One of the many criticisms levied at the original Watch Dogs was that it had a limited open world. Even among its 2014 contemporaries, there were too few opportunities to use your unique power set. This all changed in 2016’s follow-up, but some players still see promise in Chicago. After all, Watch Dogs is the game that kicked off the current generation. That original E3 demo still brings back fond memories despite the behind the scenes wizardry needed to pull it off. Thanks to a new mod by The_Silver, we can see some of that potential come back to life.
Dubbed Living_City, this self-described DLC-sized mod includes a host of features. It opens up a number of areas that were mission-specific in the base game, giving you free access and expanding the size of the open world. It also adds a few cut features, like a chance to have hackers ambush you with fake contracts. Cops will also now use the ctOS features on the highest difficulty chases, throwing obstacles in your path during a chase scene. Finally, new open-world missions populate the city, including new Gang Hideouts and Criminal Convoys.
There was also a concerted effort to improve the normal play of Watch Dogs. Upon the first load, the game will now randomize weather and time of day while also spawning you close to a vehicle. There’s also a feature to limit your inventory to one gun per slot, something taken from Watch Dogs 2. If you’d rather not limit yourself or you find anything else listed objectionable, you can go into the config file and turn any single feature on or off. The mod can be procured from ModDB and there’s an official Discord channel should you need a helping hand in tweaking your game. Fan updates like this are why some gamers will never leave the PC, and I’ve seen worse excuses to load up an old game while we wait for the sequel announcement.
