Ubisofts Alex Hutchingson recently discussed Farcry 4 in a podcast posted on Major Nielsons blog. He most interestingly talked about the graphical differences between past and current generations along with PC. The most interesting piece of the podcast came when Hutchingson explained that Ubisoft wants the experience to be the same across all platforms. This sheds some light on recent events after PC gamers have discovered that it is possible to re-enable the graphical awesomeness that we saw during the E3 2012 demonstration of Watch Dogs. While it might be somewhat understandable if it were a game published by Microsoft who don’t want to give the PC an advantage over their home console, it’s strange to see this coming from a 3rd party publisher.
Alex Hutchingsons words are not a confirmation that they are going to “downgrade” the graphics on the PC version of the game but it does seem highly likely, especially after seeing the situation with watchdogs being downgraded so heavily for PC. There is no way that the experience can be the exact same across all systems without there being downgrades made. It’s like slowing down cars so that horses and carts can use the roads too.
The hardest thing to understand here is that the PC gaming market is in no way a small niche market of gamers, it is considerably large and is growing. Why would restrictions like this be put on PC games? It is hard for me to really judge this situation as a consumer since I can’t understand the politics behind the decision. I’m sure Ubisoft has their reasons, but they aren’t immediately obvious.
[…] many games since that have been hit with such claims with Ubisoft even going as far to confirm that Farcry 4 would be hit with the dreaded console parity. The rumor mill has been in full effect, and it looks as though The Division is the latest game […]