Ubisoft has finally dropped a little bit of information about the multiplayer side of Watch Dogs, its upcoming surveillance state and hacking open-world epic.

Although you’ll always be playing in an individual session, creative director Jonathan Morin told the PlayStation Blog that these sessions can temporarily overlap according to Ubisoft’s “pacing”. Once the encounter is over, you’ll go back to playing entirely alone.

Morin admitted that players don’t necessarily want somebody else in their game, potentially ruining everything – but said Ubisoft has been working on this problem in a pretty interesting-sounding way.

“When we watch people play together in Watch Dogs, most of the time they don’t even realise that it was another player. There are no signs. There is a great thing there that someone can be in the experience and naturally enter a situation. They become part of the story. ‘That was another player? No way! That’s awesome!’ They didn’t notice. That’s spectacular!

“As a developer, I can immediately tell when it’s another player in a game – jeez, that guy doesn’t walk like an AI, that’s a player. But in Watch_Dogs, players won’t notice that immediately. It’s a new form of emotion and it fits perfectly in the Watch_Dogs universe where everybody watches everyone else.”

Naturally I’m a little bit dubious as in my experience multiplayer gamers tend to be fairly obvious – it’s the teabagging that gives it away – but the Assassin’s Creed series has created a whole new genre of “pretending to be an NPC” in its multiplayer modes, so let’s see what Ubisoft can pull out of its bag of tricks.

Source: PlayStation Blog EU

YouTube channel GamesHQMedia have somehow got hold of six minutes of edited Watch Dogs gameplay footage — despite nobody being able to identify where it came from or when Ubisoft released it (which seems appropriate, given the theme of the game). It’s definitely new stuff and hasn’t been shown before, and if the description is to be believed it is running on a PC specced to the power of a next-gen console.

Take a look below and see what you think.

UPDATE: The original video has been taken down. We’ve got one up now from Eurogamer — thanks ali_gray.

Source: Joystiq

Ubisoft are keen to make sure the hacking in Watch Dogs doesn’t stretch the bounds of reality — too far, at least. Senior Producer Dominic Guay from the company’s Montreal studio explained that the team had been working with Kaspersky Lab to keep it vaguely realistic.

“We’re working with Kaspersky Lab, a big security firm,” said Guay. “They have really hardcore experts there on hacking. 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.’”

According to Ubisoft, this sort of coordination with real-life security teams is meant to reduce instances of “Hollywood Hacking”, which anybody who has ever used a computer will have seen in movies (and then immediately groaned and looked away).

Watch Dogs lands on November 21.

Source: Joystiq

Ubisoft revealed this morning that Watch Dogs will launch in Australia on November 21. The launch comes two days after the US launch on the 19th, but before the European launch on the 22nd. Confusing!

This is of course an Ubisoft title, so if you’d like to see all the various wacky editions available you can check them out by clicking here. The cheapest edition is the regular special edition (when did “special edition” become the basic edition, again?), starting at $79.95 AUD.

Watch Dogs looks good, and the trailers we’ve seen for it look good as well. Interestingly, Ubisoft have chosen to release a new trailer at GDC that provides a sort of meta-commentary on the last trailer, from the point of view of the CTOS system administrators who run the city’s networking software. It’s worth a look as a companion piece to the first one, revealing some details I had originally missed. Check it out:

The Dutch gaming site InsideGamer has been speaking to Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guilllemont about Watch Dogs (as you do, naturally), who revealed that the PS4′s new x86 architecture makes it really easy to develop for the PC as the lead platform and then quickly port across.

“We have, in my opinion, but a game that had really had problems with a port and that’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier,” reads Guillemont’s comments, translated from Dutch by Google. “The PC project could be better managed. But with the other brands there is a lot of time and effort in which all platforms have the perfect game.”

“We also expect fewer problems with porting games to the PS4 than the PS3, which had a completely different infrastructure. It is now easier. Previously, we developed first games on the Xbox 360 and which were then translated into the PS3. It took a lot of time and money to make that port. Now we develop from the PC and which versions are translated into a console like the PlayStation 4.”

The news follows the reveal that the excellent-looking Watch Dogs trailer used at the PS4 announcement event was actually running behind the scenes on a high-end PC.

Source: Blue’s News

Here at games.on.net we’re partial to a bit of PC gaming, which is why the PS4′s announcement event that happened today has somewhat flown under our radar. We’ll have a wrap-up of the major points shortly, but one of the biggest reveals was this new Watch Dogs footage, embedded below. Slated as a PS4 launch title, the footage shown at the event was actually being run behind the scenes on a high-end PC. Check it out.

Watch Dogs was my number one most anticipated game of 2013 and, based on this footage, it still is.

Source: Thanks, VG247

Alright. Who called it? Yes. It was me, thankyou for asking.I’ve written extensively about my jacked-in love for ‘80s sci-fi baby cyberpunk in the past, both for games.on.net and elsewhere. Naturally and because every game dev hungrily devours just about everything I write ever*, the resurgence I picketed for in an annoying way has not stopped at Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Syndicate and even Gemini Rue.

In fact, it looks like it’s becoming a thing all over again in 2013. This year alone we’re gonna hear from Watch Dogs, Remember Me, maybe Prey 2 (I’m an optimist), and most blinding and recently of them all, Cyberpunk 2077. Okay, that last one’s slated for “when it’s ready”, but it’s definitely got your attention. Kick. Ass.

For many people, the game of the show at this year’s E3 was Watch Dogs, Ubisoft’s surprise new IP centered around hacking and near-future terror. Patrick Stafford hacked his way into Ubisoft’s E3 booth to discuss how open their world really is, when we can expect a PC version, and how much of their mind-blowing demo was scripted.

Toby McCasker is a very paranoid man – which is why when Watch Dogs showed up with its particular brand of cyber-terror and near-future paranoia, he was already sold. It didn’t hurt that it had some brutal gunplay, as well.

We’ll have more information for you soon when our Ubisoft press conference wrap-up comes in, but for now, enjoy this trailer ofWatch Dogs - the new IP from Ubisoft where you hack, hijack, and socially manipulate your way through a digitally connected open world. It looks superb, and makes a hugely refreshing change from the tidal wave of sequels we’ve seen so far.

(UPDATE) And here’s the intro trailer as well!