14 DAY TRIAL // After a series of leaked gameplay videos from an early copy of Watch Dogs, Ubisoft Montreal's Jonathan Morin, the game's creative director, is defending the game's perceived visuals and emphasizes that the team focused more on dynamic gameplay rather than pretty graphics.
Watch Dogs is set to debut next week, but some copies of the game have already made their way into the wild, after they were sold to consumers by certain stores.
Those consumers started uploading gameplay footage from the PS4 version and lots of reactions have appeared from fans, with some being impressed and others voicing their disappointment with the visuals and the fact that the game runs at 900p resolution on PS4.
Ubisoft's Jonathan Morin treated this topic at length on Twitter, via GamePur, and emphasized that he and his team opted to focus on dynamic gameplay rather than pretty visuals.
"Watch Dogs is about dynamism. It could not have been the case. Everything is related to each other and everything is a choice in game development. You decide to have dynamism like ours in a full city than you must embrace it when it comes down to choices. You guys can decide to extract resolution from the big picture to make it easier of a choice for you but I can't," he said.
"I am not denying that resolution have an impact but it's about cost and impact. It is always about that. So you guys are free to interpret, it is your right. My job is to make choices based on the game we are making. Everything is related to each other even in visual alone."
Morin admitted that visuals are important for all games, but deciding to ignore gameplay to focus on graphics isn't a good strategy.
"Visual is a crucial aspect of any game experience no matter which angle you take. But it is not the only angle to consider. Everything is a catch 22 in my job. I could decide to ignore this fact but that would make me one hell of a [bad] Creative Director."
"Not that I am perfect, but for me density, dynamism through control of hacking and seamless online are core elements. They are what brings players elsewhere when they play. So when it gets in the way of these then everything else loses."
Watch Dogs is set to launch globally on May 27, so you can expect to see more leaked gameplay until then.