Want to know how many dudes I killed in Watch Dogs 2? Two. No, not two hundred. I mean two, as in the one between one and three. Marcus Holloway's San Francisco-set sandbox elegantly bypasses that old chestnut of ludonarrative dissonance - a phrase fittingly first coined by a former Ubisoft creative director - by giving your goofy hacker the ability to go through the entire game non-lethally. Hooray for videogame pacifism!
This seems like a small detail. It's actually a crucially smart design decision; one which encourages you to experiment with Watch Dog 2's delightfully manipulative gadgets. In turn, you embrace a far more thoughtful style of play than you could achieve by simply shooting men with the game's underwhelming guns. Messing with people's phones, bank accounts or emails is often more effective than brute-forcing your way through missions with a grenade launcher. And hey, it makes the life of San Fran's coroner a whole lot more sedate.
Alas, my 18-hour playthrough isn't totally corpse-free. Below, you'll find the two poor souls who just happened to be the victims of an 'accidental' explosion my little Jumper RC car caused. Ooops. My bad, guys.
RELATED LINKS:
Hang on: Watch Dogs 2 is actually kind of brilliant
PSA: This is your last chance to claim Watch Dogs 2 free
Get Watch Dogs 2 free for watching Ubisoft's E3 event Sunday