Ubisoft in Hot Water Now That Someone's Found the Original E3 2012 Watch Dog Visuals

A wild "mod" for Watch Dogs has appeared that allows PC players to achieve close to the visuals we saw at E3 in 2012. Seeing what the game should have looked like really makes it seem like Ubisoft downgraded the PC version, but Ubisoft PR continues to defend their product:

@Beeelow i recall replying saying that the game was not downgraded, i still stick to that yes.

— Tessa Vilyn (@UbiTessa) June 16, 2014

UPDATE: The team behind Watch Dogs has left an official response on the Watch Dogs blog:

Watch Dogs PC Update 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. We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they're released, striving for the best possible quality. 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. 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.

Thanks for playing Watch Dogs and stay safe on the mean streets of Chicago.

-The Watch Dogs Team