Sorry Keanu Reeves, but gaming has a new greatest character: Helen, the retired assassin from Watch Dogs: Legion who goes from bird-feeding grandma to espionage expert in the blink of an eye. During their E3 press conference on Monday, Ubisoft revealed 11 minutes of gameplay showing off the third entry in Ubisoft’s open-world hacktion-adventure series, which takes you to the mean streets of London. Far and away, the crowd favorite was Helen, a seemingly sweet old lady who leaves her park bench behind to infiltrate a high-tech security facility, deploy combat drones, and take down guards with deadly accuracy.
Of course, Helen isn’t the only character you’ll be controlling in this near-future version of London, as you can see in the video above. You’ll be able to play as nearly any character you encounter through a new gameplay innovation known quite aptly as “Play As Anyone.” From getaway drivers to bare knuckle boxers to former MI5 agents and beyond, this new gameplay system will let you build a customized resistance army full of people with their own unique back stories, abilities, wants, and needs. And you’ll need their help considering this is a London where a corrupt private military organization, crime syndicates, and other bad actors are taking advantage of the collapsing government to oppress the innocent.
Considering that your recruits can permanently die, as we saw in the gameplay demo, you’ll want to consider how the consequences of your actions affect the world around you. Taking a violent approach to encounters will likely lead to a marked uptick in your team’s fatality rate, whereas trying to hack the planet non-violently will leave significantly fewer bodies in your wake. But the choice, it seems, is well and truly yours.
“Every cinematic in the game will change depending on whether you’re playing a former MI5 action hero or a granny feeding pigeons in the park,” creative director Clint Hocking said during the presentation. “Because being a hero isn’t just a job for someone else anymore. It’s a job for everyone.”
Watch Dogs: Legion comes to Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Stadia on March 6, 2020.
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Images: Ubisoft