Watch Dogs is a great game, nobody ever really questioned that. However, if you were following the news from the gaming world when it was released, you’ll probably remember the rather large outcry from fans that it had been considerably, graphically downgraded in the time between its first pre-release showing at E3, and its eventual full retail release.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot, stated that the company has had to completely re-evaluate and change how they handle showing off pre-release footage of yet-to-be-released titles.
With E3 2015 we said, OK, let’s make sure the games are playable, that they’re running on the target machines. When we show something, we ask the team, make sure it’s playable, make sure gamers can immediately see exactly what it is. That’s what we learned from the Watch Dogs experience – if it can’t be played on the target machine, it can be a risk.
It’s a real challenge to create those types of games. When they come out, especially the first iterations, they are not perfect on everything. We think we launched a good quality game for a first step in a new brand with a new technology. It’s just so complex – seamless multiplayer, connectivity with mobile and tablets, so many things – it was maybe a bit too much for a first iteration.
Still miffed about how much Watch Dogs changed visually during its time in development, or have you buried the hatchet with Ubisoft and let bygones be bygones? Let us know in the comments below.