Ubisoft’s upcoming Watch Dogs is on its way over to a number of platforms on release, Nintendo’s Wii U among them. Naturally, there’s a burning desire to find out if the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game will be better by comparison.
In a recent interview with CVG, Creative Director Jonathan Morin spoke about the different versions of the game, and that despite any technical advantages the next-gen consoles have, the Wii U version of Watch Dogs promises to be just as good.
"I would say the Wii U version is pretty much in between what the current gen is and what the next gen is from a version standpoint," said Morin. "It's hard to position it. I would tend to say it's maybe a bit closer to current gen than next gen for certain things but it's a beautiful game on Wii U and it's cool to play it just on the GamePad."
What does help the Wii U version of Watch Dogs stand out is that it can be played on the Wii U GamePad in off-screen mode. “There are no new features or anything like that - it's the same game but we're optimizing the controls for the beast that is the Wii U GamePad,” Morin stated.
Additionally, with the game's open and explorable world, parallels are being drawn between it and Rockstar's own latest GTA. Morin clarified with VG247 that Ubisoft isn’t interested in imitating the wild world of Grand Theft Auto V.
“When you do a game you always want to make sure that what you put in is to the service of the game. I think GTA has a great fantasy and everything they put in it reinforces that fantasy,” he said. “What you don’t to do is start copying or start feeling the pressure of your neighbor like, ‘Oh my god we need a chopper.’”
Morin also went on to state that a number of GTA-like elements, such as cars, are unavoidable, “because it would be tedious to walk everywhere, but that hacking is the central motif and that those gameplay elements it does include must be in service to that.”
Watch Dogs is currently scheduled for a Nov. 19 release in North America for both current and next generation consoles, and will be a launch title for both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
