Watch Dogs fans are beginning to worry about the franchise’s future following the lukewarm reception that the latest installment of the series, Watch Dogs: Legion, has garnered since its release in October 2020. Among those is YouTuber JorRaptor, who has put together a video pointing out some of the reasons as to why Ubisoft may be thinking about putting the action-adventure hacking franchise temporarily, or even permanently, on ice. One of stronger arguments relates to the development team; a number of senior staff who worked on the Watch Dogs games are no longer employed with the company or have been moved to other projects.
Rumor: Ubisoft May Be Quietly Retiring The Watch Dogs Series (GameRant)
YouTuber JorRaptor has put together a theory that suggests that Ubisoft may be finished with making Watch Dogs games after reception to the Watch Dogs: Legion was tepid at best. He also took a look at job role personnel at Ubisoft and noticed that senior members of the Watch Dogs development team have either left the company or have been moved to other games. At least seven senior developers that worked on Watch Dogs are now scattered in the wind. Anyone left with the company has moved on to other projects.
The release of the Watch Dogs: Legion Bloodline DLC marked the end of content updates for the game, as Ubisoft announced in early 2022 that no more patches or updates will be coming. A sudden change of course after much of the promotion of the game was expected to include multi-year seasonal content similar to what has been done with Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and The Division 2. The franchise has its fans but with Watch Dogs: Legion not taking hold after moderate gains with Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft may be ready to cut the cord on this franchise as it looks to focus on bringing any of its other projects to market.
That said, Watch Dogs: Legion appears to have done pretty well in terms of sales, having sold nearly 2 million digital copies just a few days after its launch in October 2020, beating Watch Dogs 2’s numbers and setting a new record for the franchise. The original Watch Dogs was one of the most heavily hyped games ever thanks to it earlier trailers, which showed protagonist Aiden Pierce in a beautiful interpretation of Chicago and his ability to hack much of the city via cell phone, creating traffic accidents and other diversions. The final game received a major downgrade in visuals.