The multiplayer in Watch Dogs 2 wasn’t actually enabled when the game first released due to it being horribly broken. Thankfully though, it’s all fixed now and available for you to dive into. It’s essentially broken into two separate sections, Co-op and PvP, which these two mingling somewhat every so often.
Here’s a short guide on everything you can expect form the multiplayer;
Co-Op
Co-op Operations
These are fairly simple riffs on similar single player ops. Whilst they may technically seem to be different as they’re against different groups of enemies, all that realistically means is that the enemies use different insults.
Steal a vehicle from a restricted area – The objective is to steal the vehicle and get it back to a location with as little damage as possible. With that in mind, one of the easiest ways to do it is to have one player distracting the guards, whilst the other goes in and grabs the car.
Download data from a restricted area – Simple premise, just stick within the circle to download the data, and if both of you are inside it it will download faster. Easiest way is to set up for a siege, either quietly or otherwise.
Steal one or more items from a restricted area – This is a heck of a lot easier if you split up to cover more ground, just remember you won’t be immediately available to support the other if they get into trouble.
Destroy multiple items in a restricted area – One or both of you are going to need explosive IEDs for this type of missions. If you can deploy them from your drones, all the better.
Release a prisoner from a restricted area – The prisoner’s door is almost always locked by a physical hack some distance away. So send one of you to hack the lock and the other can stay by the prisoner and let them out as soon as the lock’s done. The prisoners don’t need escorted, so just release them and get out of dodge.
Freeroam:
Whilst in co-op you can also just roam the game world with another player, helping them, or vice versa, to collect Key Data, track down unique vehicles or other useful things. During Freeroam, similar to being on your own, there will be random DedSec events that pop up around the game world. These can be hunting down a player, hacking an NPC etc, and provide a fun little distraction if hopping around the map starts to get a little old.
PvP
Invasions
Every so often you’ll discover that you’re being hacked by another player whilst roaming the game world. This will create a purple radius around you in which the hacker is and you have to find them in order to stop the hack. The easiest way to do this is to turn on NetHack and deploy your quadcopter. Keep an eye out for any civilians acting, well, like players – crouching behind cover, running, walking a little too fast, hanging out in strange areas like roofs and such like. If you don’t see anything obvious, just do methodical sweeps. Once you find them, you can either stun or kill them. In anything PvP orientated in this game, the anti-material rifle is your best friend. It kill players in one shot, has ridiculous range and can disable cars with a single shot to boot, so if your target is fleeing, just hit them with this. Even if they do escape, you’ll still get followers for stopping the hack.
If you’re invading, the rules are against you. You can’t attack the player you’re invading, even if they’re shooting at you, so your best bet is to hang out at the very edge of the radius and make yourself look like a civvie. Control your walking speed to be the same as the NPCs, or cruise around in a car at normal speeds, trying to drive smoothly. The odds are you’ll get discovered though, and the other player can bring their full arsenal against you, so you’ll want to make a speedy getaway.
Bounties
Sometimes you’ll have a player bounty turn up in your game. These are players who have a 3 star or higher police rating and the game will call you in to help the police taken them out. All you need to do is stun or kill them, and you can use anything you like, just don’t hit the police as they’re on your side for a change. Again, anti-material rifle is your friend here.
If you’re being hunted by bounty hunters and want to fight instead of run, you’d better be a pretty slick hacker. Use whatever environment distractions or attacks you can as players won’t tend to be as aware of these as they get into the hunt. Also, once again, anti-material rifle will make short work of anyone who gets in your way.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Square Enix.