Best Games Like Watch Dogs

If you enjoyed playing Watch Dogs: Legion or any of its predecessors, then there’s a good chance you enjoy sneaking and hacking your way around open-world sandboxes while causing mayhem.

The Watch Dogs games are known for their innovative tech gadgets, parkour movement, diverse side activities, and politically-charged stories focusing on national surveillance crimes.

In this list, we’ll be recommending the best games like Watch Dogs to play in 2025.

This includes the top games like Watch Dogs 2, finest games like Watch Dogs: Legion, and the initial Watch Dogs that started it all.

If we forgot to include your favored game, sound off in the comments and let us know.

And finally, make sure to check back as we continue to update this list in the coming days.

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While it may not be without its flaws, CD Projekt Red’s controversial follow-up to The Witcher 3 has a lot in common with Watch Dogs.

Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs: Legion, specifically, are both set in the future in dystopian open-world cities teeming with technology and excess.

Depending on how you develop your character, you can become a hacking specialist or brute force your way through each encounter.

Although Cyberpunk 2077 is more of a traditional action RPG with stats and hyper-specific abilities, its upgrade system will feel familiar to anyone who’s played Watch Dogs.

One of the first things you’ll notice in any of the Watch Dogs games is how comparable the shooting and overall combat is to Grand Theft Auto 5.

The two share other similarities, such as open-worlds modeled after real cities, a multitude of side activities to explore, and online multiplayer.

Similar to how Watch Dogs: Legion lets you switch between multiple characters, GTA 5’s single-player story revolves around three protagonists with unique motivations.

If you enjoy Watch Dogs, then there’s a powerful possibility you’ll like GTA since it influenced Ubisoft to create the series.

Let’s use our hacking abilities to time travel back to feudal Japan, since that’s totally how hacking works.

Ghost of Tsushima is a stunning-looking open-world game that, like Watch Dogs, sees you battling to overthrow a nefarious regime that’s seized power. 

Instead of guns and hacking capabilities, you play as a samurai hero who can wield various weapons, armor, and distinct combat stances.

Similar to Watch Dogs, Ghost of Tsushima will hook and reel you in with secrets and surprises around every corner of its beautifully-rendered vast open-world.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is another Ubisoft title that has plenty in common with the Watch Dogs series in terms of general design.

Set during 9^th Century Britain, the game casts you as a Viking raider tasked with finding a new home for their people amidst a conflict between the Templars and the Brotherhood of Assassins.

Like Watch Dogs, progression revolves around completing story missions and exploring the open-world in search of rewards and secrets.

It features a lot more RPG elements than other Ubisoft open-world games but other than that, is rather similar to games like Watch Dogs.

Red Dead Redemption 2 revisits the original Red Dead’s Western motif but from the perspective of outlaw gang deputy Arthur Morgan.

Instead of the hacker group DedSec from Watch Dogs, you play as a member of the Van der Linde gang, going around robbing stagecoaches and avoiding the law.

When you’re not occupied with unlawful actions, you can go for a ride on your horse throughout the region, hunt rare animals, engage in altercations at bars, or enjoy a soothing bubble bath before resting.

Anyone who enjoyed Watch Dogs: Legion but felt the world could have used some more broadening out will definitely get their money’s worth with Red Dead 2’s 29 sq. mi sandbox spanning five US states.

If sneaking your way around covert government buildings is your idea of a good time, have you ever tried slipping past a giant mechanical sabretooth?

Horizon Zero Dawn is a massive action RPG that has you playing as an outcast fighting for survival in a dystopian world where mechanical beasts, known as the Machines, have taken over.

Despite the game’s simple setting, over time you’re able to unlock gadgets and upgrades that harness the Machines’ power to allow for new strategies.

Many of the tools function similar to gadgets from Watch Dogs and allow the protagonist Aloy to scan enemies for weak points, craft distraction tools, and hack machines to turn them friendly.

