Speaking to PC Gamer, Hutchinson commented on how reusing assets from previous games might have drawn less ire if studios had only stepped out in front of potential issues, with the Far Cry Primal controversy being a great example. “I kept saying to them, ‘Just announce it, because someone will figure it out. Just say it’s the same place 40,000 years ago. And then it’s cool.’ They didn’t say anything, and then everyone was like, ‘Cheap developers!’, as always.”

However, the practice might just be a viable part of solutions aimed at reducing development times, and can be justified fairly well if a game manages to find creative ways to frame the existence of elements that players find familiar. He pointed to the Yakuza franchise as an example.

“The genius of Yakuza was always for me that you’re revisiting the same place…It’s taking a limitation, almost like the fog in Silent Hill, and making it core to the experience, so you like it, in a weird way.”

Hutchinson also pointed to studios like FromSoftware and Ubisoft, highlighting how asset reuse has always been a part of game development. On the subject of AI’s use in development, he argued that it could be a great tool to generate prototypes and concepts for what a game could be that would then be handed off to developers and engineers as a starting point to work with.

“If we imagine what we would actually have to do to make an Assassin’s Creed, we have to somehow write the prompts to generate two and a half hours of story cinematics, with 22 kilometres of open world.’ Even if it did stuff, it would take years of prompts. Anything of any real complexity, imagining how to describe in words what you wanted would be so hard. At a certain point, you’d be like, ‘We should just get some people to do this.'”

For our part, we don’t mind seeing familiar bits of the game we’ve loved in the sequels as long as the Developers manage to blend enough fresh elements with familiar ones.

Of course, the higher frame rate option will only be available for previous-gen console owners when playing on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. At least, unlike the other two games, it first launched for PS4 and Xbox One, so there’s an argument as to why 60 FPS isn’t possible on them.

For those who never played it, Far Cry Primal is a spin-off that followed Far Cry 4, but unlike Blood Dragon, the world is about the same size. It’s set in 10,000 BC with players controlling Takkar, a member of the Wenja tribe. Crafting is the only way to obtain weapons, and alongside wild animals (which can also be tamed), you have to deal with rival tribes, vying for territory.

All in all, it’s a surprisingly unique departure from the usual Far Cry experience, even if it’s more about survival than blowing things up (check out our review for more). With nearly all titles in the franchise now boasting 60 FPS support, you have to wonder when Ubisoft will finally reveal Far Cry 7, especially with rumors about a 2026/2027 release.

There’s more to come, though. Alongside Far Cry 3, Ubisoft also teased Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Far Cry Primal, receiving 60 FPS updates. The series’ official Twitter account went ahead and confirmed that they’re indeed happening, but it has yet to provide a release date for the latter two games’ patches. Far Cry 4 and Far Cry New Dawn were the last titles to receive a 60 FPS update for current-gen consoles.

Of course, other titles like Tom Clancy’s The Division have also benefited from the same. However, while its sequel is getting new content (not to mention The Division 3 at some unknown point), Far Cry has pretty much remained dormant since 2021’s Far Cry 6.

Rumors have circulated about the next mainline Far Cry, which allegedly offers a non-linear story. It was seemingly set to launch in Fall 2025 but faced delays and is now reportedly targeting 2026/2027. An extraction shooter spin-off is also apparently in the works.

Check out the range of titles coming to both Extra and Premium:

• Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion (PS4)
• Ben 10: Power Trip (PS5, PS4)
• The Escapists 2 (PS4)
• Evil Genius 2: World Domination (PS5, PS4)
• Far Cry 5 (PS4)
• Far Cry New Dawn (PS4)
• Far Cry Primal (PS4)
• Gigantosaurus The Game (PS4)
• Judgment (PS5, PS4)
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (PS4)
• Mortal Shell (PS5, PS4)
• The Pedestrian (PS5, PS4)
• Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition (PS4)
• WWE 2K22 (PS4)
• Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PS4)
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5, PS4)
• Worms W.M.D (PS4)

Some heavy hitters include Judgment and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, playable on PS5 and PS4. Far Cry 5 and New Dawn may also be worth jumping into, while Far Cry Primal offers a prehistoric spin on the series’ open-world gameplay.

