Ubisoft has been courting a number of controversies recently. Whether it’s the contentious Far Cry 4 character reveal, which was considered by some to be both racist and homophobic, to Assassin’s Creed: Unity’s lack of female avatars (we have our take on the issue coming later today). But before either of those it was the butt of internet-wide criticism for having downgraded the graphics in its new IP, Watch Dogs. The game we got, although certainly a lot of fun, didn’t look like what was initially shown at E3 2012.
But the Watch Dogs graphics-gate drama isn’t over for Ubisoft even post-release. Inquisitive modders unearthed files in the PC version of the game which allows users to turn on effects labelled as “E3 effects”. Many are reporting the modded version of the game not only looks significantly better, but actually runs better too. This has prompted uproar across the internet, and accusations that Ubisoft downgraded Watch Dogs on the PC to achieve parity with the console versions abound. Some commentators are even suggesting that Ubisoft disingenuously presented a game at E3 that it never had any intention of releasing.
We can’t authoritatively say for sure what the truth of the matter is, but we can report what Ubisoft had to say on the matter on the official Watch Dogs website: “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. We test and optimize 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 […]”.
For many, especially those reporting improved stability and performance post mod, Ubisoft’s official statement is likley to ring hollow. Irrespective of the truth the controversy surrounding Watch Dogs is not likely to disappear any time soon as it affects as many as 4 million plus customers who bought the game.
Shehzaan Abdulla
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