14 DAY TRIAL // Watch Dogs, the coming project from Ubisoft, has offered a lot of information on the game world and its themes of surveillance and security, but until now, the development team has not detailed the origins and ideas of the main character.
Jonathan Morin, the creative director of the team, says that Aidan Pierce is designed to be more lifelike than the protagonists of other franchises, like Assassin’s Creed, mainly because he can contextually react to the environments he is exploring.
The developer tells the official PlayStation Blog that, “Someone who is smart and is supposed not to attract attention to himself is going to walk in a certain way, and is going to be aware of his surroundings. So we put a lot of effort into that contextualisation.”
One of the main effects of the context focus is the way Aidan dresses and how he moves.
The mask is designed to allow him to engage in nefarious activities without allowing his identity to be revealed in the media.
The hat is also a way of escaping the attention of other citizens or the authorities.
Morin adds that a little more thought went into the coat he is wearing, which represents “a cool way to interact with the wind physics and create nice continuity of movement. It creates a second wave of movement. It feels a lot more realistic for the player.”
The creative director says that it took the Ubisoft team years to iterate on the concepts that would define Aidan.
Watch Dogs will allow players to explore Chicago and uses their impressive technological abilities for good or bad.
The game is focused on issues like surveillance and the oversharing of information.
Watch Dogs will be launched on November 19 and three days later on the PC, the Wii U, the PS3 and the Xbox 360.
A version is also in the works for the PlayStation 4.