Watch Dogs 2 has received rave reviews from both fans of the game and critics. It’s one of the best-selling games of all time, and many PC users find that it can run very smoothly on their systems. There have been improvements to the PC version since the original game was released, which means that most gamers have a high quality version of Watch Dogs 2 to play. Here we have our Watch Dogs 2 PC Walkthrough and Game Tips.
Let’s start with the visual part of the game. The improved visual effects are really great. The enhanced shadowing, improved texture mapping, better anti-aliasing, and better overall scene filtering all help improve the quality of the visuals. However, there are a few things that aren’t quite working quite as well. We found that sometimes the game would have issues while rendering cars at the sides of the view. At least this isn’t a massive problem, but it’s worth mentioning just in case.
Another area that’s been given some attention is the PC’s performance. It’s been said that Dishonored has made some improvements in terms of performance, but it looks like Watch Dogs 2 is doing quite well by maintaining the same level of fidelity as the first game. This means that the game is running very smoothly and doesn’t have many graphical or audio problems. It’s obvious that the developers spent lots of time improving the PC version. The comparisons with Watch Dogs: Wii Edition prove this out as it’s set to launch exactly on par with the previous release, including all the improvements that were shown on the previous version.
The next part of the enhancements is the new details. One example of this is the new detailed shadows and reflections. As you’ll know from previous Watch Dogs games, Watch Dogs 2 now has great detail and a far more realistic representation of objects. There’s far less ‘pop’ in the faces and all the textures are quite flat, apart from some minor deferred shading.
For comparison, here’s the performance section of both games: Watch Dogs 2 on low settings, and The Last of Us on medium and high. We can clearly see that the gap in performance isn’t too big, even in the high settings. So that means that even at these low resolutions, Watch Dogs 2 runs very smoothly, and Watch Dogs: Wii Edition performs quite well, even at the higher resolutions. In fact, it’s clear to see that Wii gamers are getting a graphical improvement over the PC version of the game.
The difference then comes down to texture filtering. The Wii version has a much higher quality filter, which helps to make the game look more realistic. Also, the Wii version uses the much improved physically based deferred rendering technique, which helps to reduce the aliasing problem seen in many games. As a result, the image quality is very near to the one found on the PC. But the obvious difference here is that you need to have pretty good graphics cards in order to run Watch Dogs 2 on the Wii, whereas the PC can run at a locked 60FPS with no problems.
Another difference between Watch Dogs 2 and The Last of Us is the way that the camera views the world. While the former uses anisotropic mapping to achieve anti-aliasing, the latter uses regular based streaming. In addition, the PC uses a technique called ‘stencil’ where it simulates a light passing through a scene, using the depth and color of the pixels to judge the position and intensity of the rays. In Watch Dogs 2, however, the reflections are much more realistic, as the reflections are done using anisotropic filtering, instead of using a regular raycast. The result is a far more visually interesting game.
It’s clear from the comparison above that there is no easy way to describe what the differences are between Watch Dogs 2 and The Last of Us. It’s mostly a matter of preference, although of course, you will find that you can easily make the decision for yourself by playing the games. We’ve done all the work for you in terms of comparing the game quality and see what settings you should use, so you should be able to reach the top of the hill with the settings you like, rather than having to compromise image quality for performance.