Watch Dogs 2 Review (2026): Ubisoft's Best Open-World Crime Game Is Still Worth Hacking
- Niels Gys
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
TL;DR
Buy it.
Watch Dogs 2 remains one of Ubisoft's best open worlds and one of gaming's most entertaining hacking sandboxes. If the idea of remotely hijacking cars, emptying bank accounts, framing gang members, infiltrating secure compounds with drones, and turning the police into your own personal demolition crew sounds appealing, you'll have a fantastic time.
Just don't expect to become a proper criminal kingpin.
Watch Dogs 2 lets you commit enough felonies to make a career criminal blush, yet somehow insists you're one of the good guys. It's like watching someone rob a bank while wearing a "Be Kind" T-shirt.
Odd? Absolutely.
Fun? Very much so.
If San Francisco's entire road network wasn't enough criminal chaos for one evening, this week's GTA Online Weekly Grind has fresh opportunities to legally acquire money through methods your accountant would immediately report to the authorities. Then dive into our Best Crime Games to Play Right Now and keep the felony marathon rolling.
What Is Watch Dogs 2?
Set in a beautifully recreated San Francisco Bay Area, Watch Dogs 2 follows Marcus Holloway, a gifted hacker recruited by DedSec after being falsely profiled by Blume's invasive ctOS surveillance network.
Instead of charging headfirst into every firefight, Marcus wages war with laptops, drones, social engineering and enough electronic sabotage to make every smart fridge in California question its life choices.
Nearly every mission revolves around infiltrating restricted locations, stealing sensitive information, exposing corruption or dismantling powerful organisations. Sometimes you'll sneak through without anyone noticing. Sometimes you'll accidentally cause a city-wide traffic catastrophe because curiosity got the better of you.
Both approaches work surprisingly well.
The Real Star Is The Sandbox
Forget the story for a moment.
The hacking systems are why people still recommend Watch Dogs 2 nearly a decade later.
Traffic lights become weapons.
Forklifts become elevators.
Security cameras become your eyes.
Phones become distractions.
Police become your attack dogs.
Street gangs become unpaid freelancers who have absolutely no idea they're working for you.
Watching two rival factions start shooting each other because you quietly filed a fake police report from across the street never really gets old. It's the gaming equivalent of lighting a fuse, walking away, and pretending you had absolutely nothing to do with the explosion behind you.
The city constantly feels interactive.
You're not simply driving through San Francisco.
You're quietly rewiring it.
Does The Criminal Fantasy Actually Hold Up?
Mostly.
Mechanically, absolutely.
Narratively, not quite.
Marcus spends most of the game breaking into secure facilities, stealing classified information, hacking financial systems, manipulating civilians, escaping police, carrying illegal firearms and causing millions of dollars in property damage.
That's Tuesday.
Yet the story keeps reminding you that DedSec are noble hacktivists exposing corruption rather than criminals profiting from it.
The result is occasionally hilarious.
You'll flatten six parked cars with a hacked crane, trigger a gang shootout, hack a police response, drive away in someone else's sports car, and then the next cutscene behaves as though you've just volunteered at an animal shelter.
It's a tonal contradiction Ubisoft never completely solves.
Fortunately, the sandbox is entertaining enough that you'll mostly forgive it.
Hacking Makes Every Mission Better
Most open-world stealth games eventually boil down to crouching behind conveniently placed waist-high boxes while enemies politely forget you exist.
Watch Dogs 2 gives you options.
Scout the area with your quadcopter.
Send your RC Jumper through air vents.
Hack security cameras.
Unlock doors remotely.
Distract guards.
Call the police on someone.
Call a gang on someone else.
Sit on a nearby rooftop eating digital popcorn while everyone else solves your problem for you.
Very few games make infiltration feel this creative.
Even today, the systems still encourage experimentation rather than memorising patrol routes.
Gunfights Are Fine
That's about the nicest thing that can be said.
Combat works.
Weapons feel decent enough.
Enemies aren't terrible.
But shooting people is easily the least interesting way to play.
The hacking sandbox is so much smarter than the gunplay that every firefight feels like bringing a shovel to a Formula One race.
Yes, it'll technically do the job.
But why?
San Francisco Deserves Credit
Ubisoft built one of its best cities here.
It's colourful without becoming cartoonish.
Busy without becoming overwhelming.
Neighbourhoods feel distinct.
Pedestrians actually appear to have lives beyond existing purely to stand beside conveniently exploding barrels.
Simply wandering around hacking random civilians often creates stories no mission designer could script.
