New properties for the next generation - Watch Dogs, Destiny and Titanfall

Watch Dogs

Of all the new properties coming to next generation consoles, Watch Dogs is one of the most interesting. Developed and published by Ubisoft, Watch Dogs takes place in a version of Chicago where a supercomputer dubbed CtOS has been put in control of all the major functions and utilities. Everything from emergency response, to public transportation to crime prevention (read: security cameras around every corner) is connected to and run by CtOS.

In Watch Dogs, players take on the role of Aiden Pearce, a shadowy vigilante who has the ability to hack nearly all of the functions of CtOS and use them for his own ends. Little has been made known about the story of Watch Dogs so far but that doesn’t mean Ubisoft has been tight-lipped on the project. Several videos have been shown of the game so far, some featuring gameplay while others are pre-rendered.  Though there hasn’t been any talk of an overarching story yet, the videos shown give the sense that you will make your own story as you play.

For example, as Aiden traverses Chicago, he has access to any and all digital information around him with the click of button on his smartphone. With that information, Aiden can choose to pursue leads he gathers through his digital spying and also use the CtOS crime prevention network to disrupt street crimes as they are happening. A recent video I watched also detailed how Aiden will need to hack specific servers and facilities in the various district of Chicago before he can gain full access to the tools offered by his hacking. Aiden can also learn of missions the old fashioned way, through human contacts.

It will be inevitable that Aiden runs afoul of the Chicago Police Department and in these moments, having full control over CtOS will afford you plenty of avenues for escape. Aiden can trigger blackouts, open hiding spaces, engage traffic control measures to block pursing vehicles or even turn all nearby traffic lights green to escape his pursuers. Aiden isn’t totally helpless in a fight, though, and has access to hand-to-hand combat skills as well as melee weapons and firearms. There seems to be more emphasis on stealth, however, and engaging large groups of enemies will probably end poorly. In the event of being outnumbered, Aiden seems to possess considerable free-running skills and will be able to easily traverse Chicago to escape.

Apart from the interesting game mechanics, Watch Dogs has an incredibly polished, highly detailed visual style that will set a standard in open-world video games. With its slick visuals and innovative new open-world mechanics, Watch Dogs could very well be the break-out new property of the next generation. Being that nearly everyone today has a smartphone or is connected to the internet in some way, I feel like the subject matter of Watch Dogs will resonate with  a lot of people and help it to become incredibly popular. Watch Dogs will be released November 2013 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii U, as well as Xbox One and Playstation 4. No word on what will be missing in the current gen version but, and I’m just guessing here, the next gen version will probably be superior.


Destiny

Of all the next gen games that I’ve detailed so far and of all the other games that will be released for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, Destiny has me the most excited. Developed by Bungie, the studio that created the Halo series, Destiny promises to be even more massive and larger in scope than the series that made Bungie a top-tier development house.

In Destiny, humanity is on the brink of extinction. Following a centuries-long period of expansion and peace, humanity is now confined to one city on earth. The Traveler, a giant white orb that floats above the final human city, grants humanity access to long-lost technology that allows for space travel as well as imbues humans with the power necessary to protect the city. Players take on the role of these protectors, known as Guardians, and will have access to a wide array of weaponry, armor and special powers to protect the city as well as take the fight to their enemies throughout the solar system. Players can choose from three distinct Guardian classes – the Hunter, the Warlock and the Titan. Hunters will be a quicker class that is reminiscent of the classic bounty hunter class. Warlocks will be able to use special powers granted by The Traveler and, as their name suggests, are basically “space wizards.” Titans are the heaviest class of all, relying on powerful weaponry over anything else.

In Destiny, players will travel the galaxy in the name of pushing humanity’s enemies back and allowing the race to prosper once again. Your travels will take you to planets such as Mars, Venus, the Moon, Saturn and more as you battle all manner of inventive and terrifying enemies. The Fallen, for example, are a ghastly looking race that is tall, has four arms and is vaguely insect-like. These enemies are quick and use teamwork to try and overwhelm you and your fellow Guardians. Another race of enemies is the Cabal. These massive, hulking enemies are slower but use heavier weaponry to protect their bases on Mars. There will be several other enemy races as well, each with their own distinct style and tactics as well as a hierarchy of soldiers that will be visually denoted, similar to the various castes of Elites in Halo.

