Watch_Dogs was announced to a great deal of fanfare at Ubisoft's E3 2012 press conference, swiftly gaining a media narrative as the first truly next-generation title. More so both presentation and marketing latched onto the Zeitgeist surrounding the potential for a monolithic surveillance state - real or imagined - administered by powerful corporations tracking your every move. The Edward Snowden leaks and further revelations on the nature of government spying by the NSA et al unsurprisingly lent Watch_Dogs an aura of relevancy long before concrete details of the project were known.

Trailers looked stunning, naturally, but the major development milestone was the concept of drop-in multiplayer ? playing a game which was for all intents and purposes single player and then being 'invaded' by competing players to fight over some objective. And yet even though hacking was a major plot point the mechanics were heavily downplayed, giving way to fare more in common with major action/adventure franchises such as Grand Theft Auto or Uncharted. Nonetheless being able to do all this in a near seamless open world is alluring.

Unfortunately since its announcement Watch_Dogs went through a series of delays; at one stage due to be a launch title for the PS4, the game was pushed to the Spring (and finally May 27th) with only weeks to go. Hopefully Ubisoft have had enough time to smooth out the rough edges and unveil a title which excels on all platforms.