Watch Dogs 2 is one of the most highly anticipated titles of the already packed fourth quarter, however, the game was released this week in less than complete condition, as the multiplayer aspects of the game were not functioning properly. Ubisoft has now updated us on the status of seamless multiplayer and the studio says they hope to have everything up and running this weekend.
In a press release sent to Cinema Blend this morning, Ubisoft (opens in new tab) says that the studio is currently deep into internal testing on a potential fix for the problem. Of course, one of the concerns is that the fix could cause more problems, and as such, they want to be sure that the patch "causes no regression to the core single player experience as well as smoothly integrates the seamless multiplayer." If this fix works as expected then seamless multiplayer should be fully functional by the weekend, though if "the weekend" here means Friday evening, Saturday morning, or anytime before Monday, is not clear.
One of the unique things about the multiplayer design in the Watch Dogs series is that it'snot a separate entity from the single player campaign. Instead, competitive, and in the new game cooperative, multiplayer games can launch directly from the same open world where the single player game is played. Often this is done when another players "hacks" their way into your single player game, and you need to track them down and stop them.
Before Watch Dogs 2 even hit shelves reviewers were made aware that the "seamless" portion of the multiplayer was being taken offline due to a bug that had been found that was causing significant drops in frame rate. While the expectation was that the fix would come before the game launch on Tuesday, that did not come to pass. The game's co-op missions can still be joined by you and your friends, so the online aspects of the game aren't completely dead, but the invasion and bounty hunter modes will not simply appear as options during your single player campaign.
While most fans of Watch Dogs 2 are probably still busy with the single-player campaign, the multiplayer is just the sort of thing that can add replayability and long term enjoyment to the game once the campaign is over. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal soon so that those who have been binge playing the game will have new stuff to do this weekend.