The most promising aspect of Destiny is its melding of single and multiplayer. While playing Destiny, friends and other players in the same area of the game will be able to seamlessly jump in and out of your game, allowing for on-the-fly cooperative play. You’ll be able to turn off this online interconnectivity and play solo if you’d like, but having other players jump into your battle should only yield more enemies and better loot. Similar to the Borderlands series, Destiny looks primed to offer treasure hunters endless variations on weapon types and, I would guess, armor customization as well. 

Destiny essentially sounds like it will be the next step between console gaming and a true massively multiplayer online experience. Though it’s an FPS, Destiny will have all the trappings of an MMO – interesting quests in unbelievable locales, tons of new items and loot to obtain as well as the ability to play with your friends and others without needing to muddle through endless menus and matchmaking screens. Destiny has an ambiguous release date of 2014 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3 and Playstation 4.

  

Titanfall

Of all the next gen games I’ve previewed so far, Titanfall is the only one that is an exclusive. Available only on Microsoft consoles, Titanfall is the first game from Respawn Entertainment, the studio that was born when Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella were fired from the company by Activision. Being that West and Zampella were instrumental in the meteoric rise in popularity of the Call of Duty series, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Titanfall could be the next generation’s Call of Duty.

Featuring fast gunplay and slick visuals, Titanfall brings many interesting twists to the typical FPS fragfest. Most importantly, Titanfall brings massive armored units called Titans to the on-foot shooting mechanics of the Call of Duty series. The Titan and Pilot (the term for the special forces human characters) combat may seem lopsided, but both classes have advantages to even the odds.  Players in Titans obviously have a bit of an edge, being protected by their massive war machine as well as being able to utilize powerful weaponry as well as a magnetic collection device that collects rounds fired at you and throws them back at your enemies. You can even disembark a Titan and have it guard an area or follow you. But Pilots aren’t completely helpless against these hulking beasts. Equipped with jet packs, Pilots are highly maneuverable and can easily change levels quickly and escape a rampaging Titan. They’re also equipped with powerful weaponry, enough to take out any human adversary and even have a rocket launcher to deal with Titans.

The gameplay shown for Titanfall so far is very reminiscent of Call of Duty. It’s very fast paced and liberally hands out awards and points for kills and actions during gameplay. Online modes will be populated with human players on opposite sides taking on the roles of Pilots with numerous bot characters populating the world as well to make battles feel larger and more hectic. Like Call of Duty, Titanfall seems like it plays very quickly and is said to be aided by Microsoft’s cloud computing system, which will allow the game to render high quality graphics in fast-paced online battles.

Titanfall is said to be an online only game, melding elements of a single player story into online matches to bridge the gap between single player and multiplayer. I’ve seen games try to meld single and multiplayer before and even though it sounds like a good idea on paper, the concept doesn’t seem to keep people’s attention as much as two separate modes would. The one example I think back to is Brink, a game that tried to incorporate a narrative onto a series of multiplayer maps that constituted the entire game’s experience. In the end, it just wasn’t enough to keep people coming back and Brink, unfortunately, ended up being more style than substance. With its fast-paced gun play and interesting sci-fi gameplay mechanics, Titanfall could easily overcome any shortcomings that Brink suffered. Only time will tell, though. Titanfall will be available on Xbox 360 and Xbox One in early 2014.

A look ahead at the next generation of gaming - Battlefield 4, The Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Battlefield 4

This gameplay demo that was revealed at E3 shows a squad of soldiers infiltrating an aircraft carrier and getting into a firefight with enemy forces before the layout of the level is radically changed by the Frostbite 3 Engine.

As the soldiers make their way through the dark, lower decks of the ship, we can see a high level of detail not just on the equipment around the player but also on his weapons and his squadmates. In the ensuing firefight, we can see how the Frostbite 3 allows for major deformation to occur even in a relatively bland interior environment. The firefight also shows off some impressive lighting and particle effects as electronics shatter and explode in a shower of sparks.

Having cleared out the room, the squad moves through a door to a dark hallway. Suddenly, the hallway, and the entire ship itself, is torn in two and we’re treated to a spectacular show as debris and metal go flying but not before the shorn side of the ship falls back down, against the side where our soldiers still stand. Now, with a clear exit route, the soldiers jump onto the now exposed top deck of the ship to continue taking the fight to their enemies.

