10 Video Game Franchises That Keep Making The Same Mistake

On paper, the premise of Watch Dogs should make for a spectacular video game: hack the tech-saturated world around you for your own gain, to make the world a better place, and to bring down authoritarian forces seeking to control the populace.

Yet across its three games to date, Watch Dogs has demonstrated a flabbergasting lack of tonal assurance, such that it's tough to know who these games are really made for.

The first game was a gritty, self-serious tech-thriller, but because neither the melodramatic story nor the dull characters connected with players, Ubisoft felt that a lighter touch was needed for the sequel.

And so, Watch Dogs 2 was a more colourful, free-wheeling affair, which is all well and good save for the fact that the player is free to kill and horribly maim people, which is more-or-less shrugged off without a second thought.

Last year's Watch Dogs: Legion then attempted to forge a compromise of the two games, by tackling weighty political themes - despite Ubisoft still claiming they don't make political games - but also allowing you to play as a super-spy pensioner.

The two moods clashed pretty harshly and Legion ended up the worst-reviewed game of the trilogy. It speaks to the series' wider identity crisis, that it needs to just settle on a vibe and stick to it - serious and dark is fine if the writing is even remotely interesting.