LogInTurns out the beloved game about hacking was supposed to be a continuation of Ubisoft's Driver franchise.
According to a feature over at VG247, it turns out that the link between Watch Dogs and Driver is not an urban myth after all. VG247 was in contact with several sources, one of whom is a Ubisoft employee, and they told some interesting information regarding the transformation of Driver into an entirely new IP.
“The game that was released as Watch Dogs started life as a sequel in the Driver franchise, but was always largely what you see in the final product,” one of the sources told VG247. “It was always modern-day, it had on foot, parkour, combat, as well as driving, all set in a large open-world city, and the main hook, was always modern technology and hacking. After a while trying to make this concept fit into the Driver franchise, the decision was made to turn it into its own, new IP.”
A second source, a former Ubisoft employee, told VG247 that the game was changed because 2011's Driver: San Francisco was a financial flop. “They just did their own thing and convinced Yves [Guillemot, Ubisoft CEO] he could have "his own GTA" instead of the low selling Driver,” says the source.
The first source, however, disagrees, claiming that Ubisoft Montreal’s Driver game had already morphed into Watch Dogs before Driver: San Francisco came out. But they agree that hacking was the aspect that pushed the project into the new series territory: “It took it too far from anything that felt like Driver. They couldn’t make the concept fit with the franchise.”