Ubisoft Montreal is trying to ensure its upcoming open-world game Watch Dogs offer an environment where players feel they are actually exploiting interconnected computer networks. The publisher has tapped one of the top Internet security firms, Kaspersky Lab, to make the hacking more realistic in the game.
"They have really hardcore experts there on hacking," Watch Dogs senior producer Dominic Guay says to Joystiq. "We send them some of our designs and we ask them feedback on it, and it's interesting to see what gets back. Sometimes they say, 'Yeah that's possible but change that word,' or, 'That's not the way it works'."
In Watch Dogs, a game set in the present time, players take on the role of protagonist Aiden Pearce who exploits interconnected computer networks through his smartphone. The game treats hacking as a shortcut to manipulate doors, cameras, cars, laptops and ATMs in a futuristic "smart city" based on Chicago. The centrally computer-controlled urban environment is a sprawling basis for the game's traversal, shooting, stealth and driving systems, the report states.
"It's not about the minigame that will let me open the door, it's the fact that I'm making a plan. I'm making a plan of how I'm going to chain hacking, shooting, traveling the city and driving to achieve an objective," Guay adds.
As showcased in a recently uploaded six-minute long gameplay footage of the game, its main character has the ability to hack just about any and everything around him, gain information from anyone and access everything. The game revolves heavily on the main character's cell phone with which he constantly to do things like hack into a security infrastructure and more.
