10 Times Video Game Developers Totally Destroyed Their Own Creations

10. Ubisoft Admit Watch Dogs Graphical Downgrade

When we were given our first glimpses at Ubisoft's Watch Dogs over the course of the 2012 and 2013's E3 conferences, there were plenty of reasons to get excited. After its eventual release, however, it became apparent that Ubisoft had done their product no favours by showing it off in the manner first served. Critics and gamers all found the finished game had nowhere near the visual polish that its E3 promotional footage had suggested.

Understandably, we were all outraged, as Ubisoft admitted to the apparent downgrade with CEO Yves Guillemot admitting that the game's "PC version does indeed contain some old, unused render settings that were deactivated for a variety of reasons".

When talking about this decision to downgrade the game from what was seen at E3, Guillemot added that Ubisoft had "learned from the mistakes" made with Watch Dogs and added that they would "make sure the games are playable, that they’re running on the target machines. When we show something, we ask the team, make sure it’s playable, make sure gamers can immediately see exactly what it is."

This translated to the game's earlier versions running at a higher visual quality that could only be maintained when small chunks of the final game were being shown. Guillemot finally went on to say that Ubisoft would now focus on making sure their pre-release footage would legitimately reflect a game that is playable.

Probably a good idea to focus on that from the beginning, to be honest...