Watch Dogs director refuses to 'feel the pressure' of GTA 5
Watch Dogs creative director Jonathan Morin has said Ubisoft Montreal won't be shoehorning helicopters into the game just because Grand Theft Auto 5 does it.
Speaking to VG247 in an interview to be published this week, Morin said Ubisoft isn't interested in emulating the crazy world of GTA 5.
"When you do a game you always want to make sure that what you put in is to the service of the game. I think GTA has a great fantasy and everything they put in it reinforces that fantasy," he said.
"What you don't to do is start copying or start feeling the pressure of your neighbour like, 'Oh my god we need a chopper.'"
Morin said that some GTA-like elements, such as cars, are inevitable, because it would be tedious to walk everywhere, but that hacking is the central motif and that those gameplay elements it does include must be in service to that.
"You do need those obvious things, but afterwards it was all about hacking, and it's constantly got to be about that. It doesn't mean we couldn't have put in a chopper or something else in, but it would have always have been – if we had done it – because it fits or there's one cool thing about hacking we could do with it," he said.
“It's always about reinforcing our fantasy so that the player not disappointed. Players are good at asking. I get bombarded on Twitter like, 'Oh, can you buy real estate? Can you do it?' and they ask all those questions. It's funny because on one side it's cool that they want to know what's going on in the game, but on the other I'm curious. I ask, 'Why are you asking me if you can do stuff you already did? Why are you not asking me about the stuff you've never done?'
“It's funny. People talk about what they know, so instead of saying, 'What else is in Watch Dogs, that is not possible in other games?' they go [points at water bottle], 'Oh I tasted that water, it was great. Do you have water in your game? It's funny. I just find it funny.”
Watch Dogs is coming to PC, PlayStation 3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in November. The PC requirements are quite high end, which bodes well for the next-gen versions in particular.