After three titles of vastly different quality, Ubisoft has allegedly quietly canceled the Watch Dogs series. This series of futuristic open-world action-adventure games never quite found its audience, nor did Ubisoft ever figure out the perfect direction for it. The constant shifting of tone led to a very interesting but disconnected franchise, and none of the titles really made the impact the studio wanted. While it has not been officially canceled, rumors suggest that Watch Dogs has been put on hiatus, but for some reason, its most important faction has not been.
At the June 2023 Ubisoft Forward, Ubisoft showed off two projects that will feature crossovers with its many franchises. Iconic franchises like Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell are cropping up in these crossovers, but so is the hacker group DedSec from the Watch Dogs franchise. Their series may have been quietly canceled, but the faction still has a future in Ubisoft's upcoming slate. This puts the faction in line with Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher and could very well be the only piece of Watch Dogs content that fans get for the foreseeable future.
DedSec is Everywhere but Watch Dogs
DedSec has been a major part of the Watch Dogs series since its inception. It is one of the largest hacker groups actively fighting against ctOS, and every single Watch Dogs protagonist worked alongside them at some point. They recruited Aiden Pearce multiple times throughout Watch Dogs to retrieve data for them, Marcus Holloway became a vital member of DedSec in Watch Dogs 2, and Watch Dogs: Legion tasked players with rebuilding the London branch of DedSec after they were labeled a terrorist group. This series really would not exist without DedSec, but now the faction seems to be finding a home in other franchises.
Ubisoft has been working on its first-person arena shooter XDefiant for a little while now and is finally gearing up for release. The game will bring together factions from across Ubisoft's many franchises for an exciting new free-to-play crossover. These factions include the Libertad from Far Cry, the Cleaners from Tom Clancy's The Division, and the Echelon from Splinter Cell. Members of DedSec will be joining them and bringing their hacking abilities to the battlefield. While they do not necessarily fit alongside characters from the Tom Clancy games, they are still featured prominently in XDefiant.
Ubisoft also recently unveiled a brand-new Netflix anime called Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. This show is inspired by Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and will also see many of Ubisoft's franchises crossover in a brand-new adventure. It looks like popular series like Assassin's Creed will be making an appearance, and the trailer also briefly showed DedSec will be involved. While not much is known about the plot, it sounds like it will be filled with alternative Ubisoft characters and be a homage to the early 90s. DedSec may play a very small role, or it could be one of the most important factions in the story.
That makes two upcoming projects that DedSec will be a part of, and neither of them are Watch Dogs games. There is a chance that even more projects involving the hacker group are on the horizon, but fans will just have to wait and see. It seems strange that Ubisoft would cancel the mainline series but still use the team in an assortment of projects, but it would hardly be the first time since Sam Fisher has also been relegated to this status. DedSec's appearances hopefully mean that the Watch Dogs' franchise still has a future in Ubisoft's upcoming lineup, but fans probably do not want to hold their breaths.