Spider Tank

Spider-Tank main screen.

❝ Trip your way into Blume's war machine and destroy Chicago.❞ 

―In-game description

Spider Tank is one of the five Digital Trips featured in Watch Dogs.

Description

The player is sent over the Mad Mile district of Chicago in a Spider Tank. The player has to complete specific goals and objectives in a fixed amount of time, while taking out cops and marksman-occupied helicopters before they can destroy the spider.

The Spider Tank, as well as a majority of all of the Digital Trips, have their own separate skill trees to assist Aiden during the Digital Trip. These skills/skill trees don't affect the main game in anyway and vice versa.

Gameplay

The player controls a mechanical spider, which comes with the option of two available fire modes: The machine gun and the rocket launcher, where one serves as a versatile, all-around weapon (the machine gun) and the other a heavy, anti-vehicle weapon (the rocket launcher). Next, there are close-combat/melee attacks, where the spider can attack any nearby police car and destroy them instantly. The spider includes energy reactors to activate its functions, and can be consumed with melee attacks, movement, and abilities. The tank's mobility isn't as good as cars', but it can jump, climb over walls, and aim at almost anywhere. As the player progresses through the game, more cops and SWAT arrives at the same time and with better weaponry (including Destroyers for marksmen).

There's a Spider-Tank HUD icon that represents the general health (blue), as well as damage taken on it (red). Depending of how much damage the spider receives, a female robotic voice will state that the general integrity of the tank is at 75, 50, and 25 percent.

Several missions are:

• Taking out a certain number of cops.
• Destroying vehicles (any type).
• Destroying satellite beacons placed on buildings.
• Taking out the police helicopter (at first presence).
• Destroying armored trucks (Convoys)
• Destroying an L-Train.

Skill Tree and Upgrades

The maximum level for the Spider-Tank is 21.

Spider-Tank
Skills	Level 1	Level 2
Basics	Reinforced Plating (point cost: 1) Thicker armor prevents more damage.	Titanium Plating (point cost: 2) The strongest armor available. It greatly reduces all damage and bulletproofs the Spider-Tank.
	Extra Reactor (point cost: 1) A new reactor in the Spider-Tank engine will increase the maximum energy pool.	Thermal Fusion Reactor (point cost: 2) Optimized engine reactors provide a superior energy capacity.
	Energy Recycling (point cost: 1) The Spider-Tank prioritizes basic functions when energy is running low.	Emergency Protocol (point cost: 2) Redistributes engine power when the system detects imminent destruction.
Abilities	Hydraulic Claw (point cost: 1) With optimized tech, the Spider-Claw cost less.	Sharpened Claw (point cost: 2) Your sharpened front legs are now optimized to kill. Nothing can withstand them.
	Spider-Crush (point cost: 1) Fall on people and press (A/X) to perform a Spider-Crush.
Weapons	Overloaded (point cost: 1) Upgraded capacity allows more anti-tank shots before reloading.	Proton Shell (point cost: 2) Proton shells make the anti tank gun the best option for blasting a wide zone.
	Upgraded Chain Gun (point cost: 1) Improved chain gun engine decreases the firing cost.	Piercing Bullets (point cost: 2) Improved ammunitions increases the damage of your chain gun.
	Improved Weapon Engine (point cost: 1) Improves the weapon engine to change weaponry faster.

Gallery

Trivia

• Despite being called a Spider Tank, the tank has six legs, whereas an actual spider has eight.
• The spider tank was developed and built by Blume Corporation, possibly for military purposes.
• At the start of the trip, the female dispatcher will say that the criminal "is inside a military vehicle", which means Aiden would be piloting the Spider Tank.
• Though not visible in the Trip, the Spider Tank outfit is unlocked after completing all of the objectives and is available to use at any clothing store or hideout in the game once unlocked.
• The spider tank's design seems to be based on the generally large Mygalomorph infraorder of spiders, in its beefy and well-armored body, despite only having six legs.
• During the objective where the player must destroy the helicopter, the text incorrectly states "Destroy an Helicopter".
• This digital trip could be based on the 1999 movie Wild Wild West, in which the villain kidnaps scientists to build a giant spider machine (much like the Spider Tank) to attack President Grant.
  • The tank could also be a reference to the 1995 film Ghost in the Shell, which featured a similar device. However, the tank in the movie is guided by an artificial intelligence, not by a human pilot.
• The satellites that the player is tasked to destroy are built by Blume.
• The Spider Tank is later seen in Watch Dogs 2 as a prototype combat robot built by the Tidis Corporation. Unlike in the first Watch Dogs, this iteration of the Spider Tank is part of the in-game reality, as opposed to a hallucination.
• The Spider Tank will return once more in Watch Dogs: Legion, but this time as a much smaller drone utilized by DedSec. It features a Spider Turret mode, can crawl through ventilation shafts and can take down an enemy by climbing up their body and latching onto their face (similar to a facehugger from the Alien franchise). Additionally, unlike the Jumper and Quadcopter drones in Watch Dogs 2, the Spider-Drone is deployed similarly to an explosive mine.