Watch_Dogs Release

Watch_Dogs is one of the biggest releases of the year. It’s also proven to be one of the most controversial. It’s difficult to talk about Watch_Dogs without first talking about the many issues surrounding the game, both before and following its release. I thought prior to doing my normal ‘Now Playing’ review, that I should do a post about them.

The first issue, as I covered in a previous post, concerns the frankly ridiculous number of release editions and bonus content. Given that I’ve already spoken at length about this issue, I won’t go over it again here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of these different editions ended up creating another issue upon release, as some people didn’t have access to the bonus content they had paid for. It was a problem resolved within a few days, but nevertheless, it was another reason why having multiple Day 1 editions and exclusive content is a bad idea that only ends up shafting your own customers.

The biggest issue prior to release though concerned the graphics of the game. When Watch_Dogs was first unveiled at E3 in 2012 it looked fantastic. Spin on a couple of years and one six month delay and Watch_Dogs, even running on full PC settings, doesn’t look as good as that early preview. People were understandably pissed at the apparent downgrade of the graphics. After all, Ubisoft were hyping Watch_Dogs as a true ‘next-gen’ experience. But in truth, Watch_Dogs is a cross-generational title, and as such, it’s not surprising that a downgrade was necessary. But to many, the early preview was what people expected. And, depending on the platform, it’s far from what they got.

The next main problem before the game even released was the early leak. First came the 360 version, quickly followed by PS4 and PC. More than a week before the official release, streams of the game were live and spoilers were flooding the internet. For some, like me, the streams were an opportunity to see the game in action without all of the marketing spin. A chance to see the game in, shall we say, a less than flattering light.

However, these early leaks angered a lot of people, customers who had paid in advance for the game but were now sitting idly by. To make matters worse, those paying customers also had to contend with Uplay, not exactly the most popular platform, and one plagued with connection issues upon release resulting in some being unable to even install and play. For those of us on Steam, there wasn’t a pre-load of the game until late the day before release. Even then, customers here in the UK couldn’t unlock the game at midnight, but had to wait until 9 the next morning. And, as previously mentioned, there was the issue of the missing bonus content.

Basically, everything about the Watch_Dogs release felt like a kick in the balls to those customers who actually paid for the bloody thing. And then, on top of all that, the PC version of the game had some rather bad technical issues, which is a little crazy given the six month extension and the claim that PC was the lead platform. Many people couldn’t even get the game to run and when they did, performance was terrible.

So was the launch a complete disaster? Not according to Ubisoft, who proudly announced how well the game was selling when they really should have been apologising for all the crap people were having to put up with, and promising patches to improve and fix the technical problems. Unsurprisingly, the user score of the Watch_Dogs Metacritic took quite the hammering.

But I’m not here to review all of this shit. I’m here to review the actual game, and that’s something I’m still working on. But it’s important to keep all of this in perspective. It’s important to call Ubisoft out on this bullshit. The Watch_Dogs release, one of the most anticipated releases in years, was a total f**king joke, and they really only have themselves to blame.