Watch Dogs Legion: Bloodline review: Aiden Pearce and Wrench improve the base ti...

The result, however, was a game that was confusing and gave less direction than even “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” Players were dropped into London as a random citizen, and were asked to “liberate” the city through a resistance movement. to accommodate all the possible choices people could make, Hocking and Ubisoft had to produce a game that was relatively flat. No one side of London could be more difficult than the other, and there was little direction in getting to know the city.

“Bloodline,” the new $15 update starring the protagonists of the last two games, is a far better introduction to the game and its version of London. Previous stars of the series, the vigilante Aiden Pearce and the Deadpool-like hacker Wrench, arrive in London, new to the city and eager to take down fascist technocrats. This framing works far more like a traditional open-world game, pushing the player through scripted missions in different neighborhoods of London. I got to know London’s Chinatown as Aiden far better than I did as the random graphics designer in the base game, because Aiden was going there for a purpose.

Longtime fans of the series may also be surprised to hear that the story fueling Aiden Pearce is incredibly aware of the criticisms thrown against the first game in 2014. “Bloodline” confirms that the critics who read Aiden as an unlikeable homicidal maniac were correct. Aiden must now contend with a reputation as an unpredictable murderer who sometimes kills the bad guys, but seems to be more in it for the thrill and the money, and less about any sense of justice.

In a strange twist of fate, Aiden’s latest story feels like it’s addressing an aspect of games storytelling “Legion” director Hocking famously wrote about in 2007, when he coined the phrase ludonarrative dissonance. When a game critic mentions this, it often refers to a player’s actions clashing with the authored intent of the character, like the jovial, happy-go-lucky Nathan Drake murdering over 1,000 people every game. The first “Watch Dogs” awkwardly tried to fit Internet espionage into the Grand Theft Auto structure, and in the end, we got Aiden the serial killer as our hero. “Bloodline” acknowledges this, and several years later, Aiden’s own family fears him as an irrational monster, addicted to violence.

It’s important to clarify that while Hocking did direct “Legion,” Ubisoft tells me he had no hand in “Bloodline.” Instead, lead writer Kyle Francis and game director Kent Hudson craft what feels like a sequel to both previous games. The other returning hero, Wrench, livens up his half of the content with bad jokes and lethal gadgets that push the series toward the boundaries of pulp satire. As Aiden worries about whether his nephew likes him (despite showing up in London to murder more people), Wrench gleefully spouts one-liners as he smashes peoples’ faces with his sledgehammer.

I often join many other critics in lamenting Ubisoft’s fascination with the open-world genre, and how they keep reiterating upon the Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed template. So it surprised me that I still enjoyed this very Ubisoft open-world experience, attached as it was to a conceptually innovative game that struggled to give players the proper motivation to stay in its toybox. Part of it has to do with length. At about eight or so hours, “Bloodline” never threatened to bore me with missions that felt outlined by algorithm. Rather, the missions Aiden and Wrench tackle feel handcrafted, with scripted dialogue and events that keep things interesting, even if many of the activities are similar to the base game.

But more than that, I’m able to bring Aiden and Wrench, who both sport flashy, aggressive styles of play, into the base game of “Legion.” And it turns out, having two characters I nominally know enriches my attachment toward “Legion’s” resistance-reformed London. Owners of the Season Pass get this as an extra perk, including the ability to dress them however you like, as I did by turning Aiden into Sonic the Hedgehog.

It’s then that I realized “Legion” is best enjoyed as a playset full of action figures that look like every day people. The game tried to encourage diversity in play with all the different “roles” you can inhabit as a player, but when the lowly construction worker can make any stealth mission a cinch by calling in his construction drone, “Legion” started to fall apart as a coherent piece. Yes, it’s an interesting distraction to pose as a janitor, but beyond the initial chuckle, it’s barely useful and, worse, not that fun to do ad infinitum as “Legion” requires.

But now I have brand new Aiden Pearce and Wrench action figures to throw into my London playset, both equipped with high level weaponry and robust hacking abilities, and I’m having more fun. Playing “Legion” with either character finally makes it feel like a Watch Dogs game, hacking and murdering my way into warehouses and facilities with abilities that are actually fun to use. I don’t blame Ubisoft for taking forever to revisit the Splinter Cell stealth franchise, because much of that gameplay can be found in “Legion.”

It helps that Ubisoft has leaned into Aiden’s abilities as a hit man. When it comes to quickly dispatching foes in close-quarters pistol-based combat, Aiden Pearce actually predates “John Wick” by a few months. Skilled players of the first “Watch Dogs” discovered an exciting combat system that lets players move and shoot just like the Keanu Reeves action hero. This YouTube video with 2.7 million views demonstrated this, and fans of this playstyle will be grateful that Ubisoft hasn’t forgotten it.

“Legion” may in fact offer a more convincing cyberpunk world than even “Cyberpunk 2077.” Even at launch, the game’s London was alive with protests, police brutality, culture and a vision of a net-integrated society that isn’t at all far-fetched. But there’s also another comparison between the two games: On Xbox Series X, I still see many graphical bugs, and suffered through two hard crashes of my console. I also own the game on PC, where it famously performs worse, and I crashed twice there as well. It’s not rampant like CD Projekt Red’s launch of “Cyberpunk 2077” last year, but it’s enough to literally turn me off to the game.

“Bloodline” also doesn’t address the main game’s staid pacing. No matter how cool Aiden looks being John Wick throughout London, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to be doing the exact same gameplay 20 hours from now as I am eight hours in.

“Watch Dogs Legion” is now often on sale via many outlets, sometimes under $20. I couldn’t recommend “Legion” at launch when it was merely an interesting idea worth building on. It was a flimsy foundation, but now made sturdier thanks to more focus and player motivation. Clint Hocking is tapped to lead the upcoming “Assassin’s Creed Infinity,” which will act as a hub for all the various games and worlds it inhabits. “Legion” feels like a trial balloon for something more ambitious in the future. For now, at least it’s finally a pretty good Watch Dogs game.