Ubisoft Reportedly Planning Watch Dogs: Legion Relaunch with Director's Cut

Ubisoft is reportedly set to relaunch Watch Dogs: Legion next year with a Director's Cut edition. According to Insider Gaming, and corroborated by IGN's own sources, the company is pushing to do more with the game in early 2025.

Legion originally launched in 2020 to a lukewarm reception, and the franchise has since been put on ice, with no new game currently in development. The game stood out by abandoning the series' traditional single-protagonist structure, instead letting players control any NPC in its depiction of a post-Brexit London. In practice, this meant playing as various archetypes—such as a builder, hooligan, or spy—who could be permanently killed if missions went wrong.

Post-launch DLC brought in Aiden Pearce from Watch Dogs 1 and Wrench from Watch Dogs 2 as playable characters. Later, an Assassin's Creed crossover expansion tried to drum up interest with a fun, non-canonical story featuring a descendant of Jacob and Evie Frye from Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

So what might a Director's Cut include? It's likely that all the aforementioned content would be bundled in from the start, and perhaps a greater emphasis on the series' more recognizable characters rather than the play-as-anyone mechanic. Only time will tell.

In other news, Watch Dogs: Legion creative director Clint Hocking left Ubisoft abruptly earlier this year, even as he was leading development on Assassin's Creed Hexe. Hocking later described the experience of managing a large team at Ubisoft as akin to working while "flaming barrels [are] falling down from a construction site," reminiscent of a scene from the arcade classic Donkey Kong.

This month, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot acknowledged that Watch Dogs wasn't mentioned alongside the company's other major franchises as a focus following its recent restructuring, but he insisted it remains "an important brand for the future." Meanwhile, the long-gestating Watch Dogs movie—which finished production two years ago and underwent reshoots last year—still has no release date.