Premium subscribers also get new Classic titles this month, including Pinball Heroes and Ridge Racer 2 on the PlayStation Portable. Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus on the PlayStation One and Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword on PS3 are also being added. For more details on the free titles offered with PlayStation Plus Essential, head here.

PlayStation Plus Extra is available for $14.99 monthly and $99.99 yearly. PlayStation Plus Premium costs $17.99 monthly and $119.99 yearly. Stay tuned for more details on future additions to both tiers in the coming weeks.

Red Dead Redemption – Undead Nightmare

One day, honest working man John Marston wakes up and realize his wife and son are zombies. Not only that but the entire world has given in to the undead. There are survivors though and Marston must work with them to fight off the zombies. Keep in mind that the original plot is about atonement and redemption in the Wild West.

Sure, it was Far Cry 3’s open world and gameplay that formed the base for Blood Dragon. However, while that game was marketed on the basis of its charismatic antagonist Vaas, Blood Dragon’s charm seeped through every pore of the game’s style and atmosphere. The gameplay itself was no slouch either, removing many of the limitations of Far Cry titles like fall damage and increasing movement speed. Keep in mind that we haven’t even gotten to the part where you ride an armored Blood Dragon with a laser turret in an all-out assault.

"On November 8th 2018, Kotaku journalist Jason Schreier revealed a rather interesting yet unsurprising fact – single-player DLC doesn’t usually sell very well."

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon wasn’t just a financial success, selling over 1 million copies and becoming the fastest selling downloadable title in Ubisoft’s history. It also stood out as one of the best Far Cry titles ever made, despite essentially reusing an entire map and having a shorter story. We had a feeling at the time that it would influence Ubisoft’s approach to DLC in the future, moving beyond the typical add-ons and expansions, but little did we know by how much.

On November 8^th 2018, Kotaku journalist Jason Schreier revealed a rather interesting yet unsurprising fact – single-player DLC doesn’t usually sell very well. Citing a “fair number of developers over the last few years”, Schreier explained that this was the reason that DLC for games like Dishonored 2 and Uncharted 4 would become standalone games, as seen in Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Uncharted: Lost Legacy respectively. Even Hollow Knight’s upcoming Hornet-focused content was meant to be DLC but eventually expanded into Hollow Knight: Silksong (that’s still being given free to backers of the first game, mind you). So it’s not a scenario that’s isolated to just triple A games. It’s interesting when you think about it in other ways– how many games got ahead of the curb like Grand Theft Auto 5 which focused primarily on delivering GTA Online DLC (especially considering how Grand Theft Auto 4’s Episodes performed in sales)?

It’s a real case-by-case basis though. The Forza series, both Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon, continue to deliver expansion packs in addition to free content. Forza Horizon 4 actually leaned further into the games-as-a-service model, offering substantial content updates since launch along with expansion packs. Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds is another great example – even if DLC sales weren’t through the roof, Sony is able to offset costs thanks to other factors like hardware sales, console licensing fees, PlayStation Plus revenue, digital sales revenue cuts and much more.

Such a trend could also explain why games-as-a-service has taken such prominence in this day and age. Rewarding continued investment, taking advantage of the sunk-cost fallacy, etc are major factors, make no mistake. After all, why release substantial single-player content that would be tougher to produce and doesn’t provide a continuous revenue stream (forget the fact that many players may not even buy it)? You may be thinking of exceptions like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt which have seen strong revenue from their post-launch expansions. Keep that in mind as we delve further.

"Games-as-a-service titles aren’t looking to be “one-and-done” like traditional single-player expansions or DLC. They’re meant to be a recurring factor in your gaming life, squeezing out some additional revenue whenever possible."

Games-as-a-service titles are benefiting more from smaller content releases in between substantially larger content drops. Destiny, Destiny 2, Tom Clancy’s The Division, ideally Anthem and Fallout 76, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Overwatch and so on are prime examples. Path of Exile follows a set schedule of substantial Challenge Leagues while preparing mega-expansions for release every few years. Warframe’s approach last year saw a big expansion arrive with Fortuna and various smaller content drops since then like newer story episodes, Nightwave and so on. Even Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, which functions off of a subscription-based model, delivers a major paid expansion every two years. The one thing they all have in common is that they’re multiplayer/social-focused titles and not purely single-player offerings.

