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Some might suggest that it's the end of an era. While Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have continued to receive conversions (of varying quality) of the majority of the recent AAA hits, Nintendo's Wii U has clearly missed out this season, with Assassin's Creed, FIFA, Call of Duty, Destiny and many others conspicuous by their absence. Delayed for six months, Watch Dogs could well be the last major multi-platform release the console sees - Ubisoft itself declaring that it's the last mature title it's willing to bring to Wii U. Going into the game, initial buzz on the internet seemed positive, with talk of the game sitting between the last-gen and PS4/Xbox One versions - right where you'd hope it would be, given the capabilities of the more modern Nintendo hardware. To cut to the chase, as a potential full-stop on AAA multi-platform development for the system, it's fair to say that Watch Dogs for Wii U isn't the next-gen/current-gen technological blend many were hoping for. It sits alongside many of the more disappointing Wii U ports, sharing feature parity with Xbox 360 and PS3 in terms of audiovisuals, gaining some GamePad features but losing out in terms of raw performance. Developed by Ubisoft's dedicated team in Bucharest using the Disrupt engine, Watch Dogs Wii U has issues that are hard to overlook, even next to the creaking PS3 version which compared unfavourably with the PS4 release.
Just like the PS3 version we previously tested, the base native resolution of Watch Dogs on Wii U is a restrictive 1152x648, with identical post-processing anti-aliasing to match. In terms of image clarity, the upscale process is unforgiving compared to the PS4's 1600x900 output. The worst of it ultimately boils down to muddied detailing on Watch Dogs' Chicago horizon - though indoors this is a far less noticeable point - and the temporal 'shimmer' artefacts on high contrasts. Without a doubt, the Wii U is in last-gen territory for image quality here.
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