Speaking to several sources at Ubisoft, a new report by VG24/7 (opens in new tab) uncovers the original intentions behind the first Watch Dogs game. “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,” original Driver co-creator Martin Edmonson told VG24/7.

While working on Driver: San Francisco, Edmonson was sent documents by a team at Ubisoft Montreal, who were currently working on what was intended to be the next Driver game. While it was an incredibly early build of the game, it did feature hacking traffic lights and other features that would go on to be present in Watch Dogs when it debuted in 2014.

One other noteworthy section is Edmonson and another source at Ubisoft saying that this changing of a Driver sequel to spawn a different franchise, like what happened with a Prince of Persia sequel leading to Assassin’s Creed, isn’t uncommon. We’d really recommend reading the full, excellent feature on VG24/7 for a complete look into the goings-on behind the scenes prior to Watch Dogs’ release.

The Driver series would go on to release just one game after Watch Dogs launched: Driver: Speedboat Paradise, a free-to-play mobile game that launched a few months after Watch Dogs in December 2014. Right now, although the Driver series has accumulated sales of over 16 million units worldwide as far back as 2011, there are no current new entries planned for the series.

As for the future of the Watch Dogs series, Ubisoft is currently committed to adding new content to Watch Dogs Legion, the third game in the franchise, which launched last year in October 2020. Just recently, a new update hit Legion that added private matches for its co-op PvE online component, and Ubisoft has said that 60 frames per second is on the way for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

For a complete guide to all the games Ubisoft has planned to launch over the coming months, head over to our new games 2021 guide for more.

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According to a job listing (opens in new tab) for a narrative designer, Ubisoft Reflections’ new series will have elements of open-world games, but other than that the description is pretty vague. The job listing also calls for someone who can help craft backstories for multiple “characters, locations, objects, [and] events.”

Despite the Newcastle-based studio being best-known for the Driver series, it’s had a hand in making a laundry list of games from Ubisoft’s flagship series including The Division, The Division 2, Far Cry 5, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Watch Dogs, Watch Dogs 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, The Settlers, Starlink: Battle For Atlas and The Crew. Reflections also led development on a few in-house indie games like Grow Up, Grow Home, Ode, and Atomega.

As for the mothership Ubisoft brand, the company recently revealed a pretty significant update to its development strategy. On top of the usual three to four premium AAA games a year, the studio now says to expect more “high-end free-to-play games.” We’ve already seen a preview of what’s to come with the free-to-play spinoff title Tom Clancy’s The Division: Heartland announced last week, and it sounds like more of the same is in the works for other Ubisoft franchises. Ubisoft has clarified that the move toward free-to-play games won’t result in fewer premium, paid titles, just a bigger investment in the free-to-play space.

For everything else on the horizon, here are all the upcoming PS5 games and upcoming Xbox Series X games we can’t wait to play.

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