Perhaps the one major advantage that games-as-a-service titles have is that they account for players eventually leaving. Keeping them hooked is important, for sure, but the amount of competition in today’s market actually helps players “decompress” from the grinds of of games-as-a-service titles. By the time they return, there are new offerings and hooks to keep them engaged (and possibly spending some money). After all, it’s not like you hate the gameplay of Destiny 2 or Anthem so why not return when some new updates go live? Why not drop some money on Forsaken and the Annual Pass or on Anthem’s cosmetics?

Games-as-a-service titles aren’t looking to be “one-and-done” like traditional single-player expansions or DLC. They’re meant to be a recurring factor in your gaming life, squeezing out some additional revenue whenever possible.

Which makes Ubisoft’s approach to DLC over the past few years so interesting to observe.

"Of course, we all know what happened in 2014. Despite being fairly successful, Watch Dogs faced a firestorm of controversy over its graphical downgrades, bugs and much more."

Let’s go back to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. A phenomenal standalone game in its own right but for all intents and purposes, it was DLC. It probably would have been successful as a smaller-scale DLC pack for Far Cry 3 but Ubisoft took a risk, pricing it at $20 and making it a digital-only title.

Things weren’t going too badly for Ubisoft before this. Assassin’s Creed was already a successful yearly sequel franchise – in fact, the publisher was experimenting with releasing a “full-fledged” Assassin’s Creed title and a side game at the time. This would be seen with Assassin’s Creed 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation in 2013, and later repeated with Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Rogue in 2014. Yes, they were all on different platforms but the fact that they’ve arrived for current gen consoles since then makes Ubisoft’s goal of building a long-term catalog all the more obvious now.

Pre-Blood Dragon, titles were still very much in the traditional DLC cycle. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier received three DLC packs; Trials Evolution only received one DLC pack; and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag received a single-player expansion in Freedom Cry (which would release as a standalone title in February 2014, not-so-coincidentally after the success of Blood Dragon). Despite releasing post-Blood Dragon, Splinter Cell: Blacklist also falls in the same category with its Homeland Pack which only added two new maps, some weapons, and new skins for $6.99. The game released only a few months after Blood Dragon so it makes sense that it would stick to a more old-school DLC model.

Of course, we all know what happened in 2014. Despite being fairly successful, Watch Dogs faced a firestorm of controversy over its graphical downgrades, bugs and much more. It still had Ubisoft’s patented Season Pass with DLC packs but that was pretty overshadowed by all the controversy. Such was the blow-back that it even affected launch week sales of Watch Dogs 2.

"2015 would see Ubisoft truly begin diversifying its DLC portfolio. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege launched and despite receiving heaps of criticism from the outset, it laid the foundation for eventual Yearly Passes."

A similar trend was observed with Assassin’s Creed Unity – it launched in a broken state, had a Season Pass with a main story expansion (Dead Kings), some additional single-player/ content (The Secrets of the Revolution Pack) and two packs with new gear, weapons and outfits (Underground Armory Pack being free and Revolutionary Armaments Pack being paid). Once again, the controversy over Unity’s launch would bleed over into launch week sales for Syndicate besides a general exhaustion with Assassin’s Creed as a franchise.

Granted, Far Cry 4 was better received but the fatigue with Ubisoft’s open world approach was becoming obvious. Far Cry 4 featured a bit more experimentation with its single-player content. Instead of only offering new missions and PvP maps, we also got Escape from Durgesh Prison, a 30 minute race to escape. Completing quests added more time and upgrades while permadeath forced you to restart from the beginning (albeit with any upgrades intact). Valley of the Yetis featured a more robust story component but also introduced base-building and upgrading (which would return as a core mechanic in Far Cry New Dawn). Then you had the standard Hurk Deluxe Pack which added new missions and weapons.

