Watch Dogs E3 gameplay demo

Watch Dogs was Ubisoft’s show-stopping conference finale which almost (but not quite) made up for all the frequent and awkward references to ‘girl wood’ that punctuated the show. Here’s the gameplay footage that made us very happy.

The game focusses around hacking personal, public and corporate devices that have all been linked under some kind of scary, Big Brother-esque Central Operating System. All of this takes place in an open-world adventure game setting that also lets you hijack cars and shoot people.

As you can see for yourself, the trailer starts with various bits of communication jamming, phone snooping and delving into personal records. This on-the-move digital espionage flows smoothly in the gameplay and is the kind of thing we’ve only seen in cutscenes or on static terminals before now.

This extends to traffic manipulation when the protagonist causes a massive pile up at a junction by hacking the lights. This handily inconveniences the target and allows our protagonist to put a bullet between his eyes.

The gunplay looks reminiscent of Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto, with a slo-mo effect and single dot aiming reticle. The recently crashed vehicles in the demo were also used as ‘snap-to’ dynamic cover.

It ends with a car chase, cut short when our hacker character chooses to raise the bridge in front of him, creating a ramp for a clean getaway that then turns into an impassable wall for his pursuers.

We’re really excited for Watch Dogs and can’t wait to see more of it in the future. There’s no word of a release date yet, but it will be coming to Xbox 360, PS3 and PC at some stage.