Watch_Dogs ontstaan uit de resten van een geannuleerde Driver-game

Games komen vaak op een bijzondere manier tot stand en dat geldt zeker voor Watch_Dogs. Volgens Laurent Detoc van Ubisoft was deze geheel nieuwe franchise in het begin helemaal niet bedacht als open-wereld game vol hacken. De kern van Watch_Dogs is namelijk ontstaan uit onderdelen van een geannuleerde Driver-game.

Detoc vertelde dat men jaren geleden diverse goede ideeën bij elkaar heeft geraapt, wat uiteindelijk tot de wereld en het concept van Watch_Dogs heeft geleid:

Watch Dogs wasn’t started as Watch Dogs. They were working on a driving engine, working on something. We had the Driver license. This was years ago. Then we were thinking, ‘no, this is not the way we want to go with a driving game,’ so we cancelled that and restarted.

It’s not like Watch Dogs started as Watch Dogs. The Watch Dogs project was initially another game. At some point it changed. That’s at least three years ago, and then the Watch Dogs project reused some of the work that had been done on this driving engine. The decision was made that there was another driving game being made and this one should be an open-world game where the guy comes out of the car and does other things. Then the team decides to reshuffle itself entirely. A few other people come in, a new creative director, and then they start a new game.

I wouldn’t say that Driver became Watch Dogs, because that’s not true. That’s not really what happens. What happens is that a game gets cancelled, and then you take pieces of that game to make a new one. We could have had another driving engine from another team in another place, and then it would have been used by the Watch Dogs team.

Een bijzondere geboorte van Watch_Dogs dus. De game verschijnt volgend jaar voor de pc, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One en Wii U.