Far Cry 4 PC code not available to reviewers until Tuesday

PC Gamer put up a note earlier today stating that their review of Far Cry 4 has been delayed - it's because they aren't getting the review code until Tuesday, the day the game releases.

http://www.pcgamer.com/why-our-far-cry-4-review-is-delayed/

Ubisoft's statement:

"The reason why we did not provide review code until now is that there is a title update which won’t be available before Monday prior to launch. However, we will officially communicate on the title update prior the release of the game so consumers are aware."

What this sounds like to me is that there could be a dearth of information about the PC version of Far Cry 4 until Wednesday or Thursday since it's going to take reviewers some time to download and start playing the game. I get that Ubisoft doesn't want reviews based on the game without the day one patch, but still...after Watch Dogs and Unity, I hope not too many people preordered the game for PC.

So the review embargo is technically up, but it doesn't matter because no one is able to even play the PC version to review it anyway. Great.

I'd like to think that given that Far Cry 3 worked well on PC, that this one would too (as opposed to Assassin's Creed, which (so far as I know) had a spotty record on PC), but I don't know. If anything, I'd be more inclined to think this has to do with Sony co-marketing or something along those lines. But like I said, I don't know.

Not sure if it was that site but they said Kiev is doing it, they did the AC:U port and some other, not so good ports.

Far Cry 3 on it's first day of release for PC had a real bad frame rate on the highest settings but totally smooth on the second highest settings but it wasn't long till that was all alleviated. I will at least wait a bit for Far Cry 4 to get a good patch and the VGA drivers to improve as well.

@mooseymcman: It worked well on PC for some people, yes. However, for a lot of people (especially people with AMD cards, like myself) it ran like fuckin' trash for 5-6 months after release. I bought that game 2 months after release and it was still running like garbage on my machine, at the time. I had to wait an additional 3-4 months before they patched it to the point of it being playable (framerate above 30, not stuttering every 2 seconds, you know, basic stuff).

After Watch_Dogs and Unity, I have no doubt in my mind. I would bet money on the PC version of Far Cry 4 running like shit.

@doctordonkey: At the time Far Cry 3 came out I was running a pair of 6950's in Crossfire and I couldn't even get 60 fps. I have a 780 Ti this time around though so hopefully Nvidia is on the ball with a Geforce update pretty close to release.

Please run good. It's the same engine as Far Cry 3, so there should be no issues there if they got the issues worked out in FC3 after launch. I'm getting a steady 60fps on ultra with my mid-range PC on FC3 right now.

I already preloaded I'll be piss as fuck if it turns out to be a shitty port but I been waiting to play this game since I saw it at E3 I'll take the risk also to be honest I'm bored as fuck and I need to play a new game.

I pre-loaded it already on PC.. The specs on PC are totally reasonable (for me at least) so I have high hopes for it.

It really looks like it's FC3 with a few new bells and whistles, and given that FC3 ran so good on PC I'm inclined to think it will be no different with FC4.

reqs are more than reasonable, a very stark contrast with the outrageous ones posted for AC:U...

Should run ok, only thing that bogged FC3 down was the AoTC setting with MSAA enabled.

It'll be fine. They just want people to review it on current gen, since that's where they expect to pick up most of their sales. If they sent the 360 or PS3 version, everyone would say "game looks like shit", and if they sent the PC version console people would wonder "butbut wat aboot the console experience"?

Sending the current gen makes the game look good and makes undescerning 360/PS3 owners think that it'll look that good on last gen so they'll run out to buy it.

Early rumours are indicating that it isn't running well on high-end cards. Could be just a driver issue though.

Well, Far Cry 3 ran pretty great on Pc, so I can only expect 4 to be the same... hopefully.

If you preorder then you're basically saying you don't care about the reviews, if you are waiting, any technical issues will be flagged up pretty soon and you can go off other reviews for the gameplay experience. I'm struggling to see the issue here.

It would be nice if reviewers had access to all the versions in advance, but I totally get why the companies do things this way. I know I'm going to get Far Cry 4 and it would be nice to pre-download, but not until I can figure out which version to get.

My main worry is that it's the same people who did the PC port for Unity. Ubisofts shares have plummeted over the last couple of days, another terrible PC port on top of that while they are trying to push the console sales would not be an option for them. By all accounts the console version runs fine and looks great, but I am worried about the PC port. I will be waiting for PC reviews before I purchase.

