At this point, Watch Dogs will probably be remembered more for all the controversies regarding its graphics that it found itself embroiled in than anything else. Consider this, for instance: the PC version of the game was found to have hidden graphical files and settings that reverted the game to a visual state resembling its stunning E3 2012 debut.
In a rare and unusual move, Ubisoft has responded to this discovery, also taking the time to address concerns about the game having been downgraded from the E3 2012 debut demo.
“The dev team is completely dedicated to getting the most out of each platform, so the notion that we would actively downgrade quality is contrary to everything we’ve set out to achieve,” Ubisoft wrote on the official Watch Dogs website. “We test and optimise our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality.
“The PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons, including possible impacts on visual fidelity, stability, performance and overall gameplay quality.
“Modders are usually creative and passionate players, and while we appreciate their enthusiasm, the mod in question (which uses those old settings) subjectively enhances the game’s visual fidelity in certain situations but also can have various negative impacts. Those could range from performance issues, to difficulty in reading the environment in order to appreciate the gameplay, to potentially making the game less enjoyable or even unstable,” they concluded.
The performance of the game does indeed take a hit when the graphical settings are reverted to the E3 demo state, so Ubisoft isn’t lying there- no, the extent of its lying in this case is limited to falsely advertising the game by debuting it with an unrealistic visual target to begin with.
Ah well.
