Watch Dogs 2 shouldn’t see same downgrade as original, due to more ‘predictable context’

Back when Watch Dogs was first revealed in 2012, the gaming community was nearly through the roof with hype. When the game was shown off after the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were released in 2013, the game looked a bit different.

The graphics had been downgraded quite a bit and the community noticed, they called it "downgrade gate." Back in 2014, Ubisoft attempted to explain the downgrade for the PC version of Watch Dogs, saying they optimized the game for each platform and that they had sacrificed graphics on the PC for stability.

With the reveal of Watch Dogs 2, there's a general worry that the downgrades will come again. Dominic Guay, the senior producer behind Watch Dogs 2, has come out to say that the original downgrade occurred because they didn't know how powerful the Xbox One and PS4 would be, and that things are different for the sequel.

"One thing to remember is that the first showing of Watch Dogs came in summer 2012, before anyone knew what the Next Gen of consoles and hardware would be," Dominic Guay said while talking about the downgrade with Evening Standard (via VideoGamer). "We did our best at the time to predict what that would be and always were forward that this first showing was running on a very powerful PC."

As far as the Watch Dogs sequel goes, the downgrade shouldn't happen again.

"For Watch Dogs 2, we are in a much more predictable context," he said. "We have been developing the game on our target platforms from the beginning."

"Watch Dogs 2 uses an evolved version of the first [game's] technology," he continued. "With many years passing doing R&D on this hardware generation, we were able to expend the game’s graphics significantly. The San Francisco Bay area is a great place to have long view distances with high detail and atmospheric effects. The lighting and effects are more realistic and the world much more detailed and dynamic."

Watch Dogs 2 is set to release on PS4, Xbox One and PC in November.