Ah, the classics! I am currently playing Watch_Dogs Legion for the very first time and could not help but miss the first Watch_Dogs’ gruff anti-hero Aiden Pearce. Yes, he does show up in the Bloodlines DLC and I am actually playing through that right now before finishing the main campaign. But, that does not mean I cannot play the classic at the same time. And while I enjoy the absolute mayhem criminal-turned-vigilante Aiden “The Fox” Pearce can inflict on Chicago, for my latest playthrough I am choosing the more pacifist options. Which brings me to one of my favorite missions in the game: the prison break mission called “Dressed In Peels”.

Also, here is an overview of which games and missions were featured in this series so far:
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Saving Caterina Sforza: The romance, the humor! Everything about that relationship,really.
Deus ex: Mankind Divided, Claiming Jurisdiction: Do you choose the smart, stealthy  approach, or brute force?
Deus ex: Human Revolution, Infiltrating Tai Yong Medical and confronting Zhao: That’s one intense infiltration mission where my sole goal is remaining undetected.
Assassin’s Creed II, Assassinating the Templar Doge: This one is Ezio’s masterpiece and a kind of deja-vu.
Thief, A Friend In Need: The master-thief may not need friends, but he does not let his allies down. Even if it means walking into a trap.
Assassin’s Creed, Assassinating William of Montferat: Over the past missions Altair has gained notoriety and this hit is the last one before he faces his arch-nemesis, so the stakes are high and the guards on high alert.
Aragami, The Last Captain: While the wraith-like aragami can usually take full advantage of the shadows and strike his enemies down like some awesome predator, in this intense confrontation he is the one being hunted. 
Dishonored, Eliminating The High Overseer (and some more): The first mission in this game is a defining one, I think. And, as a bonus, I added my favorite missions from the two story DLCS Knife Of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches.
Dishonored 2, Unseen In The Dust District: The Dust District is one of the toughest missions in this gem, when played the first time. Your goal: exploit a gang war to get to the key to a masterfully locked door.

Why this mission?

Aiden Pearce is a complicated man. Quick-thinking, manipulative, cold-blooded, violent, charming when necessary and a family man, sort of. A lot of that features in “Dressed In Peels”.

There are two missions that set up the actual prison break, but I will just give you a quick overview of what you need to know before we start: Aiden Pearce is Chicago’s notorious vigilante, nick-named The Fox, but thanks to an exploit he has managed to erase his face from the all-seeing, city-wide surveillance system that is the ctOS. Which is why he is wearing a mask in addition to his baseball cap whenever he gets himself into trouble, so actual people cannot identify him and cameras other than the ctOS have no way to capture his face.

Nevertheless, in the very beginning of the game someone does see the Fox without the mask, and that guy is currently in prison and about to be relocated for interrogation via prisoner transport, ready to give a face and, eventually, a name to the Fox.

Not only the police are interested in that information, someone else is, too. And they paid a lot of money to get to it before the cops do. So Aiden has to track down the person responsible for the prison transport and take them out, which he manages via stealthy take-downs, out-right threats and blackmail, social engineering, reckless driving and an arsenal of guns and explosives. Which describes his usual modus operandi in a nutshell.

The Approach

Once Aiden Pearce has identified and neutralised the threat of the prisoner being transported anywhere anytime soon, all he has to do is get to the man himself. How, you ask? This is a prison break, not a prison break-in, right? Well.

Aiden Pearce is not shy to murder people when it is the only way to get what he wants or needs. But, he is not a psychopathic monster either. So he trusts in his ability to threaten and blackmail the witness into silence, if he gets the chance to speak to him in private. The only way to do that, though, is to get himself arrested. The idea, when pitched to fixer Jordi Chin, results in one of the – to my mind – most hilarious dialogues in the game and the badass scene of Aiden walking into the prison to get immediately taken down by the guards.

Thanks to Jordi he is prepared, outfitted with both his baton and his smartphone, which allows him to conceal his identity even during the booking process. Aiden’s cold-blooded confidence in overcoming even the greatest odds and risks is pretty inspiring, I have to admit. When next we see him he is wearing orange and has found new accommodations inside a prison cell.

Using his smartphone he is able to hack into the prison’s security system and able to open the cell door. Alas, there are guards patrolling each of the cell block’s levels and getting spotted will result in an immediate end to the mission. Aiden’s first goal is get the inmate schedule, which is located on the ground floor. Sneak over to the left until you see the stairs leading down, and avoid detection. Get into the room and pick up the schedule. Our target is currently in the exercise yard, meaning atop the building. So Aiden needs to get to an elevator. Keeping it stealthy is key here.

Thanks to the smartphone you will be able to hack cameras and locks in order to get a glimpse at the target in the exercise yard. Unfortunately, whoever has set up that prisoner transfer has opted to have some corrupt guards interrogate him on site, more specifically in the basement. Getting to the basement means sneaking past a lock and two cops in a rather tight space. You have to time it just right not to get spotted.

Once inside the basement, grab the gun and go see where your target is being held. Then comes the fun bit: Using the gun and the environment, Aiden has to take out the corrupt guards in order to get to the prisoner. Thanks to a little bit of rather terrifying blackmail – 60 years inside instead of the official 60 days – he manages to gain the man’s silence.

The only thing left at this point is escaping the prison and the pursuing police, who have been made aware of one “John Smith” having done a legger.

Since Aiden canonically does not kill cops – unless they are the corrupt sort – your best chance of escaping from the parking garage’s roof level is to grab the car to the right and drive off the roof and onto the tracks of the L-train and away. And because I did not kill any cops the Fox keeps his (positive) Vigilante-reputation. So, yeah, this sums up Aiden Pearce quite nicely: smart, stealthy, high-risk and violent, when the need arises.

And that’s it for Favorite Mission Ten!

Speaking of ten, can you believe that whatchaa.com has been around a decade come May? So, expect a trip down memory lane as we celebrate that milestone with some nostalgia, stories and statistics.   

Until then, keep on playing.

Cheers

Vanessa