Watch Dogs 2 features Marcus Holloway (left) as the hero hacker.
Categories

Watch Dogs 2’s hackivists go to war with its hacker-proof city

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

The original Watch Dogs is a revenge tale and a warning about the threats that hackers pose to smart cities. Watch Dogs 2 offers the same warning about cybersecurity threats to the future smart city of San Francisco, but it has a different emotional feeling with its celebration of hacktivism subculture in the tech capital of the world.

The sequel stars Marcus Holloway, a hacker who is wrongly accused of a crime as a result of a manipulation of data from the San Francisco’s smart operating system, ctOS 2.0. Holloway teams up with the hacktivist group DedSec to bring down the smart city and its maker, the Blume corporation. Holloway carries on his fight against the establishment using everything from drones to electronic booby traps.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.