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Ubisoft's imminent cyberpunk sandbox game Watch Dogs will offer a "living city", in which you'll need to weigh the consequences of your actions, the creative team has revealed. As fugitive hacker Aiden Pearce, you'll be the subject of intense media debate in the virtual Chicago, as newspapers cover your public actions and discuss whether you're a Robin Hood type figure, or a sinister menace.

"If you're seen as a really good guy and you start shooting cops, the meter is going to go down pretty fast," lead gameplay designer Danny Belanger explained on the Ubisoft blog. "If you do the crime detection a lot and you save people to redeem yourself, your reputation will go back up, but you have to work for it. It will take some time and good deeds."

Not everything you do will be traced back to you, however. For example, as a hacker, you'll be able to scan pedestrians to learn more about them and can dip into their bank accounts to fund your quest for justice. Nicking a nice old lady's life savings will be a secret crime - only you'll know you've done it, and it's up to you if you can live with that.

"It's up to the player what they want to do in that regard. It will affect people differently. We didn't put reputation points on that because if we did, then you would not be making the choice based on information," Belanger says. "We chose to not assign points and just give you enough information to get a sense of who that person is so you can decide what to do. Only you will know what you've done."

Watch Dogs is out on May 27th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. A Wii U version is also in development for later this year.