14 DAY TRIAL // Following the widespread critique of the shallow profiling system in Watch Dogs 2, Ubisoft now plans to overhaul it for the second installment in the series, in order to "humanize" non-playable characters.
Many gamers dismissed the system's randomized one-line descriptions as a very shallow manner in which to represent a human being, and the limited available selection meant that gamers would see the same text pretty often.
Now, Ubisoft is looking at player feedback in order to gauge what it did right and what it could improve upon in Watch Dogs 2, with the non-playable character profiling system being one of the many ways in which the developer is aiming to push things forward.
Better profiling does not necessarily mean exhaustive detail
The profiler feature is one of the many core features of Watch Dogs, one of the many things that enables players to immerse themselves in the game world. The profiler shows randomized facts about other citizens in the city, offering a sneak peek into the lives of others.
"We'll see where that goes as we communicate what the future of the brand is. There's definitely space for expression there. I think, there's a trap there; there's a trap of trying to take that and making it so precise then there's no space for interpretation anymore," Jonathan Morin, the game's creative director told DigitalSpy.
"I think that would make us lose something. We need to find the right balance where we need to push that further, without closing it, without closing the door and making a crafted story," he continued.
Things are moving forward, nothing set in stone yet
He said that the system presented a huge opportunity to provide some contextual narrative in the game world, by humanizing the virtual people around you, fleshing out a more realistic game world.
"We have ideas of where we should push, and how we should do it and everything, [but] it remains to be seen," Morin said.
"We're at that stage now. We're trying crazy stuff. We're trying not to fall into that trap of, 'Oh we've tried that in the past, it's not going to work'. That's the main trap - that's the barriers you can put in your mind, when you start having a franchise."
The director revealed that it was too early to get into specifics, as the team really wanted to push the industry forward with the feature. The developers are carefully exploring the full spectrum of possibility ahead of them, before committing to any definitive way in which things will be done.
