Is Watch Dogs Worth It in 2026?

By WillyB · tactical PvE + open-world since 2012 · 11 July 2026

Is the original Watch Dogs worth buying in 2026? Short answer: yes, as long as you go in for the right reasons. It is the grittiest, most serious game in the trilogy, its Chicago still feels genuinely lived-in, and the hacking sandbox has aged better than the game’s reputation. Just do not expect the story to carry you. Aiden Pearce is one of the flattest protagonists Ubisoft has ever written, and I say that as someone who happily sank a whole modded playthrough back into this game.

Let me lay it out properly, because “is it worth it” always depends on who is asking.

What it actually is

Watch Dogs launched on 26 May 2014, developed and published by Ubisoft, and it is set in a version of Chicago run by a central operating system called ctOS. You play Aiden Pearce, a hacker chasing revenge after a family tragedy, and your phone is your main weapon. You hack traffic lights, raise bollards to wreck a police chase, drain someone’s bank account at a cash machine, blackout the whole city grid. It is a third-person open-world action game with driving, gunplay and stealth bolted around that hacking hook.

According to its Steam page it now sits at “Mostly Positive” overall, with recent reviews running “Very Positive” at around 82 percent, and a Metacritic score of 77. So the numbers tell the same story I will: a flawed launch that has quietly grown into a game people are glad they played.

The honest verdict

Buy it for the world and the systems. Do not buy it for the plot. That is the whole review in one line.

The hacking sandbox is still the best thing here. Turning a busy junction into a pile-up to lose a helicopter, or pinging every phone on a street to pick your mark, never stopped being satisfying. For a 2014 game the city is dense: people talk, jog, busk, argue, and the profiler feeds you a little line about everyone you point your phone at. It makes Chicago feel populated rather than decorated, which is more than I can say for plenty of newer, emptier open worlds.

The story is the weak leg. The revenge plot is predictable and Aiden has the charisma of wet cardboard, to borrow the phrase every retrospective reaches for. He broods, he growls, and you never quite care. If you need a protagonist to root for, this is not your game, and that gap is exactly why I usually steer people to the sequel first.

The downgrade, and why PC players should mod it

You cannot talk about Watch Dogs without the downgrade. The 2012 E3 reveal looked spectacular, the 2014 release did not, and that gulf soured a lot of goodwill on day one. Out of the box in 2026 it looks its age.

Here is the good news for PC players: the mod scene fixes most of that. When I went back in for Watch Dogs changed A LOT since I last played it, I ran a living-world overhaul plus a natural lighting pack and the game genuinely looked and behaved like the “remaster” we were promised over a decade ago. Smarter AI, unscripted street events, the ctOS actually fighting back, five-star chases that felt alive. If you are on PC, treat mods as part of the recommendation, not an afterthought.

Where it sits in the trilogy

If you are new to the series, this is the real question, so here is the quick version.

For most players I still point at Watch Dogs 2 first: it is the most enjoyable open world of the three, and there is a reason it is having a genuine resurgence right now. Legion is worth it too if the play-as-anyone hook grabs you, and I broke down that whole gap in Watch Dogs 2 vs Legion. The original earns its place as the darkest, most grounded entry and the one that started it all.

So, who should buy it?

Buy Watch Dogs in 2026 if you want a grounded, hacking-led city sandbox, you care about where the series came from, and you are on PC where mods can drag it forward a decade. Wait for a sale, because it drops well below its roughly 18 pound full price often, and there is no reason to pay full whack for an eleven-year-old game.

Skip it if you mainly play for story and characters, or if you have never touched the series, in which case start with Watch Dogs 2 and come back to the original later if you fall for the world.

It is also a perfectly reasonable pick if you are just filling the wait before GTA 6, though it is not my top choice there. If you want the fuller list, I ranked my favourites in the best open-world games in 2026, and the countdown to the big one lives on the GTA 6 HQ.

Either way, the origin story of this whole series still runs. Full notes, the old videos and the mod setups live on the Watch Dogs hub.