After a while trying to make this concept fit into the Driver franchise, the decision was made to turn it into its own, new IP.” “It was always modern day, it had on foot, parkour, combat as well as driving, all set in a large open-world city, and the main hook was always modern technology and hacking. “The game that was released as Watch Dogs started life as a sequel in the Driver franchise, but was always largely what you see in the final product,” says the source at Ubisoft.
Speaking to three sources - one working at Ubisoft, the second a former senior Ubisoft employee, and the third Driver’s original creator, Martin Edmondson - a picture has emerged of a game that gradually and organically grew beyond the bounds of the Driver license, birthing the Watch Dogs series we know today. The story VG247 has uncovered is slightly different, however. What happens is that a game gets cancelled, and then you take pieces of that game to make a new one.” “I wouldn’t say that Driver became Watch Dogs, because that’s not true,” he added. The result was an open-world game in which much of the action took place on foot. The way Detoc tells it, the game was initially wholly focused on driving, until a team reshuffle led to a new creative director and a project reboot. That’s at least three years ago, and then the Watch Dogs project reused some of the work that had been done on this driving engine.” “They were working on a driving engine, we had the Driver license,” he said. But the company’s North American president Laurent Detoc gave an interview to IGN in 2013, in which he revealed that the studio behind Watch Dogs was originally building a different game. When contacted for this piece, Ubisoft declined to comment.
But look closely and you’ll see the tyre marks: the telltale signs that show us how one bestselling series was supplanted by another. Recollections are hazy, and one source contacted by VG247 initially said Watch Dogs’ link to Driver was an urban myth. The story of Driver’s transformation into Watch Dogs, and the consequent rise of one new Ubisoft franchise while an old favourite has languished, takes place a long time ago - ten years to be exact. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. From tyre marks, you can determine the speed of a vehicle, when it started to skid, and its ultimate direction of travel - long after the car itself has vanished into the distance. But those dark shadows in the road also tell a story. In a game like Driver, they’re an aesthetic touch, part of the inherent cool of a handbrake turn. "Driver: San Francisco features a thrilling storyline and exciting new gameplay elements that are sure to captivate both long-time fans as well as newcomers to the series.When cars slide, they leave tyre marks. "In many ways, the Driver franchise defined the action driving genre with its unique blend of intense driving action and iconic locations," said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Ubisoft. As shown in the game's debut trailer (which you can see below), players can shift between vehicles like a floating ghost to " them constantly in the heart of the action." Not only are the original creators back on board, but Driver: San Francisco also brings back Detective and Charles Jericho, the hero and villain from the first three games in the series.ĭriver: San Francisco's big contribution to the franchise is the new "Shift" gameplay mechanic. The game is in development at Ubisoft Reflections for the PC, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 under the direction of the creators of the original title. After obtaining the rights to the series in 2006, Ubisoft has finally announced the fifth game in the Driver series, Driver: San Francisco.