2015 would see Ubisoft truly begin diversifying its DLC portfolio. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege launched and despite receiving heaps of criticism from the outset, it laid the foundation for eventual Yearly Passes. In 2016, Far Cry Primal arrived and served as a standalone title that utilized Far Cry 4’s map. It presented a completely new narrative and mixed up the gameplay significantly by focusing on hunting, older weapons like spears, and warring with other factions. By March 2016, Ubisoft made a major foray into games-as-a-service with Tom Clancy’s The Division.

Though the plan was to initially have three expansion packs and a Season Pass, each expansion was its own self-contained experience. The only real benefit of completing them was for gear that could be carried over into the main game. In terms of narrative and world-building, they had no effect on the base game, not counting minor changes to some existing areas or being able to earn caches containing loot for use in almost all activities.

"Far Cry 5’s approach was a mix of free content updates and an expansion pass that contained three standalone experiences. This could be looked at as trying to create three potential Blood Dragon-like games for the price of one Season Pass."

Underground was a randomly generated set of dungeons; Survival was a battle royale-esque fight for extraction; and Last Stand introduced the game’s first dedicated PvP mode. The main plot-line wasn’t advanced in any significant way but it also meant you didn’t have to own any of the DLC. This became more apparent with Ubisoft’s Year 2 plan which introduced Global Events, Resistance and Skirmish with a brand new area, completely free for all players. Cosmetic-only loot boxes would be subsequently introduced but due to easily earning key fragments and the abundance of outfits as is, most players didn’t take issue with this.

As Rainbow Six: Siege received major improvements to its core gameplay and structure, it introduced its Year 1 Pass. This essentially provided 7 days early access to the new Operators, a Renown boost, Credits for spending in the shop and five daily challenges to earn even more Renown. It wasn’t so much pay-to-win as “pay to get an advance start”. After all, everyone got the new maps for free at roughly the same time. If you were super competitive and wanted to know how the new Operators interacted with these maps, then the pass was for you. Ditto for if you wanted more cosmetics because you were that dedicated to the game,.

Far Cry 5’s approach was a mix of free content updates and an expansion pass that contained three standalone experiences. This could be looked at as trying to create three potential Blood Dragon-like games for the price of one Season Pass. It actually harks back to that Ubisoft survey in 2015 which asked players what they would like to see. A “futuristic, sci-fi setting on another planet” is most likely a reference to Far Cry 5’s Lost on Mars while Hours of Darkness is set during the Vietnam war and Dead Living Zombies takes place during an undead outbreak.

Of course, we recently got Far Cry New Dawn, a standalone title that was actually set several years after the events of Far Cry 5. Though reusing the same map, it had enough new mechanics (including more base-building and outpost attacking) along with a new story to warrant its reduced price point.

"Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took things even further with monthly updates that introduced modes like New Game Plus, free story quests in The Lost Tales of Greece, new cosmetics and gear, level scaling options and so on. That’s in addition to a gargantuan amount of base content."

Cut back to Ghost Recon: Wildlands in 2017 which, again, featured two expansion packs – Narco Road and Fallen Ghosts. Both offered self-contained experiences – you couldn’t transfer equipment and progress to the base game. Meanwhile, the base game would see updates like Special Events, free quests and the addition of Tier 1 Mode for end-game players. For the game’s second year, Ubisoft introduced the Year 2 Pass. This provided cosmetics and early access to new classes in the new Ghost War PvP mode (which was added for free and received additional maps afterwards). It also ensured players had early access to the new Special Operations – special story missions that would crossover into other Ubisoft franchises. The introduction of various tiers of loot boxes also came with the new content updates which were free for everyone.

Remember The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its expansions? It seems Ubisoft has found an interesting plan to pursue games-as-a-service in the single-player, open world action RPG space as well. Assassin’s Creed Origins featured an in-game cash shop and added free content over time including Explorer Mode, an editor for PC players to mess about with any setting and Super Bosses to battle for rare loot. It also brought in two expansion packs with new regions and substantial story content.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took things even further with monthly updates that introduced modes like New Game Plus, free story quests in The Lost Tales of Greece, new cosmetics and gear, level scaling options and so on. That’s in addition to a gargantuan amount of base content. Even the expansions took a more episodic approach – Legacy of the First Blade was divided into three, easily consumable episodes that introduced new weapons and abilities. As a whole, you could comfortably complete these and then either try out other new features or simply return to the game next month. Once again, you don’t need these expansions to get the most out of Odyssey – the base game already delivers dozens, if not hundreds of hours of content.

