Video games have become extraordinarily adept at simulating geography, from Assassin's Creed's detailed, architecturally accurate takes on ancient Egypt or 18th-century Paris to Microsoft Flight Simulator's virtual simulacrum of the Earth's surface. But they are still no good at simulating people, and their cities are populated with reactive automatons who forget you tried to run them over two seconds ago. This makes Watch Dogs Legion's attempt to simulate the entire population of a futuristic, technocratic London one of the most ambitious things a game has tried in years. Walk from Camden to Nine Elms and every person you see has a name, a cluster of attributes (gambler, fashion expert, paramedic, low mobility) and a custom-generated voice and appearance. You can recruit any of them to your hacker resistance movement and step into their shoes.

The beta will introduce Crown Rush Solo, a free-for-all where 100 players battle one another to win. It's slightly different than Crown Rush Squad, the previously available mode that requires players to team up in squads of three. Additionally, two limited-time modes are coming with open beta as well, including Hack Runner Squad (more focused on "hacks," which are abilities) and Turbo Mode Squad (faster paced with more powerful weapons). Furthermore, the open beta introduces a new hack, Shockwave, and a weapon called a Harpy.

We are now more than a month past the point when E3 2020 would've ended. It lives in your heart, in your soul, and on your television. Today we finally reached the "1PM Monday Afternoon" slot, a.k.a. Much of what Ubisoft showed at its faux-press conference, we already knew about--Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and the recently leaked Far Cry 6. But hey, they managed to keep Tom Clancy's Elite Squad under wraps (for what that's worth), and the Assassin's Creed footage looked pretty neat.