Unlock Free Roam Multiplayer in Watch Dogs

One of the main features in Ubisoft’s latest release, Watch Dogs, is the free roam multiplayer mode. Having been described as a seamless experience, people’s expectations of multiplayer modes were high. Regardless of the fancy phrasing, with the correct settings enabled you’ll be running around Chicago with your friends wreaking havoc and having a blast! For information about interacting with other online players through hacking and trailing missions read our guide here.

You’ll first be able to play free roam in Multiplayer Mode once you have completed the Main Mission Act I/6 Interlude: Hacking Contract. This mission is a tutorial for one of the multiplayer modes, Intrusion, which is a one-on-one set up. The aim of this game is for one player to get and stay close enough to the second player to steal data without being killed. It sounds pretty simple, but you should be careful when choosing which friends you want to compete with, they may be better than you think.

To play Watch Dogs with your friends in the first place you will need to open the phone menu and select “Online Contracts”. On this screen you will see “Online Free Roam” and clicking that will reveal the option to “Create Private Session”. Once you’ve selected that you’ll be randomly placed in Watch Dogs’ city of Chicago and then it’s just a matter of inviting your friends and chosen enemies, however you like to think of it. It’s important for all of the participating players to sign up for a Uplay account and play Watch Dogs using a PC, PS4 or Xbox One for the Free Roam Multiplayer mode to work. Unfortunately people playing with the PS3 or Xbox 360 platforms won’t be able to access the multiplayer modes. Sorry.

Although you may be able to pick your friends out from a lineup of 1000 people, you won’t necessarily recognize them in multiplayer mode. Not everyone can be Aiden Pearce, so unless they’ve specifically customized “their online appearance for other players”, your friends’ looks and gender will be randomly generated. If you want to shoot your friends and inflict damage on each other in Free Roam (how nice!) you and your friends will also need to activate the “Adversarial Free Roam” setting.

Besides Intrusion, other multiplayer modes are Decryption, Races and Free Roam. The former option, Decryption, sets the task for a team of four players to try and steal data from the opposing team and then decrypt it. The difficulty lies in the decryption as it takes a while and the opposing team will do everything they can to disrupt it, if they’re close enough. On top of hacking skills, you’ll need to skillfully flee from enemies and lose them to let the decryption finish. Good luck!

Free Roam lets you explore the city with your friends, which begs the question of what you can do. There are no set tasks within this Free Roam mode but Ubisoft have suggested a few possible activities including Cops and Fixers, in which you and your friends cause as much trouble as you can then wait for the police and see how long you can fight them off for. Another free roam pastime is based on the childhood classic Hide and Seek; to play Hard Target choose a player to run and hide, then without looking at the map everyone else needs to hunt them down and tries to kill them. If the runner kills all hunters they win, if not it’s the last man standing. Alternatively you don’t have to kill each other and then it really is like Hide and Seek.

Essential Watch Dogs free roam multiplayer games come in the form of the two VR games you can enjoy, yes you can even play them with your friends! The really nice players out there might even show their friends how to finish the difficult runs in Cash Run, but I won’t tell if you won’t.

If all else fails you and your friends can challenge each other to perform crazy stunts in Free Roam. How many people have you had standing on the roof of a lorry as it’s speeding along? Rather than ride on top of the lorry, you could test who has the toughest nerves amongst you and your friends. Line up of the group up on the East side of Pawnee and the other half on the West, then dare everyone to head to the construction bridge and JUMP! If timed well everyone may crash and burn, but chances are some of you would prefer to miss the inferno and chicken out. Will that be you?

Have you got any Hints and Tips for using free roam multiplayer mode in Watch Dogs? Share them in the comments below.

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