Far Cry 3: How to merge the best of both worlds

Far Cry is one of the most celebrated FPS games ever made. Far Cry 2 isn’t quite as revered, but there was still a lot of good in there. With a third Far Cry game getting a recent E3 announcement, we can only wonder what kind of direction Ubisoft will take with the game.

E3 2011 demonstration of Far Cry 3

If Ubi want FC3 to come out on top, they’ll need to make sure it takes the best of both worlds from its pedigree. Here’s a number of ways in which it can do this.

More structure

And this is only half of it. Far Cry 2 had a big old map, maybe too big even

One element of the original Far Cry that is often praised is its open-ended maps. Far Cry 2 took this aspect further and, arguably, went a little too far with it. Far Cry 2 emphasised its open world elements so much that it often wound up loosing the rigid structure that shooters often need to stay focused. It was nice being able to nip off and do side missions here and there in FC2, but the map was so damn big that you were driving for upwards of fifteen minutes between these missions. A more centred map design will give Far Cry 3 a real edge and, with its tropical island setting bearing a lot of resemblance to the locales of Far Cry 1, it seems like this is going to be the case.

A more engaging narrative

Far Cry 2 never had the most meaningful of narratives

It really did try its best, but the narrative in Far Cry 2 just didn’t quite cut the mustard. There was still some good in there in the form of the companions who you often had to bail out of trouble. This added some decent side missions to the game that Far Cry 3 could benefit from. The overall plot of FC2 was a bit lacklustre however. It wasn’t awful, but it was a far cry (no pun intended) from the engaging twists and turns of the original game. We can only hope that Far Cry 3 will adopt plot elements from the former and not the latter. Let’s also hope it doesn’t revolve around gimmicky feral powers like the mediocre Far Cry Instincts series.