New ‘Watch Dogs’ Screenshot Wants To Push Us To Next-Gen

One of the few major surprise announcements at E3 2012 came from Ubisoft’s press conference where they first unveiled gameplay for Watch Dogs, their upcoming open-world sci-fi action game. This isn’t your typical Grand Theft Auto however, and aside from driving cars and using bullet-time and cover mechanics during shootouts, the core features of the game have protagonist Aiden Pearce hacking into any electronic system tied to the Chicago’s central operating system (CTOS).

Most of the gameplay showcased so far focused on Pearce’s abilities, from hacking into the mobile phones of everyone around him and scanning people to learn their identities, to causing a car accident by changing the street lights at an intersection to stop a fleeing enemy. The in-game footage looked good enough that there was speculation that Watch Dogs could be a next-gen launch title for Ubisoft, and looking at the latest screenshot from the game, we can understand why people would think that.

The latest screenshot features a simple shot of the downtown environment. It’s just people living their daily lives on the street, but in the case of the visuals presented in Watch Dogs, that’s enough to get lost in while staring at the details.

For, the previously released Watch Dogs screenshots are below that you may have seen before so you can see just how incredibly detailed protagonist Aiden Pearce looks, along with the cars and other people in the city of Chicago.

Development on Watch Dogs must have been secretly in the works for a long time and even when I walked through the massive complex at Ubisoft Montreal back in February, there wasn’t even a hint of this when we were there to preview Far Cry 3. With Rayman Origins bringing back that franchise, paving the way for Rayman Legends, and Tom Clancy’s lineup making a big return with Ghost Recon: Future Soldier earlier this year and Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Rainbow 6: Patriots on the way, not to mention Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3, Ubisoft has a tremendous lineup of upcoming blockbusters, many of which are also in early development for film adaptations. Even Watch Dogs has a few film-related domains registered.

Watch Dogs releases in 2013 for unconfirmed platforms but Ubisoft’s press site listed PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.