Here’s an ad for Watch Dogs 2 — it’s lame

Ubisoft is doing a big unveiling of its next Watch Dogs game later today, but you can get an idea of the tone it’s going for right now.

Ads for Watch Dogs 2 have started rolling out on Twitch (via Steve Kim on Twitter), and it looks like the inside of a Hot Topic. The open-world hacking game takes place in San Francisco. The 30-second spot emphasized that by showing the Golden Gate Bridge and insufferable techo-anarchists kicking cars and wearing horse masks because that’s what hacker culture is now.

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Go ahead and watch it for yourself:

https://twitter.com/Fobwashed/status/740412510654898176

It never really works when a corporation tries to pretend to love hackers. Instead of coming across as anything authentic, Ubisoft’s initial push with Watch Dogs 2 comes across as that old “hello, fellow teens” meme.

The publisher may establish a different tone with the livestream it’s holding this morning at 9 a.m. Pacific time, and it better hope it does. Watch Dogs was one of the most anticipated releases in the first year of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but gamers and critics met it with mixed feelings. One of the primary criticisms was that the hero, Aiden Pearce, was boring and not easy to sympathize with. Ubisoft is reportedly going with someone different for Watch Dogs 2, but if they share a spirit with the nightmare “it’s always Burning Man somewhere” vibe of the game’s first ad … well, I might start feeling nostalgic for ol’ Aiden.