Ubisoft confirms deactivated graphics options in PC Watch Dogs

Claims from modders that graphical tweaks for the PC version of Watch Dogs were deactivated prior to release ARE true, Ubisoft has admitted.

The options were uncovered by modders earlier this week.

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,” Ubisoft confessed.

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.”

However, Ubisoft has strongly denied the current conspiracy theory that the game was deliberately downgraded so as to not outperform the PS4 and Xbox One versions – something that could have theoretically negatively impacted next-gen hardware and console sales.

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,” it added. We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality.”