Interactive Friction: Watch_Dogs: Episode 20: Where in the World in Joseph DeMarco?

It's interesting to compare the mission in the club here versus what they showed off at the original E3 reveal.

I can see what they were going for in the E3 reveal trailer, even watching it back now. There's this very clear sense of progression from the club infiltration, to baiting a staffer into calling the boss, to sending a message by killing the owner, making sure to save civilians along the way.

It's obvious that at some point the script was rewritten and Joseph DeMarco was no longer an important character. There's nothing wrong with that. However, this mission makes it seem like Defalt only exists so that we can make use of this club in the final game. His first mention is in Act 3, where he is mentioned in passing. He presents himself as an obstacle at the end of Act 3, but we then defeat him very early into Act 4. Defalt exits the story about as quickly as he entered it.

I get the feeling that this game suffered the Uncharted 3 problem. They had developed all of the missions and level layouts first, and then wrote the story around those missions. It's the only way I can explain all of the filler we see in the middle of the game. It's why I almost forgot about the revenge story halfway through when I first played Watch_Dogs.

I dislike filler, and I dislike how it really hurt this game.