Enemy encounters are spread thin across the city like too little butter over too much bread, creating long stretches of eventless walking where very little happens. I’ve walked for minutes at a time without more than one or two small packs of easily dispatched thugs to entertain me. That would matter a lot less if there was more going on around me, but for a city of eight million that’s supposedly just been mortally wounded by a terror attack and subsequently overrun by multiple gangs of militarized fanatics, the streets are suffocatingly calm.
That’s mostly owing to the fact that there are virtually no random events; just illusions of them. That detachment of peacekeeping troops getting into it with a gang of looters a block over sound like they’re engaging in an impromptu skirmish, but it’s all a scripted show for your benefit. Once you help them end it, they’ll be on indefinite leave. Though some other IGN editors say they’ve seen gangs dynamically fighting in the world, in more than 50 hours played, I never did. What’s more, these pre-set, one-and-done missions are all minor variations of one of a few simple missions types, and once you’ve done all of them in a zone, there’s no material reason to come back to that location besides some inconsequential collectibles that I quickly gave up on grabbing, even when they were only steps out of my way.