Holidays are typically reserved to celebrate an occasion and are a time when most people can relax and take an extra day off to enjoy it with friends and family. In the United States, Independence Day just passed and typically gets celebrated with a barrage of fireworks and backyard BBQs. Similar to our everyday lives, some video games try and match the seasons and holidays to what is occurring in the real world. With a recent update, 1.16, Watch_Dogs 2 introduced a July content update that features a four player party mode and a Fourth of July in-game celebration.
Although in-game celebrations can be a unique and memorable event, it appears the Watch_Dogs 2 update got off to a rocky start. According to many gamers that chimed in after the update hit, Ubisoft didn't quite put the effort in when it came to its fireworks show that occurs every 24 minutes and lasts for close to eight minutes. The problem isn't the repetitive timing, it is more so from the sounds themselves, as the developer did not add many unique instances of the firework sound effects and it can be heard from all over the map, regardless how far one would be from the actual fireworks display.
Furthermore, it appears that the audio was not optimized for surround sound systems, which was detailed by NeoGAF forum user Vlaphor stating:
Watch Dogs 2 recently added in fireworks that go off every night in the game, and this is supposed to last until the 10th of July...and I just can't take it anymore! The smaller fireworks that go off sound like someone is crinkling wrapping paper right next to my ears and the larger fireworks sound like someone is hitting the bass pedal on a drum set, also next to my ears.
It only affects the rear/side channels of my 5.1 setup, so it feels as though I have a constant dome of fireworks around me.
There's no consideration of distance, so the fireworks sound the same no matter where you are.
There are only a couple of samples, so the fireworks begin to sound identical almost right away.
Finally, the fireworks go off non-stop. It's not some kind of measured release of fireworks, it's thousands of the same fireworks, going off constantly for about 1/3rd of each in game day. It's a mixture of some of the most irritating sounds available, run on a near-constant loop, and there's no way to turn it off. I recently bought this game during the steam sale, but I can't play it while this is going on. I'm getting a headache and extremely irritated by this addition, and it's a damn shame because I am really liking the rest of this game. Only now I'm being told I have to wait until July 10th to be able to play it again.
What the hell Ubisoft?
As you can gather from the description above, it is clearly not the greatest experience and definitely something that could turn off gamers for the duration of the event. Luckily, Ubisoft managed to pump out an update to address some of the problems above, by only allowing the sounds of the fireworks to be heard when close to the event. According to the firm, the sound that was being heard from afar was a bug but has now been addressed. You can read the full post from Ubisoft below, which was originally posted on Reddit.
The people have spoken and we have carried out their will! There was an annoying bug that snuck into our Independence Day Event that made the sound effects from the fireworks noticeable from everywhere on the map. They have been turned off as to avoid any further noise complaints. Happy 4th of July, everyone! Be safe and don't light your fireworks too late.
The update comes in at roughly 11GB and can now be downloaded if you want to continue to play the game without distraction during the celebration. If not, you will only have to wait a few more days, as the event is scheduled to end on July 10.
Source: Ars Technica, Watch_Dogs 2
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