Chicago will either hate you or love you in Watch Dogs

The reputation system in Watch Dogs will allows players to keep abreast of their relationship with the denizens of Chicago.

The opinions of the populous can be monitored via the game’s reputation meter, which is based on our actions. Go all Rambo-reckless by harming innocents or driving like teenager with their flip flop hung on the accelerator, you won't be very popular.

It will also cause the media to start slapping your face on the evening news more often, and calling you out on your actions.

However, if you are more of the conscientious sort, you'll be met with more optimism.

“The media will still report on you, but maybe not in such a negative tone,” lead writer Kevin Shortt explained on the Ubi Blog. “It will be more questioning. Is he a good guy? Is he a hero? Is he a terrorist? They are going to start raising these kinds of questions."

“If you’re seen as a really good guy and you start shooting cops, the meter is going to go down pretty fast, " added lead gameplay designer Danny Belanger. "If you do the crime detection a lot and you save people to redeem yourself, your reputation will go back up, but you have to work for it. It will take some time and good deeds.”

Sometimes you’ll make decisions no one would attribute to you, but these moral decisions will have an impact: will you steal the bank account information from the lady walking down the street?

"With the profiler system we have – and the voices you can hear and hack into – we’re making everything more grounded in reality," said Shortt. "We’re making you feel a living city around you. We’re making you realize there are consequences to these sorts of things. It’s up to the player what they want to do in that regard."

"It will affect people differently. We didn’t put reputation points on that because if we did, then you would not be making the choice based on information,” Belanger dded. “We chose to not assign points and just give you enough information to get a sense of who that person is so you can decide what to do. Only you will know what you’ve done.”

Watch Dogs arrives on May 27 on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The Wii U version recently went into full production.