Darknet Souls: Watch Dogs Trailer Demos Multiplayer

Some of my favourite Dark Souls moments came from being invaded. Down deep in the Tomb of the Giants, chased over the bones of colossal skeletons by the spirits of a wicked wizard then a lost paladin, oh I was so very pleased. It's a fantastic little multiplayer touch, and one I'm glad to see Watch Dogs adopting on top of more traditional modes.

A new 9-minute trailer goes over the open-world hack 'em up's three main multiplayer types: Dark Souls-y invasions, challenges tied into the ctOS mobile companion app, and objective-driven team violence.

This being Watch Dogs, the invasions (or 'Online Hacking Contracts,' if we must) are a bit more technological than murdersome. Players are sent into others' worlds to hack their Gibson (both players seeing themselves as main character Aiden and the other as some schmoe), but it may turn violent if things get out of hand.

Today's vid sees a hacker sneakily jacking the other guy's cyberbanks from an inconspicuous taco truck with a fibreglass sombrero atop, a timer ticking down as the hackee runs around trying to root them out. Firing shots into the air to clear a crowd, oh that's nice. Then the hacker get caught and things kick off into a car chase and shootout. Ubisoft has tried 'blend in with the crowd' multiplayer before with Assassin's Creed but that often ends in everyone dashing about stabbing wildly, so it's interesting to see the idea seemingly realised better in a different game.

The ctOS mode is intriguing too, letting app chaps jack into your game to set challenges and using the city's datanet against you. Why, beyond a drone you'll never even see them! Again, a nice little spot of ambient multiplayer, though it looks somewhat intrusive. Then Watch Dogs has the objective-driven run-around-and-shoot-with-friends stuff I imagine I'll never play.

I enjoy the unpredictability of multiplayer but am increasingly uninterested in forming parties and joining lobbies and queueing and whatnot, so having multiplayer encounters pop into regular play is quite welcome. Dark Souls is a really good video game. I don't know if you've heard that at all from anyone. Just letting you know in case you hadn't. Okay, here's Ubisoft's video, talk to you later, bye.