Earlier this week, one modder found a way to enable ultra-quality graphics for Watch Dogs on PC using files shader files that were written and disabled by Ubisoft. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this led some gamers to question Ubisoft's intentions and to accuse the company of deliberately downgrading the graphics quality of the PC version of the game.
In a post on Watch Dogs' official site, the game's development team denied those accusation categorically and explained that those shaders were disabled because they affected the game's stability, performance and/or gameplay.
"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," the post reads. "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."