A couple of years ago now Watch Dogs made its debut at E3 2012 and wowed everyone with how incredible it looked—one of the first games to really get people excited about what the incoming “next generation” of gaming consoles might be able to offer.

Well, the game was finally released this week, and those who haven’t yet had a chance to play are wondering: is it really as good as it looked like it would be? That appears to depend on whoever it is that’s playing. But a trio of videos are here to shed a little bit of light on the look of the game specifically.

The first video is a comparison video, offering glimpses of what Watch Dogs looks like on all platforms, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and PS3. The second video compares that amazing original gameplay demo from 2012 to how the game looks on PS4. The third compares the 2012 demo to the best possible option, the PC version. All videos can be seen below.

As you can see, the game doesn’t look remarkably different from platform to platform. It does look noticeably better as you go from the previous generation of consoles to the new generation and then of course the PC version, but the difference is not as dramatic as you might expect.

The most depressing thing is seeing the game compared to that 2012 demo, as clearly it doesn’t look anything close to what we hoped it would look. The original demo had so much life to it with its lights and shadows and weather, not to mention all of the smoke, debris, trees, and clothing blowing in the wind. The PC version still looks great, but seeing the difference it’s hard not to feel a little let down. I’d much rather not have my expectations skyrocketed by a game preview only to be let down by the final product, but apparently it was a smart move by Ubisoft because it drew everyone’s eyes to Watch Dogs from the start.

This also makes me extremely nervous about The Division, which also comes from Ubisoft and was recently pushed back to 2015. It’s almost guaranteed that we won’t get a game nearly as good looking as our first look at that one, and that’s a real shame.

In the end, however, it’s not all about the look of a game but how much fun it is to play. I still plan on giving Watch Dogs a play sometime soon, and hope to find it delivering in entertainment value. Will you still play it if you haven’t already?

Videos

[Source: IGN, Kotaku]