Watch Dogs Reviews

Watch Dogs is ranked in the 79th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
87 / 100
May 27, 2014

Creative hacking and covert multiplayer modes bring exciting new life to otherwise familiar open-world man-shooting.

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Dan Stapleton
Top Critic
8.4 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs is an excellent open-world action game with some unique hacking-magic that makes it a memorable experience.

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7 / 10
May 26, 2014

We've got a Watch Dogs guide that will help you beat some of the trickier missions in the game.

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May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs' interconnected world is a wonderful, explosive, high-tech playground. Shame the people who inhabit it are so forgettable.

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7 / 10
May 26, 2014

A highly enjoyable GTA clone but one that doesn't quite have the panache of Rockstar's best or the inspiration to make the most of its otherwise enjoyable gameplay concepts.

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8.5 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

The hacking abilities are a legitimate game changer and give Watch Dogs its own identity

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8 / 10
May 26, 2014

Watch Dogs' attempts to say something serious are overshadowed by how enormously fun it is to create chaos in its impressive open world.

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Polygon
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
May 26, 2014

WATCH DOGS OPEN WORLD IS TRUMPED BY ITS SMART, LAYERED MECHANICS

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Kotaku
Top Critic
No
Jun 3, 2014

An ambitious but flawed game that loses focus on its best ideas.

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May 26, 2014

Watch Dogs is a solid open-world game that doesn't do enough to set itself apart from the pack.

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USgamer
Top Critic
May 27, 2014

Watch_Dogs combines an astonishingly detailed world, a gripping storyline, creative game mechanics, a myriad of missions and activities, and improvisational tactical sandbox gameplay to create a truly next-generation open world game. Phenomenal. No other word for it.

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8 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

These games are all crafted with more care than the actual storyline, and come complete with their own skill trees and upgrades. If I ever got bored with anything from the core game I found myself getting distracted by these for hours on end. Even if you don't play open world games, it's worth giving Watch Dogs a try just to get your hands on these experiences.Despite the fact that Watch Dogs hasn't made any meaningful impact on the genre, I found myself having a ton of fun with it. Between the deep levels of customization and the sheer breadth of content, there's no shortage of things to do. If Ubisoft can take the game's core fun factor and marry it with an actual "next-gen" experience the next time around, they'll have something truly special.

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May 26, 2014

Watch Dogs converges the best of what Ubisoft has to offer as a game developer and serves as one of the strongest debuts for a new franchise this year.

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8.9 / 10.0
May 26, 2014

Watch Dogs isn't inspiring or revolutionary, but it's a well-rounded approach to open world gameplay. Completing the story and merely sampling the various side activities can last over thirty hours, with plenty more left to do. The focus on hacking lends to more cerebral gameplay, and the multiplayer is solid. So get out there and get hacked.

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8 / 10
Jun 3, 2014

Ubisoft has certainly upped its game in the past several years, with Watch Dogs being yet another display of both the publisher's ingenuity and willingness to take risks, all for the benefit of players.

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Paul Tassi
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

Like Grand Theft Auto V before it, sometimes it's not enough to simply be big and well-made. Watch Dogs feels like a collection of promising concepts with nothing solid holding them together. Aiden Pearce should have been that something, but instead, he's just a character meant to sell cool looking hats in collector's editions. Perhaps that can be rectified in a sequel, but for now, Pearce is pretty big issue, and so is his propensity to kill people in boring, cover-based shooter-y ways.

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9 / 10
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs could've easily been Grand Theft Auto with tech equipment. But Ubisoft Montreal has managed to flesh out this experience as something more, making fantastic use of the technology and applying it just right to deliver a remarkably deep experience. Furthermore, the presentation is quite good on newer game machines, and all the aspects click--albeit with somewhat inconsistent driving controls and AI. This game may have been a long time coming, but it's been worth the wait.

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Unscored
May 27, 2014

Buy it if you can tune out the story for an interesting take on the open-world genre.

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9 / 10.0
May 27, 2014

After a generation that brought us seven years of countless linear and identikit shooters, Watch Dogs is the open world adrenaline shot that fatigued gamers needed. While the story could have been better and Ubisoft have made a few questionable design choices, it's rare to see a big budget game that offers players freedom in almost every aspect of its design – and, more importantly, one that is this much fun while doing so.

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Attack of the Fanboy
AOTF Staff
Top Critic
May 27, 2014

Watch Dogs shines when it relies on its own ideas, but is ultimately held back by its more conventional approach.

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