Lying in wait, it was fairly easy to clear them out. A minute or two later a jeep rolled into the base. Unfortunately, one of them had gotten to an alarm before I could kill him. I maneuvered Brody up to a second floor look out and tossed a grenade at two surprised pirates before vaulting over the wall and shooting down the final batch of bad guys. Clambering out, I ran to the outer wall, slipped inside and managed to knife two pirates, one up through chin and crown of his head and the other across the neck, before anyone noticed me. My initial attempt at capturing it had me trying to drop directly onto a pirate from my hang glider, but after three misses and three deaths I decided to swoop in low and drop into the water nearby. This first base was a tiny little encampment, a structure of tin walls and exposed wood on the beach, held by a small group of pirates. My short experience with the game culminated with my first capturing a radio tower and then, inevitably, making a run at the only camp I could see in the area. Each of these towers unlocks a better view of the map in its area, also unveiling challenges and treasures. When you take out an outpost the rebels move in and the area becomes "friendly," Keen said.Īnother layer of gameplay has Brody capturing the game's 20 radio towers. Capture an outpost and you seize control of the area and clear it of most pirates. There are a total of 34 outposts throughout the game's world, each one controlling a section of the worldmap. The islands of the game start out completely controlled by the game's pirates, while Brody doesn't have to clear these bad guys out, capturing a territory makes it a bit easier to get around. While players will assume the role of Jason Brody, an out-of-his-element tourist forced to save his girlfriend, he won't have to spend all of his time working through the game's story. The idea is that both the game's missions and its sandbox design take place on a chain of tropical islands.
There's a clever underlying threat that ties the whole experience together: Pirates. That doesn't mean the mission-free bits of the game will be completely without structure.
"It's going to be hundreds of hours," Keen says. While the game's missions will take about 20 hours to work through, the main island and the surrounding ones, which you can also visit, will offer up much more to do. "There's so much to explore out there," he said. Jamie Keen, lead game designer for Far Cry 3, tells me that you can play the game pretty much "ad infinitum." I figure any game that manages to deliver hang-glider trips, run-ins with wild dogs and armed pirates, treasure hunts and death by hungry sharks in a 30 minute demo is packed with potential. I never had a mission, never sensed even a wisp of the game's compelling story or dramatic direction.
I spent half an hour doing nothing while I was doing everything in Far Cry 3. Then it's the hang glider I find conveniently located atop a mountain perch overlooking a dazzling drop into forest, coral and azure blue sea: Go for a ride.įinally, it's the encampment of pirates I spot during one of my gliding sojourns: Take the camp.
It's not long before I find my own objectives.įirst it's a loose collection of men who yell and shoot at me when I approach them: Kill the men. The campaign will take 20 hours to complete, the world will take hundreds to explore. I feel the need to explain my gunplay to the developer standing by me. I fire my first shot at a wild dog chasing a goat. I explore, tramping through the thick green grass into tropical forests, tracing dirt paths that fade away or turn into makeshift roads. There are no objectives here: No bad guys chasing me, items to fetch, cars to race. But having that moment thrust upon you, especially during a press preview, can be unbalancing. My favorite sorts of games are the ones you can get lost in. The knife throwing, shark jumping, glider bombing of 'Far Cry 3's' open world Here's a very interesting article from The Verge.