Watch Dogs Wii U has released with little fanfare or promotion from Ubisoft. As these early gameplay videos show, Ubisoft Romania seems to have done a decent job, although some graphics issues remain.
First off, as should be expected, the graphics are not at par with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, and are more in line with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. However, the game actually looks OK. You can see in the video above that there are no egregious graphics issues that would get in the way of gameplay, and if you aren't particularly invested in graphics, as many Nintendo fans are, you may be satisfied with the game like this.
However, there are graphics issues with the game, and these seem to come up when environmental graphics effects come into play. You can watch the playlist below for examples of poorly implemented effects, such as light and shadow effects at night, rain, and water. These issues make the game look bad, but certainly don’t affect gameplay.
How bad are these issues? For one, they certainly are nowhere as bad as the glitches found in the original release last May. We reported on two such issues, when distant objects saw a serious dip in graphical quality in the Xbox 360 version, and a glitch that made a cop car appear abruptly in the middle of a train. While this may be premature, it appears that Ubisoft Romania has made good use of the six months gap to eliminate such potentially game breaking bugs in this version.
Overall, it appears that the game could have had more optimization with longer development time. We will have to wait for reviews to see if Ubi delivered on GamePad use as promised, but when it comes to graphics, they have at least delivered on the bare minimum expected.
What do you think of these videos? How do they compare to your copy of the game, or if you're a Wii U owner, to comparable games like Deus EX Human Revolution? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.