Watch Dogs will run on the current-gen game console at some very weird resolutions. The game is working on these consoles, but don’t expect a 1080p port with all of the bells and whistles. The port of the game will run at 900p on PS4 and 792p on Xbox One. There’s going to be no changes on that for the current crop of hardware, so don’t expect a patch to fix this.
The post for the future of Watch Dogs on current-gen consoles comes from Gary Steinman, the communications manager at Ubisoft on the project. The blog from Ubisoft points to a lot of work being done on the game. As Steinman puts it, the game is going to focus on having a more living world by making some sacrifices. The living and breathing world needs every bit of muscle to get the more realistic NPCs and other features going and running well.
“The game also looks great on both generations of consoles,” he said during the post. The versions of the game will also run at 30 FPS on these two consoles. That means you’re getting some consistent performance at the least. The lack of full 1080p resolution is pretty disappointing for fans looking for a true next-gen title. Here’s the full context of the explanation for the resolution.
“But you make choices about the experience you want to deliver. In our case, dynamism is everything. Exploration and expression are everything. You want to have a steady framerate, but you want to have dynamism at the core of the experience. The same goes with resolution. People tend to look at corridor shooters, for example, where there’s a corridor and all the effects are on and it’s unbelievable, and they forget that if you apply those same global effects to an open city with people around and potential car crashes and guys in multiplayer showing up without warning, the same effect is applied to a lot of dynamic elements that are happening in every frame. So it becomes magnified in cost.”
Since the reveal of the hacking adventure last year, there have been a lot of expectations placed on this game. Watch Dogs pushed for the tech-dystopian future really hard, and it’s trying its best to deliver on that promise of a new type of game. The gameplay hinges on the main character taking more and more control of a highly-connected future city. The premise sounds cool when set alongside the themes of corruption, greed and humanity. It’s going to be very interesting to see how Ubisoft makes this world of future hell come to life.
Using the complex story they’re setting up, it looks like there’s going to be a morality play as well. Players will also find a ton of side activities around the city that they can take on, as well as the main story quests. It all looks very interesting, but it’s going to be a bit awkward if it doesn’t stick the landing.
