Apologies for the lack of a suitable pun but today we have some more news about one of this year's highly anticipated games, Watch Dogs. Watch Dogs will be an action game where the protagonist is able to manipulate networked computers and similar devices with his smart phone. Understandably the game's developers wanted to make this core mechanic as believable as possible so it's been revealed that Ubisoft Montreal have been going to security firm Kaspersky Lab for feedback on how hacking appears in the game. Senior producer Dominic Guay elaborates:

"We're working with Kaspersky Lab, a big security firm. They have really hardcore experts there on hacking. We send them some of our designs and we ask them feedback on it, and it's interesting to see what gets back. Sometimes they say, 'Yeah, that's possible, but change that word,' or, 'That's not the way it works.'"

It appears that Watch Dogs is attempting to avoid treading the embarrassingly common ground of Hollywood Hacking. Watch Dogs will also avoid using the formulaic 'hacking mini game'. Instead, hacking is a short cut to clearing obstacles, like cameras, doors and ATMs, in the futuristic 'smart city' (based on present day Chicago) the game is set. Guay explains, in contrast to the developer's Assassin's Creed series, "It's not about the challenges of climbing a wall, It's finding the path I want to follow."

Guay continues, "It's not about the minigame that will let me open the door, it's the fact that I'm making a plan. I'm making a plan of how I'm going to chain hacking, shooting, traveling the city and driving to achieve an objective."

Now, as for Watch Dogs multiplayer it's been said this will contain the element of 'player invasion'. Ubisoft, in the wake of SimCity, are quick to add that players can play the game completely offline if they so wish. However the developer did express the desire to "to start breaching the wall in action-adventure between single- and multiplayer" and that the multiplayer will use future-smart-Chicago just as it does in single player. Additionally players using the Watch Dog smart phone app, that's been in development for a year alongside the main game, will be able to interact with the cities of console gamers.