One of the very few surprise announcements to come out of the press conferences from E3 this year was Ubisoft’s sneaky announcement of Far Cry 3. Though it’s not playable on the show floor, I did get to have a closer look at the game in a closed-door session.
“Do you know what the definition of insanity is,†asks the mohawked, quite clearly loony murderous psychopath holding you captive. He’s just one of the unsavoury lunatics you’ll encounter on the remote jungle island setting of Far Cry 3. though I, like you, saw the game’s announcement and demo from Ubisoft’s press conference, seeing it up close and personal was infinitely more breath-taking. Like Far Cry 1, it’s set on a lush tropical island – so the crisp blue water and heavily foliaged jungles are, a stark contrast from the African jungles of the polarising second main entry in the series.
The closed-door session gave us the same demo from the reveal – but it was played slightly differently. Instead of the frontal assault taken to get to the escaping helicopter, this demo took a decidedly more stealthy approach – something I’m told is part of the design of the game; it’s designed to encourage and entice exploration in this large, open world shooter. It might be open world like Far Cry 2 – but the developers have admitted that that game had more than a few issues – and they’ll mostly be fixed.
I had a chat with Jason VandenBerghe, the game’s rather characteristic narrative lead about some of the issues I had with Far Cry 2. Look out for that once I’ve had some time to transcribe it. Far Cry 3 will be out next year, on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Last Updated: June 9, 2011
