
Enlarge / USA-themed update to Watch Dogs 2 is making people's dogs bark thanks to surround-sound barrage. Cool, Ubisoft. (credit: Ubisoft)
Haven't played Ubisoft's Watch Dogs 2 in a while? Its developers apparently want to torture you for the next week if you consider doing so, all in the name of the U-S-of-A.
Usually, seasonal events in video games are good news. Holiday-themed quests, gifts, and trinkets are commonplace in MMos like WoW and life sims like Animal Crossing.
Ubisoft's 2016 game Watch Dogs 2 falls in neither of those categories, but perhaps the company thought a little seasonal surprise would get the hipster-hacker open-world quest back on people's tongues. Its choice of patriotic accoutrement, however, hasn't brought out much happy feedback: a bombastic fireworks show that plays every "night" in the game (which starts every 24 minutes in real time and lasts for about 8 minutes).