Watch Dogs

General information

Are you sure you're not looking for Watch_Dogs 2, aka "the fun one"?

- As always, go for towers first. A few (like the Pawnee area to the Northwest) will be unobtainable until opened by story missions.

- Go for the following skills as soon as possible: 1. Hack more money from passerby. Money never becomes too cheap in this game. 2. Craft blackouts. 3. Melee enforcer enemies. 4. Craft IEDs. They take out enforcer enemies instantly.

- Buying a car or gun once will make it free for subsequent purchases. Picking up a gun also makes it free.

- ABH: Always Be Hacking. There are a number of money sinks in the game, and a lot of things are much more visible in Hacker-Vision(TM). Treat it like one of the Arkham games, where the idea of not having alt-vision on is strange.

- As usual for an Ubisoft game, a lot of the fun in Watch_Dogs comes from side content. The story is especially dire this time around.

Full completion

You're in for a rough time.

- Several full completion challenges require successfully stalking or hacking someone. This is unfortunately almost impossible. Even at launch, the Watch_dogs "invasion" system had a large number of exploits that could be used to prevent a hack from working. Since that time, further exploits and hacks have made getting an honest (or willing) opponent a one-in-a-million chance. Hacking/stalking friends does not count, sorry!

- After you've gotten most of the music tracks by walking around, look online for the remainder. Some only spawn in specific locations. No, there's no way to know this ingame.

- 100%ing the VR games, the coin chases, and all the minigames isn't necessary for main completion percentage. Only the VR games give rewards (cosmetic outfits) for doing so, although coin chase is both fun and very lucrative. Let the completion wheel be your guide.

Permanent missables

- Before playing the Alone VR game, be sure to unlock and purchase the AK-47, Goblin, M1014 and the Vector .45ACP. Unlocking them in the VR game can make them unobtainable.

- Pick up enemy weapons, especially in story modes. You need to pick up weapons to unlock them in weapon stores, and some weapons do not appear in the open world. Especially look out for the U100 LMG, used by enforcer enemies. (this is also good because picking up the weapon makes it free in stores).

- All missable audio logs from the main story are provided automatically when the story is completed. Almost all other audio logs appear in the open world areas used for story missions, or in unlockable fast travel spots.

Breaking the game

- Activating a blackout makes you completely invisible to all enemies for a lengthy period of time. Have a bunch on hand and snag the skill to craft more once you can.

- Silenced weapons are completely silent, and a headshot that doesn't hit a helmet is always a one-shot kill aside from the enforcer enemies (who can be meleed with an upgrade). This info can be used to make most or infiltration-oriented segments of the game very easy. Your starting silenced pistol is the best gun in the game!

- Shooting a car in its wheels will cause it to stop and all occupants to leave.

-Conversely, shooting a car with a grenade launcher will kill everyone in it! Both are Good Things.

Minigames

- VR Games are highly variable in difficulty. Alone, Spider-Tank and Psychedelic are fun (though Psychedelic is very difficult to complete 100%). Conspiracy! can be very difficult, and Madness requires completing the whole thing in a single run- and is infamous for a final combo challenge that's deeply unfair, highly RNG-dependent and requires restarting the whole mess from scratch. Aside from Psychedelic, you must complete all challenges in each Trip to unlock its costume.

- The drinking minigame has been patched and is no longer as difficult as it once was- but it will still require a lot of work to complete.

- No one has ever seen the end of the ball-and-cup minigame. Its mysteries are infinite.

- Poker in Watch_Dogs is perhaps the most frustrating and difficult of all the Ubisoft poker implementations. Be ready to spend a lot of time waiting for idle animations.

- Coin Chase pays very well and makes good use of the game's parkour mechanics. The VR Invader game, not so much.

Bad Blood

- The various gang suppression missions are radiant, randomized and infinite.

- There is virtually no one left online to play co-op with. Bear this in mind and grab a friend if you want to complete those objectives. Though, if you're making them play Watch_Dogs, what kind of friend are you?