'The underground resistance movement from Day Zero returns to navigate the perils of emergent AI and an authoritarian state, in this gritty, high-tech thriller set in the world of Watch Dogs®: Legion
'London is still going to hell, even with Albion on the back foot, but Olly and Ro are hard at work finding allies for DedSec and taking down the bad guys. When a job goes awry, they end up doxxed, on the run, and in serious trouble. Bagley, the DedSec AI, gets involved and discovers someone new, someone just like him… another ghost in the machine. Frenemy hacktivist network, 404, tips them off that since terminating the ambitious plan to digitise human consciousness, Project Daybreak, DedSec has become the target for a new player in London. Looks like Project Daybreak isn’t as dead as they thought, and neither are those who died with it.'
I've enjoyed the Watch Dogs franchise, and have only recently delved further into the universe by reading Day Zero, which was released by Aconyte books in 2020. So I was delighted to learn that their latest addition to this ever expanding narrative would be continuing the story created in that novel, and would show us what happened next for those characters.
Set after the fall of Albion in London, Watch Dogs: Daybreak Legacy puts readers in a London where people are still kind of holding their breath, waiting to see what happens next. Albion, and their tyrannical rule, is gone, so what next? There's been a vacuum left behind by their destruction, and whilst some people are filling those voids, such as the Met Police coming back, there's still a lot of uncertainty. And this goes for our heroes in DedSec too. They've beaten the villains, they've achieved their goals, and now they're left floundering a bit.
At the start of the book we see some of the members of DedSec, Ro and Olly (who featured in the first novel), using their skills to take down a small group of scammers. They hack into their systems, return the money they stole, give them a bit of a kicking, and leave them to be picked up by the police or run out of London. The big fish are gone, so they've been left to tackle small crime. And whilst this is doing some good there are others who're waiting for DedSec to do something more. They're waiting for them to make real, lasting change that will help large parts of the population. They took down Albion, so they should do something to repair some of that collateral damage.
And it appears that perhaps someone in a position of power agrees with that sentiment, as Olly and Ro become targets. Their identities are altered, they're wanted by police, and they're turned into criminals and terrorists. Olly and Ro are forced to go on the run whilst Bagley, the DedSec AI looks into what's happening and reverse the changes. But Bagley learns something shocking, that they've been targeted by another AI.
It not only looks like this AI was created the same way as Bagley, and has similar abilities, but that the AI thinks that DedSec need to be taught a lesson. Gathering a group of supporters themselves, this new AI is set to take over London and make it its own domain. Teaming up with another group of hacker activists, Ro and Olly are forced back into action to prevent a disaster.
One of the things that I thought was really good about Watch Dogs Legion: Daybreak Legacy is that there's less action in this novel, and more of a focus on the characters. Olly and Ro had some big parts to play in the previous entry in the series, but they seemed to be reacting a lot of the time; forced into action because of events out of their control and never really having a chance to slow down. Here, in contrast, the two of them have plenty of time to consider their next moves, to discuss the issues that they're facing, and to come up with solutions beyond just hacking systems or destroying things.
A large part of this is down to the type of threat that our heroes are facing. Albion was a huge organisation, it had people everywhere, but it was still people. They had troops on the street that you could fight in the physical world, they had systems that you could disrupt to slow their people down, and if you took out key figures the organisation would grind to a halt. But in facing an AI there's no people to fight against. Yes, it has followers, friends to help it out in the real world, but stopping them doesn't stop the AI. The AI can't be easily hacked, it doesn't have one place it exists that can be destroyed. Olly and Ro are having to abandon a lot of the tactics that they've relied on before and having to come up with whole new strategies.
It was really nice to see these characters who had gone on to become competent rebels, freedom fighters who knew what they were doing and how to be use their skill suddenly becoming fish out of water all over again. They stumble and panic, they question what they're doing, and they need to reach out to new allies to help them.
And the new new allies they make, the new characters introduced in this book, are absolutely delightful. Nowt is one of the leaders of 404, a rival hacker group, who absolutely hates AI's, and is one of the more confrontational characters in the book. She's against this new AI, believing that it is a threat to London if left unchecked, and that it's ability to create more AI's is close to being a crime against nature. She wants to destroy the new AI, and any others like it that might exist, and is even antagonistic towards Bagley. In contrast to Nowt, there's Barbara. Barbara is an elderly woman who's a mother and grandmother. When Olly and Ro meet her she cooks them food, tells them off, and acts more like a material figure than a hacker activist. She has a coolness about her that is hiding a warmth beneath that's really delightful, and it was lovely to see her getting to know Olly and Ro, figuring out if she could trust them or not.
There's a lot of time for group dynamics in this book, with chapters given over to the characters sitting around discussing their options, and as such new bonds are soon forged, and you come to really care about the characters in the book. Watch Dogs Legion had you jumping between members of DedSec, recruiting new people to come and work with you, picking the best folks for each mission, and occasionally losing them for good. I never really got attached to any of the player characters whilst playing the game, so it's a pleasant change of pace to actually spend some time with some characters and forming bonds with them. It was something that was a little lacking in the game, and it's an area where the books are really coming out strong.
But it can't all be peace and long character led drama, as there is a big threat to deal with in Watch Dogs Legion: Daybreak Legacy. There are some tense moments throughout the book where our heroes have to infiltrate facilities, try to get past security guards, or just avoid getting arrested. Hotston does a great job of keeping things tense in these parts of the book, and you really do start to worry that things are going to go badly for the characters. There are even a few spooky moments in there too where the book starts to go a bit horror too.
Watch Dogs Legion: Daybreak Legacy proved to be an engaging and interesting follow-up to the game, as well as a great sequel to Watch Dogs Legion: Day Zeo. It made me come to care about the returning characters a lot more, and left me wanting more from them. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of these characters, or this setting.
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