Watch Dogs "E3 2012" mod can have damaging effect on gameplay, says Ubisoft

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There's no doubt that discussion about the graphical fidelity of Watch Dogs has overshadowed the quality of the game itself, with many claiming that the open-world hacker looks no where near as good as it did upon unveiling in 2012. To add to the controversy, it turns out that many of the high quality graphical features used during that demonstration are in fact hidden in the game's PC build. They've since been unlocked by a proactive modder.

“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,” a Ubisoft spokesperson wrote on the Watch Dogs website. “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.”

So that appears to rule out rumours that a forthcoming major patch for Watch Dogs will officially unlock those hidden features. We'll have to wait and see what the official graphical improvements bring.

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Shaun Prescott
Shaun Prescott
Australian Editor

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.