While you may not play as a superhero in Watch Dogs, many of your hacking tools and gadgets look and feel like something Batman would use to track down bad guys.

So if you’ve already managed to liberate Chicago, San Francisco, and London, why not take a journey to Arkham City and help defend the inhabitants from insane clowns and deranged criminals.

Batman: Arkham Knight picks up after the events of Arkham City and sees the Caped Crusader on a quest to defeat Scarecrow and a mysterious new antagonist who’s taken over Arkham.

Batman has his characteristic repertoire of bat-shaped projectiles along with a grapple gun, remote hacking device, a voice synthesizer, and explosive gel for good measure.

Another Ubisoft title with a politically-motivated narrative is Far Cry 5, in which you play as a small-town sheriff forced to wage war with a drug-addled religious cult in Montana.

In lieu of a tech-obsessed metropolis, the game sees you exploring the expansive outdoors of Middle America ripe with wild dogs, bears, and cougars that you can train to fight by your side.

It happens to be a lot more combat and crafting-focused than Watch Dogs while still offering a great deal of diversity throughout its open-world.

When you’re not busy shooting radical cultists, you can explore side activities such as fishing, wingsuit flying, and the occasional Sasquatch hunt.

What Phantom Pain lacks in coherent storytelling, it makes up for with thorough stealth mechanics and flexible missions analogous to that of Watch Dogs.

Set after the events of Ground Zeroes, the game has you playing as Big Boss, who, after waking up from a prolonged coma, enlists a group of mercenaries to help him exact vengeance on those that put him in said coma.

While you’re more than welcome to approach every encounter with brute force, the game rewards you for taking peaceful measures when infiltrating enemy strongholds and liberating prisoners.

By gathering intel and investing in R&D, you’ll be able to construct extra tools that allow you to hear and see your enemies better, as well as extract weapons and personnel from the hostile zone.

If you take a more covert approach to Watch Dogs games, then you’ll likely enjoy playing the independent game Volume, which also features a narrative revolving around corrupt corporations and fascism.

You take on the role of a digital burglar seeking to enhance their hacking abilities by completing a set of pretend situations involving sneaking into well-guarded workplaces without being detected.

Levels are filled with armed robots that will patrol the area looking for any dubious behavior. You’ll have to use the environment to stay concealed and distract the robots using your hacking abilities.

While the game’s production quality may not be on the same level as a AAA series like Watch Dogs, both share a comparable tone and message about digital liberty.

Anyone who enjoys the technology and hacking components of Watch Dogs’ gameplay should consider playing the Deus Ex games, specifically the most recent entry, Mankind Divided.

The game casts you as Adam Jensen, an undercover hacker on a mission to expose a sinister plot being carried out by the Illuminati (yes, THAT Illuminati).

Like Watch Dogs, the game allows you to approach things from multiple angles, including both stealthy and more combat-oriented approaches.

Jensen can be augmented with a wide array of cyber augmentations that can further enhance his hacking, stealth, combat, or social abilities.

Up until now, we haven’t really discussed the parkour elements of Watch Dogs traversal and how it affects other parts of the game, namely combat.

Another game that features fluid parkour-based movement is Dying Light, a survival horror game that has you exploring zombie-infested expansive world.

To get from point A to B, you’ll often find yourself jumping from roof to roof, climbing fences, and using objects in the environment to distract nearby contaminated.

While there’s no hacking to speak of, accessing certain areas requires some maneuvering and a bit of specialized knowledge.

Now if you come to Watch Dogs for the potential open-world mayhem, then Just Cause 4 is sure to give you a run for your money.

The game is all about creating chaos throughout a lively South American landscape plagued by corruption at the hands of a private military organization called the Black Hand.

You play as Rico Rodriguez, a special operative tasked with eliminating the Black Hand by destroying their outposts by any means required (read: explosions).

Rico can wield various weapons and gadgets to turn enemy camps into blazing pits of destruction, as well as a grappling hook for when things get too intense, and you have to flee the scene.