Watch Dogs Legion’s Assassin’s Creed crossover event has arrived, along with its new high-value character Darcy. But players who don’t own the season pass have plenty of new content to dig into today, too – Title Update 5.5 introduces a new, stiffer difficulty setting, two new multiplayer modes, and the integration of the Legion of the Dead zombie mode to the open-world game.
The new Resistance difficulty mode is going to be quite the challenge. Just about every enemy you’ll encounter is an elite, who is going to be much quicker to use their special gadget when you engage. You’ll be able to carry much less ammo, your abilities all cool down slower, and enemies will be able to spot you much faster than in vanilla mode. Resistance mode also turns off fast travel via the Tube, and you’ll have to be a lot more careful getting around London, since Albion guards and checkpoints will recognise DedSec operatives and give chase.
Some of your handiest gadgets get severely limited as well. That ‘arm trap’ hack you’ve been relying on to take out a few stray guards before heading into a compound? That’s gone – you’ll have to either trigger explosions manually or shoot explosive containers to trigger them. Your intrepid spider-bot can no longer perform takedowns. And to top it all off, way more of London’s civilians start out with a highly negative opinion of DedSec. Good luck!
Over on the multiplayer side, there’s the new Invasion and Extraction modes to check out. Invasion returns from both previous Watch Dogs titles, and it pits a team of invaders against a team of searchers. Invaders are trying to sneak in and complete a download on search team members, and this time around, they can use Legion’s play-as-anybody mechanic to swap operatives on the fly.
Extraction, on the other hand, is a Watch Dogs Legion spin on capture the flag. It’s a four-player free-for-all mode where everyone is racing to find crypto caches around London and upload their data, all while preventing everyone else from doing the same.
You’ll also notice that the main menu screen has a completely new look. The Legion of the Dead mode, previously available as a separate download as an ‘alpha’ build, is now incorporated into the main game and is accessible from the top menu. If you’ve played the alpha, you’ll notice some additions with the arrival of update 5.5, such as new enemy archetypes in the Clan Kelley grenadier and screamer, updated extraction paths, and a variety of new abilities and weapons.
You’ll find that your DedSec operatives have stopped spending all their time at the bar outside your secret headquarters. Now you’ll find them scattered all over the map, often placing themselves near mission locations. You’ll be able to see their portraits on the game map whenever you open it.
Title update 5.5 also includes a raft of bug fixes and performance improvements, and you can check out the patch notes for the full run-down on what’s new. Even if you don’t own the season pass, you’ll be able to play as Darcy in the two new story missions.