor for Grand Theft Auto, which obviously still continues to dominate everything on the market, but competition helps us take games even further. It's always a good thing.
P.S. RIP Saints Row 2006 - 2011, forever hoping for a reboot to the style of the first two games.