Watch Dogs 3 release date & gameplay rumours & videos

While initial sales were disappointing, Watch Dogs 2 was well received by critics and fans, and it now looks like Ubisoft is planning to create a third game in the series. We don’t know much about Watch Dogs 3 yet, but an update to the second game’s ending has teased the upcoming title, including a hint at where it might be set. You might like: Best games deals

For now, we’re running down everything we know about Watch Dogs 3 so far, including our expectations and hopes for the game’s release date, setting, and gameplay.

When is the Watch Dogs 3 release date?

Ubisoft hasn’t even officially announced Watch Dogs 3 yet, so there’s certainly no release date yet. The first Watch Dogs came out in May 2014, while the second hit stores in November 2016, so they don’t really give us much of a hint as to when to expect the new one to arrive.

We would expect Ubisoft to wait less than two and a half years to release Watch Dogs 3 though, so we’re expecting a release either in late 2017 or early 2018. A lot will likely depend on the release schedules of the next Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games, Ubisoft’s other major open-world franchises, to stop them from cannibalising each other’s sales.

Also read: The most anticipated games of 2017

In the meantime, you can buy the first Watch Dogs from just £5.99 ($9.65) depending on the platform, while the sequel is available from £24.99 ($37.20).

What will Watch Dogs 3 gameplay be like?

What we do know a bit about is the likely setting of Watch Dogs 3: London.

That’s thanks to a post-launch update to Watch Dogs 2, which added a few extra seconds to the game’s ending. You can watch the new ending below (spoilers, obviously), which features the same video from Dedsec, the game’s hacking group, before cutting to a brief audio conversation between two unnamed men.

They discuss the rise of Dedsec and other hacking cells across the Middle East, South America, and Europe, but what’s really interesting is the filename of the audio recording: 51.462014, -0.112504.wav

That may look like random numbers, but in fact it’s a pair of coordinates. Plug them into Google Maps, and they lead you straight to Brixton, London, which many now assume will be the setting of Watch Dogs 3.

It’s a welcome tease for a sequel that many fans worried would never come out after what Ubisoft admitted were “disappointing” early sales for Watch Dogs 2. The sequel’s first-week sales in the UK were down 80 percent from the original’s, though CEO Yves Guillemot has since suggested that “momentum [is] now positive” for the game thanks to positive reviews and word of mouth.

A London setting could also have interesting effects on the sequel’s gameplay. The city has among the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world, making it a great fit for the series, which focuses on hacking and surveillance. There are also fewer guns in London than in the U.S., which could mean the game features more focus on hacking, and less on action – a potentially welcome change, after critics complained that the violence in Watch Dogs 2 was an unnatural fit with the game’s tone and other mechanics.