Hawkeyejonjon on 23 February 2013
'Watch Dogs' will be "pushed further" on PS4, "easier" to develop for
Published Saturday, Feb 23 2013, 3:00am EST | By Matthew Reynolds |4 comments
Watch Dogs' PS4 version has been discussed by Ubisoft Montreal.
While the upcoming open-world title will be the same across all versions, senior producer Dominic Guay said the PS4 pushes all aspects of the game further.
"I guess the image I would give [compared to PS3] is that it's like a magnifying lens," he told Digital Spy.
"Every core pillar of the game is able to be pushed further. We're able to push the immersion. The fidelity of the graphics is one part of the immersion, but it's more than graphics.
"I'll give you small examples; it's like the fidelity of the wind, how it will have everything reacting as it blows through the city, the AI reaction when something happens, every AI has to make a decision on how they'll react to it.
"We can spend more time in the brain of each AI with a more powerful machine, saying, 'OK, how will I react to what just happened there? Where will I run to? Will I call the cops?', or stuff like that.
"Fundamentally the core, innovative part of Watch Dogs is the same on every platform. But on PS4 we're able to push every lever a lot further."
Watch Dogs will use the PlayStation 4's new touch pad to control Aiden Pearce's phone in-game, something which is described as a "direct translation" and a "really cool" feature.
The studio, however, is undecided whether the game will use the light and camera positioning system.
Guay is also a fan of the controller's improvements to existing inputs - such as the analogue sticks and triggers - saying they are "a lot tighter".
"We have a game with driving, shooting, a lot of navigation, so we need tight inputs - they did a pretty good job with that," he said.
Guay also went into detail about PS4 development, saying that it's "definitely easier to get in" as a platform.
"We did fine with the PS3 at Ubisoft Montreal, but we spent more time getting through the hurdles, if you want. We spent more time getting through the first hurdles because we could get our games to look good on the platform," he said.
"Now, very, very quickly we got Watch Dogson [PS4], and it looks good, and we're happy with the performance and that's a good sign, and we're able to push the immersion level and interactivity of our game instead of trying to get things to work."
Discussing the surprise announcement of 8GB DDR5 RAM at the PS4 reveal on February 20, Guay said that it was "great" and discussed the benefits of having fast memory.
"If you have a lot of memory but it's very, very slow, it's not as useful," he said.
"[PS4 has] very fast memory. I mean, 8GB of RAM. What that means in short is that there's a lot less limit on your creators, on our artists, and details and the diversity of what they can create.
"For an open world game like Watch Dogs it also means something very important because if you have a game that happens in a small corridor, yeah, you can put a lot of detail in the corridor.
"Our game's in an open city where you can get into a very fast sports car and drive at 150 miles an hour, so typically what happens then is that you'll trade off scale or density but we don't want to do that, because in Watch Dogs you can hack anything, and if you end up in a street where there's nothing, then the game's truth kind of falls down.
"We want to have a lot of density in our city, a lot of people that you can spy into, and lots of things you can do. So that's density while keeping scale, and definitely memory helps a lot with that."
Earlier this week Ubisoft announced Watch Dogs as a PS4 launch title, and said that it would also release on Wii U.
Watch Dogs sees players take control of a hacker named Aiden Pearce, who has an entire city's surveillance system at his disposal, and can tap into people's electronic devices to gather intel on them and infiltrate security systems vital to the city.
It will feature innovative social features that allow users to access other players' games using smartphones.
While the upcoming open-world title will be the same across all versions, senior producer Dominic Guay said the PS4 pushes all aspects of the game further.
© Ubisoft
Aiden Pearce is a highly skilled computer hacker
"I guess the image I would give [compared to PS3] is that it's like a magnifying lens," he told Digital Spy.
"Every core pillar of the game is able to be pushed further. We're able to push the immersion. The fidelity of the graphics is one part of the immersion, but it's more than graphics.
"I'll give you small examples; it's like the fidelity of the wind, how it will have everything reacting as it blows through the city, the AI reaction when something happens, every AI has to make a decision on how they'll react to it.
"We can spend more time in the brain of each AI with a more powerful machine, saying, 'OK, how will I react to what just happened there? Where will I run to? Will I call the cops?', or stuff like that.
"Fundamentally the core, innovative part of Watch Dogs is the same on every platform. But on PS4 we're able to push every lever a lot further."
© Ubisoft
Gameplay from the forthcoming 'Watch Dogs' title
Watch Dogs will use the PlayStation 4's new touch pad to control Aiden Pearce's phone in-game, something which is described as a "direct translation" and a "really cool" feature.
The studio, however, is undecided whether the game will use the light and camera positioning system.
Guay is also a fan of the controller's improvements to existing inputs - such as the analogue sticks and triggers - saying they are "a lot tighter".
"We have a game with driving, shooting, a lot of navigation, so we need tight inputs - they did a pretty good job with that," he said.
Guay also went into detail about PS4 development, saying that it's "definitely easier to get in" as a platform.
"We did fine with the PS3 at Ubisoft Montreal, but we spent more time getting through the hurdles, if you want. We spent more time getting through the first hurdles because we could get our games to look good on the platform," he said.
© Ubisoft
Hacker Aiden Pearce takes control in 'Watch Dogs'
"Now, very, very quickly we got Watch Dogson [PS4], and it looks good, and we're happy with the performance and that's a good sign, and we're able to push the immersion level and interactivity of our game instead of trying to get things to work."
Discussing the surprise announcement of 8GB DDR5 RAM at the PS4 reveal on February 20, Guay said that it was "great" and discussed the benefits of having fast memory.
"If you have a lot of memory but it's very, very slow, it's not as useful," he said.
"[PS4 has] very fast memory. I mean, 8GB of RAM. What that means in short is that there's a lot less limit on your creators, on our artists, and details and the diversity of what they can create.
"For an open world game like Watch Dogs it also means something very important because if you have a game that happens in a small corridor, yeah, you can put a lot of detail in the corridor.
"Our game's in an open city where you can get into a very fast sports car and drive at 150 miles an hour, so typically what happens then is that you'll trade off scale or density but we don't want to do that, because in Watch Dogs you can hack anything, and if you end up in a street where there's nothing, then the game's truth kind of falls down.
© Ubisoft
'Watch Dogs' follows hacker Aiden Pearce
"We want to have a lot of density in our city, a lot of people that you can spy into, and lots of things you can do. So that's density while keeping scale, and definitely memory helps a lot with that."
Earlier this week Ubisoft announced Watch Dogs as a PS4 launch title, and said that it would also release on Wii U.
Watch Dogs sees players take control of a hacker named Aiden Pearce, who has an entire city's surveillance system at his disposal, and can tap into people's electronic devices to gather intel on them and infiltrate security systems vital to the city.
It will feature innovative social features that allow users to access other players' games using smartphones.
Read more: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a461011/watch-dogs-will-be-pushed-further-on-ps4-easier-to-develop-for.html#ixzz2LkUWrsEW
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