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There is no protagonist in this one. You are DedSec, the hacker resistance standing up to Albion borough by borough and taking the fight to Zero Day, and the people you play as are whoever you talked into joining. That changes what a guide has to be. Nothing here is about levelling one character, because there is no one character: every page we have written is about filling a roster, arming it, sending it on a job, or finding the things London leaves lying around for it once the story is over. The team is the save file, and with permadeath switched on a member lost on a mission does not come back, so the order below runs from the decisions that build the team to the ones that spend it.
Filling the roster
Anyone on the street can be profiled and recruited, which makes the first real question who is worth the effort. Our best recruits guide answers it by profession rather than by name, because the job is what carries the perk. A few of its picks are about access as much as combat: a paramedic's uniform lowers suspicion in hospitals and comes with an ambulance, a police officer walks into Scotland Yard, and an Albion officer strolls through the restricted zones Albion has set up all over the city, with the Inside Albion quest there to help you land one. Others are insurance. Someone with a legal background shortens the time an arrested operative spends in a cell, and a doctor or paramedic gets an injured one back into rotation sooner.
| Profession | Why the guide wants one on the team |
|---|---|
| Construction worker | Summons a cargo drone and draws less attention on building sites |
| Paramedic or doctor | Faster recovery for the injured; the paramedic adds a hospital uniform and an ambulance |
| Barrister, magistrate or lawyer | Shorter jail time, sometimes an instant bail |
| Police officer | Entry to police stations and a baton for melee |
| Drone expert | A shock drone on call and a hack that turns enemy drones |
| Hitman | Gun takedowns, a dodge roll and heavy weapons for the loud approach |
| Albion officer | Uniformed access to Albion territory plus combat gear |
| Beekeeper | A robotic swarm that stuns and hurts |
| Protest leader | A megaphone that rallies bystanders to fight |
How big can the team get? Twenty, and the source is Ubisoft itself: our report on the 20-operative limit quotes the game director confirming that number before launch, alongside the detail that every recruit has their own backstory and that the cast is voiced through modulation rather than individual actors. It is a pre-release piece, so read it for the cap and the design intent rather than as a walkthrough. Once the roster exists, our essential tips guide covers running it: keep a mix of brawlers, shooters, healers and uniforms, swap between members whenever you are not being chased, and on PC use the map to jump to an agent by clicking their portrait. It also explains that liberating a borough is how the roster grows, since clearing all of a borough's Paste Ups can hand you a special operative such as the Spy.
Paying for the tech
Two currencies run alongside the roster and they could not be less alike. Tech points unlock DedSec's gadgets and upgrades, and the shopping list on our best tech and upgrades guide is short enough to plan around: the Infiltrator Spiderbot for anyone playing quietly, the AR Cloak for turning invisible, the Skin Mesh at 45 points if you play with permadeath on and want operatives to survive a firefight, and the Deep Profiler at 25, which is the upgrade that lets you recruit people who hate DedSec, Albion guards included. Our tech points page explains how they are earned and mapped, and our Nine Elms and Tower Hamlets pages walk every point in those two boroughs, most of them reached with the Spiderbot you just bought.
ETO is the other currency, earned as boroughs are liberated, and our clothing stores guide is frank that it buys almost nothing except outfits and a handful of weapon skins. Shops show up as a green T-shirt icon on the map, the best of them cluster around Piccadilly Circus, and the sensible move is to shop with an operative who carries the loyalty card perk, since the discount is the only thing that makes the prices bearable. Wardrobe changes happen in any store or back at the safehouse.
Sending them on a job
The one chapter we have walked end to end is Body Snatchers, the Clan Kelley strand, and our Body Snatchers walkthrough covers all three of its missions. Lost in the Process starts at the European Processing Centre, where laser scanners on the gate mean you either hack a panel and slip behind the guards or ride a hijacked drone in, meet a contact called Bartholomew, and then choose between doing the database run yourself or sending a Spiderbot through the vents from beside the vending machines. Clan Kelley's New Export moves to the Southwark Incinerator, three guards outside, a rubbish chute in the basement and a grim discovery about a former DedSec member. Bloody Merry Kelley ends at the Sandstone Residence with a ctOS drone through an open window and a long Network Bypass Puzzle, which you can take slowly because nobody interrupts you.
The habits that make those missions easier are the ones the tips guide keeps returning to. Hijack a camera before you enter anywhere, both to count the guards and to find the captain, marked by a wi-fi signal over his head, who calls reinforcements if he is still standing when things go loud. Do not be the first to draw, because enemies match the level of force you bring, so fists and melee weapons keep a fight from becoming a gunfight. And arm every trap the camera shows you on the way in, either to pick guards off one at a time or to set them all off at once.
The decision
Into the Void is where the story stops and asks. Skye Larsen is on life support between two computers, and our Skye Larsen choices page lays out what follows from each: which one Nowt wants you to pick, how she reacts when you do not, and why the page concludes that the later missions arrive either way. Our choices and secrets guide sets that decision beside the thirteen references and oddities hidden around the campaign, including a statue in the catacombs that our writer found genuinely unsettling, and sorts them by whether a mission shows them to you or you have to go looking.
What is left when the story ends
Finishing the campaign opens the one hunt you cannot start earlier. A console in the DedSec Safehouse offers a side quest built around Bagley's damaged memories, and our Bagley photograph locations page names the eight spots the game only shows you as blurred pictures, from the National Gallery to Guy's Hospital, plus the ninth shot from the top of the Walkie Talkie that completes it and awards The One That Got Away.
The rest can be done at any point. Our masks page walks the 38 masks borough by borough, 37 of them pinned to a spot, with the safe house stairway, New Scotland Yard and the pillars of St Paul's among the stranger hiding places. Our darts locations guide does the same for 21 boards across the pubs of London, and playing every one of them once is what the Bullseye trophy asks for. Our collectibles guide puts the three hunts on one grid by borough and explains why each one asks a different amount of searching from you, and our secrets and Easter eggs page is the thirteen-entry list for anyone who wants the Assassin's Creed and Mirror's Edge nods on their own.
Where our coverage stops
Being straight about the gaps: we have one chapter walkthrough rather than the whole story, tech point maps for two boroughs out of the eight our pages name, and a recruits guide that recommends professions without telling you where to find the skilled operatives who hold them. If you are starting today, read the recruits guide before you profile anyone, buy the Spiderbot first, and save the Bagley quest for after the credits, because it is not there until then.