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In Watch Dogs: Legion, you recruit people you meet around London and can play as the operatives who join DedSec. Start by profiling promising candidates, checking their opinion of DedSec, and following any recruitment task they require. Then build a roster with different strengths—such as stealth, combat, and hacking—rather than collecting operatives with the same capabilities.
The detailed recruitment examples below come largely from Ubisoft’s pre-release coverage in 2019. The released game confirms the recruit-and-play premise, but exact prompts and rules can vary by mode or later updates; use the current game’s descriptions and roster screen as the final reference.
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Watch Dogs: Legion (Multi Lang In Game) (PS5) | $22.60 | Buy on Amazon |
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Watch Dogs Legion Ultimate Edition - UPGRADE PS5 free | $95.96 | Buy on Amazon |
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Watch Dogs Legion Limited Edition (Exclusive to Amazon.co.uk) (PS5) | $59.13 | Buy on Amazon |
How to recruit an operative
Recruitment begins with people you encounter in the open world. Ubisoft’s pre-release feature describes profiling a person to learn about their background, adding promising prospects to a contact list, and checking how they feel about DedSec. A person who dislikes the group may not accept an offer immediately; they may require help with a personal problem or a recruitment mission first.
- Look for someone who fills a need. Consider their skills, equipment, background, and traits—not just whether they seem appealing.
- Profile the person. Review the information available about them, including their opinion of DedSec.
- Add a promising prospect to your contacts. This gives you a way to track the person and any requirement tied to recruiting them.
- Complete the requested help or recruitment mission. If they are reluctant, follow the task shown in the game rather than assuming every candidate uses the same process.
- Try their distinctive abilities after they join. Decide whether the new operative improves your options in the kinds of situations you encounter.
Ubisoft later explained that characters have schedules and social connections, and that actions involving one person can affect connected people’s willingness to join. That helps explain why the recruitment process can feel tied to London’s wider population rather than a uniform sequence of identical missions.
#1 Best Overall
- Free to add the people you encounter on virtual and organize resistance and get back to London in the near future, facing the crisis of collapse by hacking, intrusion, and combat Now it's time to gather with resistance
- Whoever met in the city can be played as part of their companion, and each has a backstory, personality and skill set
- Hack your armed drone, unfold the Spider Bot and eliminate your enemies while concealing them with the AR Cloak
- Explore the open world recreating the huge city, and enjoy the countless landmarks and fun side activities
- Invite new members online, collaborate with friends to make missions and challenge challenging end game content
How to build a useful team
Ubisoft’s launch announcement describes each character as having individual skills, resources, and talents, and says that varied abilities are important to building the resistance. Its pre-release coverage outlined three broad role examples. Treat these as an announced way to think about playstyles, not as a rule that every mission requires a fixed composition; check the operative descriptions in your current game for their actual capabilities.
| Role example | Emphasis in Ubisoft’s pre-release description | Why it may suit your approach |
|---|---|---|
| Enforcer | Heavier combat | Consider this kind of operative if you prefer a more direct approach. |
| Infiltrator | Stealth | Look for this emphasis if avoiding detection is central to how you play. |
| Hacker | Tools such as a Spider Bot and drone control | Useful to consider when you want to rely more on remote tools and hacking opportunities. |
The same pre-release article says basic environmental hacking is common across classes, so a role label should not be treated as the only way to judge what an operative can do. Check the individual profile and in-game ability descriptions before deciding what a recruit contributes.
Rank #2
- Open-world London, explore a massive urban open-world where you can visit London's many famous landmarks
- play as anyone, experience a never-seen-before gameplay Innovation. Anyone you see can join your team complete with a unique backstory, personality, and skill set
- weaponise London's Tech infrastructure. Hijack armed combat drones, deploy stealthy spider-bots, covertly take down enemies using an augmented reality cloak, and much more
- bring your team online and join forces with up to three friends and explore the world together or take on entirely new co-op missions
Compare candidates on four practical points
- Approach: Does the operative support stealth, direct combat, remote hacking, or drone use?
- Traits: Do their bonuses, drawbacks, or unusual resources fit the way you prefer to play?
- Access and utility: Could their background or equipment help in the locations and situations you commonly face?
- Risk tolerance: Is a valuable advantage worth a serious drawback listed on their profile?
Ubisoft’s 2019 feature illustrated how different individual traits can matter: its examples included a street performer with 40% more headshot damage, an amateur boxer with 50% more melee damage, a doctor with a 25% reduction in team healing time, and a therapist with 100% more damage alongside a random-death drawback. These are examples of generated character traits in that article, not standard values for all recruits or a guarantee that you will encounter those exact combinations.
Switching operatives and understanding the risk
Ubisoft’s 2019 feature said a team could contain up to 20 DedSec members and that players could switch among operatives in the open world. That 20-member figure is a pre-release statement, not a limit repeated in the launch source reviewed here. If the roster screen in your current game or mode differs, follow what it shows.
Rank #3
Ubisoft’s pre-release coverage also described lethal danger as potentially resulting in permanent loss of an operative. Surrender, by contrast, could temporarily make an operative unavailable and create a rescue opportunity. Ubisoft’s official help search result confirms that the game has a Permadeath mode, but does not provide enough readable detail to establish a complete set of current rules for every difficulty, online mode, or failure state. Before taking a valued operative into a risky situation, consider the consequences shown by your current mode and game interface.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What to prioritize as a beginner
- Recruit for coverage: try to add operatives who open up approaches you do not already have.
- Read traits closely: an impressive bonus may come with a drawback that changes how much risk you are willing to take.
- Use recruitment tasks to learn about prospects: the person’s background and connections can be part of the process, not just their skills.
- Check the current game’s prompts and descriptions: many fine-grained recruitment and role details published by Ubisoft were pre-release examples from 2019.
Ubisoft’s Youssef Maguid wrote in a June 10, 2019 pre-release article that players could recruit a team full of hacker grandmas, but would likely be better served by diversifying based on unique traits. It is useful advice for thinking about variety, not a current patch note or a universal optimal-team prescription.
Quick Recap
Rank #4
- Pre-order to get access to the Golden King Pack and set your heroes apart in the streets of London with:The Uneasy Lies mask, Serpent Sisters Pistol skin and Lux Car skin
- The Limited Edition includes:Digital content, The London Dissident Pack: unlock three new masks to lead your resistance with style
- Play as anyone: Recruit anyone from the entire population of London into your resistance
- World-class music artist, Stormzy will feature in his own mission ‘Fall on My Enemies’ will see Stormzy enlisting the resistance group to protect the broadcast of his track Rainfall in central London
- Play the game the way you want Build a team with a huge range of characters to choose from
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