14 DAY TRIAL // Watch Dogs, the upcoming open world action game from Ubisoft, will deliver a dynamic experience that might not look as great at all times, as the developer wanted to make players really feel like they're in a constantly changing world.
Watch Dogs is set to debut in May, and in recent weeks Ubisoft has shared some more footage with the game, which prompted some speculation about a possible downgrade in terms of visuals, especially when compared to the initial E3 2012 reveal of the title.
In order to ease the worries of fans and shed a bit of light on what the team at Ubisoft Montreal wanted to achieve with Watch Dogs, lead designer Jonathan Morin answered some fan questions on Twitter with some slightly longer replies.
First up, in terms of the quality of explosions, shadows, or reflections, Morin emphasized that Watch Dogs is a dynamic game and such moments or technologies will constantly differ from one another, depending on many dynamic factors.
"Because I’m getting bombarded by questions. Explosions are occurring in many different contexts, so tweaks are made on each case. It's the same for time cycle and weather and AI. Watch Dogs is about dynamism," he said.
"We could freeze every state of every system and use bling-bling tricks on them, but that’s not Watch Dogs. Just like reality, sometimes cars are less reflective, sometimes it is wet or it rains. Some other times there are no shadows like today in Montreal."
While this solution is much trickier to implement and may not always produce the same great effects, Morin is confident that it will make players care about the virtual Chicago that's possible in Watch Dogs.
"It’s making it harder on us (way more cases to be handled), but in my mind it’s more beautiful this way as you play. More immersive and elegant. All this matters greatly if you want players to care about the world they are in," he added.
Morin also confirmed a few details about the initial E3 2012 reveal of Watch Dogs, saying that the game ran on a high end PC at the time, but more recent videos and demonstrations, like from E3 2013 or the new Welcome to Chicago trailer, were made on a PS4 dev kit.
As such, possible variations in quality are possible, so players shouldn't start judging every video and image of the game until it's out in May for PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.