By 
Dominic Guay, senior producer of Watch Dogs, has revealed that the original Watch Dogs’ visual downgrade was because the developer hadn’t enough knowledge about the PS4 and Xbox One.
When Watch Dogs got released on PC and consoles in 2014, one of the biggest controversies having surrounded it was that its visuals were downgraded from the game’s impressive reveal at E3 2012. As charted in the video about the history of visual downgrades from Ubisoft, even though the E3 demo of Watch Dogs wowed viewers with its lightning and animations, the actual retail version wasn’t nearly as good looking or realistic. PC players put a graphics mod for Watch Dogs in hope of making the game look as good as it did at the E3 reveal.
In an interview with the Evening Standard, Dominic Guay, Watch Dogs’ senior producer reminded people that the first showing of Watch Dogs came in summer of 2012, before anyone had any idea what the next generation of consoles and hardware will be. He explains that both he and Ubisoft did their best to predict what the next gen of consoles and hardware would be and were always forward that the first showing was running on an incredibly powerful PC. The lack of information that the development team had on the PS4 and Xbox One is what lead to the graphics of Watch Dogs not being as good as the reveal at E3.
One positive thing is certain, that is that Ubisoft shouldn’t make the same mistake with the upcoming sequel Watch Dogs 2. For the new game that will be released on PC, Xbox One and PS4 later this year, Guay says that the team has been developing it on their target platforms from the beginning.
Dominic Guay also said that Watch Dogs 2 uses and evolved version of the first opus technology and that the lightning and effects are far more realistic and the world a lot more detailed and more dynamic. Also, the graphics isn’t the only thing fans should expect an improvement on.
Watch Dogs 2 has ditched the divisive protagonist, Aiden Pearce and will be introducing Marcus Holloway who is described as a funny, charming member of a hacktivist group that goes by the name of DedSec. Also, Watch Dogs 2 will not feature a tower climbing mechanic that has been present in so many Ubisoft games.
Watch Dogs 2 will likely come out on PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One November 15 this year.
