Watch Dogs 2 Review

The first Watch Dogs is remembered for a graphics argument and a protagonist nobody warmed to. The sequel fixes the second problem outright. Marcus Holloway is funny and visibly enjoying himself, DedSec is a crew of friends rather than a grim conspiracy, and the whole game moves through daylight in a Bay Area that Ubisoft Montreal rebuilt with real care, from the Mission murals to the Silicon Valley campuses the script is happy to mock by name.

The hacking kit is where it earns its keep. A quadcopter for scouting and a small remote car for crawling through vents turn most objectives into a puzzle you can finish without being seen, and the best missions reward that patience with an exit nobody notices. Where it stays ordinary is anything involving a trigger. The gunplay is stiff, the driving is loose, and the game keeps offering a lethal option that sits badly against its own tone.

The story is a run of episodic capers rather than an argument about surveillance, which is a waste given how much of the world building points that way. Better than its predecessor in nearly every way that counts, and still a step below the tier its ideas deserve.