That said, it's instantly obvious that the same level of image quality isn't present on the Xbox One release, which looks visibly worse in comparison to the unpatched 900p PS4 game. Essentially this translates to a fuzzier image on screen that highlights the breaking up of fine detail in the distance while smoothing over texture details. As we've seen in other sub-1080p games upscaled by the Xbox One hardware, overall image quality is further impacted by the introduction of an unwanted sharpening filter, directly responsible for the grainy pop that surrounds the texture work and foliage throughout the game and the visibly hard edges on foliage and complex scenery.

It's disappointing that the Xbox One code is impacted in this way, especially when you consider that Ubisoft has managed to achieve parity between the two consoles in a great many areas. Barring the occasional use of a few lower resolution textures on Microsoft's system in the odd scene, the artwork is comparable between both next-gen consoles. Meanwhile, lighting and general effects work throughout the game are a match across both platforms. What differences we do see often comes down to the dynamic nature of the game's weather and time of day systems, which adjust these variables on the fly.

The PC version provides a similar visual experience to the PS4 release, but with the ability to achieve better image quality over the consoles. The main improvement comes with the inclusion of horizon-based ambient occlusion (HBAO+ in this case), resulting in more defined indirect shadows compared to the simpler SSAO-style effect we see in place on PS4 and Xbox One. Most welcome of all is the ability to select from a wide range of anti-aliasing modes - most notably MSAA, FXAA, and SMAA. We opted for 4x multi-sampling for a reasonable balance between image quality and performance, providing an instantly noticeable visual boost over the next-gen consoles.