The firefight on the deck is even more impressive as it shows off a few interesting gameplay mechanics, the first of which seems to be a method of controlling your AI squadmates by directing them to move and attack enemy positions. With the enemies occupied, the player begins destroying the environment enough to let loose an F14 fighter plane that crushes their enemies before careening into the sea in a massive shower of sparks and debris. Another interesting bit I noticed during the outdoor firefight was how the player appeared to be using two different scopes on the same weapon.

Battlefield 4 should prove to be just as amazing as its predecessor, Battlefield 3, while delivering higher quality visuals, a higher level of destruction in environments as well as allowing larger amounts of players in online, multiplayer games. Battlefield 4 will be available on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in October 2013 and on next generation consoles in November.

The Witcher 3

The Witcher 3 is a fantasy RPG that is the final chapter in the story of Geralt of Rivia. In a land where strife and political upheaval are unending, Geralt is a Witcher, a trained monster hunter who is not entirely human. In The Witcher 3, Geralt continues his quest to find his lost love and uncover the truth behind the mythical Wild Hunt.

I only became familiar with this series after playing The Witcher 2. It was a much different RPG than I had ever played, one that focused as greatly on storytelling and choice as it did on intense combat where careful planning and preparation were just as important as tactical movement and attack. While the second game in the Witcher series was a more directed experience, following Geralt’s quest to regain his memory from area to area, the third game promises a massive, open-world setting that is larger than all previous iterations. Developer CD Projekt Red even claims that the world of The Witcher 3 will be even larger than that of Skyrim, a feat that hardly sounds possible.

In the third and final installment of Geralt’s story, CD Projekt Red is trying to create a world where the player has the freedom to explore anywhere and take on any quest while still maintaining the deep storytelling that the first two games were known for. In addition to telling a compelling story in an open-world environment, I’ll be interested to see how heavily your choices while playing weigh on the game’s course and outcome. For instance, The Witcher 2 can play out very differently depending on the quests you take and the alliances you forge. If the third title is to capture the same feeling, weight will need to be added to your decisions – something that is not easy to accomplish in an open-world game.

The Witcher 3 has a tentative release date of 2014 for PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Over the years, I’ve fallen in and out of love with the Assassin’s Creed series. I played the very first game in the series and wasn’t a big fan. The mechanics didn’t feel very tight and the objectives all felt pretty tedious. I didn’t end up playing it for very long before putting it aside for good. Considering my experience with the first title, I’m not even sure how I came to play the second one, but I’m glad I did. Assassin’s Creed 2 improved on almost everything that the first title did, basically making the title a giant open-world sandbox title set in the Italian Renaissance.

The sequels to Assassin’s Creed 2 were fun but didn’t do much to add onto the second title. The biggest change to the series overall came with Assassin’s Creed 3 as the historical setting moved to America during the time of the Revolutionary War and also placed more importance on the modern day story of Desmond and his team. The third numbered entry in the series, for the first time, allowed players to free run across the vast wilderness of North America as well as the growing city of Boston. Along with the forest free running, Assassin’s Creed 3 also introduced sailing, which was my absolute favorite aspect of the game. Sprinting through the tree tops while stalking deer was fun, sure, but it didn’t hold a candle to taking to the high seas and engaging other ships in combat. Heck, even just sailing your boat was fun enough and I remember in my review, lamenting that there wasn’t more opportunity to sail your ship outside of side missions.

And it seems rather than creating a straight sequel to Connor’s story in Assassin’s Creed 3, Ubisoft opted to move to another entirely new setting for Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. Players will take on the role of Edward Kenway, a British privateer-turned-pirate and also Connor’s grandfather. Being that it’s a game about pirates, sailing and naval combat will have a large role in Black Flag and if the video above is true to the game, there should even be opportunities for ship-to-ship combat. The Wikipedia entry for Black Flag also mentions that there will be “open-ended ship-based exploration” as well as land exploration over a number of Caribbean Island and even parts of southern Florida. I can’t wait to see more of Black Flag and I’ll be counting the days until I can fulfill my childhood dream of sailing the open seas in search of buried treasure.