The core game mechanic in Watch Dogs is hacking.

[15] Aiden Pearce, the game's pr otagonist, is armed with a Watch Dogs is an open world action-adventure video ga me in which players control an Irish-American vigilante named Aiden Pearce (voic ed by Noam Jenkins),[12] who can hack into various electronic devices tied to th e city's central operating system (CtOS), allowing various methods for the playe r to solve numerous objectives.[13] Examples include hacking into people's phone s to retrieve bank data and steal funds, triggering malfunctions in equipment to distract other characters and hacking into traffic lights to cause collisions. Players can also receive information on civilians via augmented reality feeds, p roviding the player with information on demographics, health, and potential beha vior. All of the hacking mechanic is done directly from Pearce's smartphone. He carries around a phone that is equipped with multiple applications, namely the p rofiler and the crime prevention system, but also applications that interact mor e directly with the environment around Pearce - interfering with mobile communic ations, traffic lights, etc. Objectives showcased in presentations include findi ng specific targets to kill, evading the police and following potential victims in order to stop their would-be killers. Combat utilizes a combination of stealt h components and parkour, along with the mechanics of a cover-based third-person shooter.[14]