It’s an intriguing model, one that combines the games-as-a-service model with single-player expansions but without spending too many resources on brand new regions, dozens of new enemy types, tons of new loot, etc. Through a combination of new gameplay systems like Mastery Progression, balance tweaks, level cap increases and reasons to replay the entire game, Ubisoft is ensuring that fans returning to Odyssey have reason to stay.

"The company has talked about developing games that stick around for several years, seeing substantial updates and growing ever larger as a result (as opposed to a simple yearly sequel strategy)."

Now we have The Division 2 launching with tons of content, ensuring plenty of story and lore for those in it for the long haul along with plenty of end-game opportunities for those seeking the best loot. More content is on the way including World Tier 5, the first raid, the likely introduction of Gear Sets and Episodes containing new story missions, areas and much more. Ubisoft Massive has also promised multiple raids throughout the first year of the game, all free. Of course, there are loot boxes and Year 1 Pass if you want 7 days early access and some goodies but once again, it’s not necessary to avail of the free content.

So to summarize, this is Ubisoft’s current slate of DLC strategies:

• Standalone expansions that reuse a previous game’s assets like map design with new stories, some new mechanics and new characters. Example: Far Cry New Dawn.
• Expansions that don’t much alter the base game (sometimes at all) while also providing dramatically different standalone experiences. Examples: Ghost Recon Wildlands’ Narco Road and Fallen Ghosts, The Division’s Survival and Underground, Far Cry 5’s Season Pass DLC.
• Free content updates and features which often come with updates to the in-game cash shop. Examples: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, The Division 2.
• Yearly Passes which provide exclusive cosmetics, boosters and early access to new content. Examples: Ghost Recon Wildlands Year 2, Rainbow Six: Siege, The Division 2, For Honor.
• Single-player expansions but broken up into episodes and spread several weeks apart. These introduce new mechanics, weapons and abilities while also remaining baked into the main game. Perhaps the closest to “traditional” single-player DLC. Example: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

In this day and age of free to play titles, games-as-a-service titles, triple A releases, multiplayer-centric games and “grind” games, it’s easy to dismiss single-player expansions as being outdated. However, companies like Ubisoft are finding new ways to integrate them into their very large base experiences. The company has talked about developing games that stick around for several years, seeing substantial updates and growing ever larger as a result (as opposed to a simple yearly sequel strategy). This doesn’t mean you won’t see a trend like, say, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey releasing a year after Origins but it does mean that the former will have a much longer shelf-life as a result.

Intrinsically, this creates more potential revenue streams for the company to pursue without having to commit too many resources. On the surface, it heightens the profile of Ubisoft as a company that cares about its games, even if they suffer from a few glitches at launch. But at the end of the day, the plan was to always support some titles in the long-term, even if the method of doing so (see “Operation Health” for Rainbow Six Siege and update 1.3 for The Division) was based off of community feedback and requests.

"All of this is a big step up from the Ubisoft of old, which released technically troubled games to the ire of fans and critics everywhere."

Credit must be given to Ubisoft for improving the overall quality control of its titles at launch as well. However, it’s pretty crazy to see the company branch out into so many different DLC opportunities. It has Yearly Passes for early access to new content, free quests, story expansions, story expansions that serve as standalone games, new areas, new modes, new features, new Operators, the list goes on. And with the company lending its support to Google Stadia, a game streaming platform which promises to eliminate large downloads for the latest updates (among many other things), Ubisoft could be envisioning a future where it can have major triple-A releases on every platform that are supported for years at a time that exist at their own standalone franchises. These would have robust cash shops for those who want to attach additional support to the brand.

