The development team behind Ubisoft's upcoming cyberpunk openworld thriller Watch Dogs have collaborated with real computer security and hacking experts from Kaspersky Labs to ensure that the game's core mechanisms ring true.
"We send them some of our designs and we ask them feedback on it, and it's interesting to see what gets back," senior producer Dominic Guay told Joystiq. "Sometimes they say, 'Yeah, that's possible, but change that word,' or, 'That's not the way it works.'"
You'll play as elite hacker Aiden Pearce, on the run in the Chicago of the near future. Your survival will depend on hacking the city's central operating system to seize control of traffic signals, doors and other functions. You'll also be able to dip into local Wifi networks to extract information on people nearby, or view the world through security cameras and webcams.
Just don't expect the game to be full of the sort of simple hacking puzzles that we're all familiar with. "It's not about the minigame that will let me open the door," explains Guay. "It's the fact that I'm making a plan. I'm making a plan of how I'm going to chain hacking, shooting, travelling the city and driving to achieve an objective."
Watch Dogs will be out on November 22nd for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC. It's also been confirmed for PlayStation 4.