Somebody's bank account gets emptied.
Someone else gets arrested.
A driver suddenly discovers that their car no longer believes in steering.
Chaos unfolds naturally.
Those little unscripted moments are where Watch Dogs 2 shines brightest.
Watch Dogs 2 proves hacking is a perfectly respectable way to ruin someone's day. If you'd rather swap laptops for balaclavas, our Best Heist Games, Payday 2 Review, Games Where You Play As The Villain, Best Crime Games and Hitman World of Assassination Review are waiting deeper down the rabbit hole.
Where The Game Stumbles
Its biggest problem isn't bugs.
It's identity.
The game desperately wants to be rebellious and politically playful while also remaining comfortably safe.
DedSec are marketed like dangerous digital revolutionaries.
In practice, they're mostly charming internet pranksters with exceptional graphic design skills.
That tonal mismatch occasionally undermines what could have been a genuinely darker crime story.
If Ubisoft had leaned harder into moral ambiguity instead of constantly reassuring players that everyone was fighting for justice, Watch Dogs 2 might have become something truly special.
Instead, it settles for being very good.
Which is still considerably better than most open-world games manage.
Performance And Technical State
On Windows, Watch Dogs 2 remains largely stable today.
Most of the launch-era multiplayer issues have long since been addressed, although Ubisoft Connect remains a common annoyance, and Steam Deck support is effectively absent because of anti-cheat limitations.
The game is old enough now that modern hardware handles it comfortably, but its dependency on Ubisoft's launcher still irritates players for reasons that become obvious roughly four seconds after installing it.
What Players Still Love
The community has remained remarkably consistent over the years.
People praise:
The hacking systems.
The freedom to approach missions creatively.
The excellent recreation of San Francisco.
Marcus, who is generally considered a far more likeable protagonist than Aiden Pearce.
The sheer number of ways systems interact with each other.
The criticism is equally consistent.
The story struggles to reconcile its cheerful tone with the outrageous violence players are capable of producing.
Some players wanted a darker narrative.
Others wanted a proper criminal progression system.
Neither arrived.
Who Should Buy It?
Buy Watch Dogs 2 if you enjoy:
stealth over brute force
open-world experimentation
hacking as a gameplay mechanic
infiltrating secure facilities
creating spectacular chain reactions
solving problems creatively instead of violently
If your favourite gaming moments involve making twenty different systems collide until the game briefly resembles organised chaos wearing expensive trainers, you'll have a wonderful time.
Who Should Skip It?
Skip it if you're looking for:
a proper mafia simulator
meaningful evil choices
criminal empire management
serious roleplaying consequences
deep heist planning
a genuinely villainous protagonist
This is an outlaw fantasy.
Not a crime empire simulator.
Final Verdict
Watch Dogs 2 has aged remarkably well because its core idea still feels fresh.
Most games hand you bigger guns.
Watch Dogs 2 hands you an entire city's operating system and quietly trusts you not to behave like a caffeinated supervillain.
Naturally, the first thing most players do is weaponise the traffic lights.
Its story occasionally ties itself into ideological knots trying to convince you that industrial-scale cybercrime is perfectly wholesome if everyone smiles enough.
Ignore that.
The sandbox is outstanding.
The hacking remains genuinely inventive.
San Francisco is still one of Ubisoft's finest playgrounds.
And while it never fully commits to letting you become the villain, it gives you more than enough tools to make every insurance company in California collectively resign.
That's worth recommending.
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FAQ
Is Watch Dogs 2 a crime game?
Yes, but not a traditional crime game. It is a hacker sandbox with theft, sabotage, infiltration, police chases, gang manipulation, and illegal hacking.
Can you play as a villain in Watch Dogs 2?
No. Marcus is an antihero hacktivist, not a villain. You can commit crimes in gameplay, but the story does not support an evil route.
Does Watch Dogs 2 have heists?
It has break-ins, data thefts, infiltrations, and set-piece robberies, but it is not a dedicated heist game.
Can you kill people in Watch Dogs 2?
Yes. The game supports lethal weapons and explosives, though non-lethal stealth and hacking are also viable.
Is Watch Dogs 2 worth playing in 2026?
Yes, especially on sale, if you want a stylish open-world hacking sandbox. Avoid Steam Deck/Linux multiplayer expectations.
Is Watch Dogs 2 better than Watch Dogs Legion?
For many CRIMENET readers, yes. Watch Dogs 2 has a stronger lead character and cleaner hacker-crime identity, while Legion’s recruitment system is broader but less focused.