@onarum:

Wow, recommended is an i5? It's almost as though it might just be a good port. (Please let it be a good port).

I imagine that NVidia will also be releasing a game ready driver for it at some point, they seem to do that for many Ubisoft games.

But 4 is being 'ported' by the guys who did the Pc version of AC: Unity, so I wouldn't hold our collective breaths.

The issue is when games need day1 patches, which sometimes is completely understandable. The FC4 day1 patch is mandatory, and fixes a LOT of things, but it won't be available until Monday, since enormous patches like these are recently finished and have to go through the same approval process the main game does when validating it for use and download. And the publisher naturally would not want reviewers to review the game without this patch, mainly because it won't represent what the user will experience.

Which is why you can never trust early rumors, especially before release. Anything before release makes 0 sense to judge in this day and age. Just wait for official reviews. Early rumours would be based on:

1/ Torrented games without crucial day one patch, this is where people enjoy posting bugs to neogaf and showing how broken a game won't be to people who bought it. Yes, ACU is a specific case where even with the Day1 patch, shit was busted.

2/ Always wait for nvidia/amd drivers on any game after or during release.

Oh... fingers crossed I guess.

But Unity was busted on every platform.

With the amount of anti-PC sentiment displayed by Guillemot, both on-the-record and from ex-employees, it's hard for me to expect anything other than a poorly optimized mess. Continuing to hand off the porting to Kiev after repeated duds is a pretty clear indication that they aren't really worried about the problem.

Here's the list of most recent games the studio has worked on:

1. Assassin's Creed: Unity
2. Trials Fusion
3. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
4. Assassin's Creed III
5. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

All were plagued with performance issues stemming from poor optimization, and Future Soldier was even temporarily canceled out of a fear of piracy. Far Cry 4 might be a fantastic port, but I certainly won't be buying it on Tuesday.

My thought is that it's typical Ubisoft being paranoid about piracy. If they let game reviewers get at it ahead of time they might leak it! Oh NOOOOOO!

Except it was leaked earlier today.

Just hoping they haven't vandalised this one by treating it like a storefront too.

@jimbo: It doesn't have any microtransactions and it doesn't have a companion app.

@corevi: True blue? That's good news. I'll probably go for this instead of Unity then if the PC reviews give it the all clear.

Digital foundry did an analysis on the ps4 version and they're giving it a decent amount of praise on the technical front. I will be very surprised if the pc version isn't better. Maybe not hugely better, but better nonetheless. If I do get it it will be on ps4, but Im guessing PC gamers will be happy with this game.

@mcfart said:

What are you talking about? Ubisoft doesn't give a crap if people buy the new consoles, they only sell the games. They are allowed to provide different copies of the game to different reviewers. They don't only have to send out all console versions or all PC versions. There are entire review publications that only do PC reviews, it wouldn't make any sense to give them a console copy, so Ubisoft basically ignores them.

Apparently a dude with a i7 4670k and an R9 280x is getting between 45-60 frames with everything maxed at 1080p. This is before the day one patch I assume, so that sounds pretty good.

Excellent. Hopefully we hear more of this.

Far Cry 3 was an incredible experience on the PC. So I went ahead and got 4 on the PC. Hoping I didn't make a huge mistake.

I'll just keep an eye on the forums for people's discussions on PC performance. Kinda sucks though because I was leaning towards FC4 more than DA:Inquisition

Yup, at least on PC if your hardware is high end enough you can get past most of the performance issues except for the graphical ones of course. It just seems like Unity doesn't scale well to other ranges of hardware

The game was pirated a week or so ago actually.

Unity was a brand new engine that doesn't even run well on the new consoles. FC4 runs on an existing engine and runs seemingly really well on current consoles.

It isn't usually the porting dev who is at fault but rather the tech they have to work with (and the budget they are given).

Unlocked this this morning and fired it up briefly, game immediately crashes when running full screen (much like the last time I tried Blood Dragon since upgrading to a 980). Borderless window seems to work fine however.

@korwin: Borderless is always the best. I wish every game had it.

Just booted it up and played through the intro. Not having any major issues, but this game just screams console port. Stuff like not getting mouse movement right, terrible UI for PC and the all new "hold button down to activate". I'm getting flashbacks of playing Fallout 3 and the first Borderlands on PC, nothing game-breaking but so very very far from optimal.