All of this is a big step up from the Ubisoft of old, which released technically troubled games to the ire of fans and critics everywhere. While one could criticize this approach as effectively homogenizing several of the company’s properties, stripping away the identity of Assassin’s Creed and Ghost Recon in favour of more generic sandboxes that tick all the open world requirements, Ubisoft has shown an ability to quickly iterate on things that aren’t working. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate released in 2015, for instance, and just two years later, the company reinvented the franchise into an open world action RPG with a heavier emphasis on exploration and choice-driven quests. Keep in mind that this is after Syndicate was well received by critics and eventually saw first-week sales pick up.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took the same tenets of Origins but leaned much harder into the action RPG looter approach that defines games like Path of Exile and Warframe while being easier for the vast majority to get into. For a crowd craving more story-based open world RPGs like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Horizon: Zero Dawn, it implemented more choice-based gameplay, dialogue systems and multi-part quests.

No Ubisoft game is without criticism though. Ghost Recon Wildlands’ cosmetic loot boxes and lack of PvE content, complaints of excessive grinding in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (which would be further exacerbated by the existence of XP boosters), PvP balance concerns in The Division 2, whatever happens to ail Rainbow Six Siege in any given month – the list goes on.

"However you may look at it, this is a intriguing time for Ubisoft. What will the company introduce next and how long will it leverage current models of content delivery?"

Imagine the support structure and community teams required to constantly address PvE vs. PvP balance and loot droprates in The Division 2 or balance concerns and story direction choices in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Compared to the days of haphazard development on Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, it’s almost miraculous that Ubisoft is delivering post-launch content and new games at such a fast pace while also trying new things like Starlink: Battle for Atlas, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and the upcoming Skull and Bones.

Ubisoft has also shown an apt hand at staying ahead of the monetization curb while still appealing to and retaining the vast majority of consumers. There’s probably something to be said about the company leaning much more into open world titles with boat-loads of content. Does all that content make for a better experience on a narrative and gameplay level or is it simply there to ensure all kinds of players have something to do? Is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey a better game because it caters to story-hungry fans while also having random contracts, gear grinding, best-in-slot optimization, fetch quests, large Conquest battles and so on? For that matter, is The Division 2 served better as a looter shooter by including so many random activities to complete along with social activities instead of a more narrative-focused, single-player campaign with optional co-op? Perhaps a discussion for another day.

However you may look at it, this is a intriguing time for Ubisoft. What will the company introduce next and how long will it leverage current models of content delivery? What does the future hold especially as conversations about crunch culture and the like keep happening? How will Ubisoft leverage deals with storefronts like the Epic Games Store and strengthen its own brand at the same time? Time will tell but if you have even a passing interest in the majority of Ubisoft’s offerings, chances are you’ll be in it for the long haul. And in age where the usual expansions don’t quite cut it in terms of revenue, what more could a major triple A publisher want?

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Infinity War

The Far Cry universe just can’t get rid of Hurk, regardless of pirates, violent kings and a nuclear apocalypse. He appears in Far Cry New Dawn, having fathered a son, but you can still take him on as a Gun for Hire. Of course, despite taking place several years into the future, Hurk still references current pop culture. On being downed in a firefight, Hurk will say, “Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good” and “I don’t wanna go!” echoing Peter Parker’s memorable dialogue from Avengers: Infinity War.

Hunt: Showdown

While more co-op shooter than solo hunting title, Hunt: Showdown is still very much concerned with sniffing out your prey and exterminating them. The horror atmosphere really starts to seep in as you search for clues and eventually come face to face with your target. The twist that Hunt: Showdown presents is that upon killing a nightmarish boss, you become a target to all other players on the map until escaping. This makes every match unique in its own right as it shifts from a PvE to PvP hunt.

Far Cry 4 – Ubisoft Montreal

Why not start with a particular screenshot, featuring co-op gameplay with players in buzzers, that was the focus of a Kotaku article about a professional bullshotter? This Far Cry 4 shot had soft edges on the bullet casings and muzzle flash on guns, an effect which extended to the buzzer’s rotors. That’s only the tip of the iceberg for Ubisoft though so don’t worry.

Given that so many games these days have vast open worlds, one could almost argue that open worlds as a mode of game design have become trivialized, and they aren’t as awe inspiring as they used to be. When so many games on the market present the player with a vast map full of objectives, and complete freedom to tackle them in any order, the player begins to lose appreciation for what made open world games so special in the first place.

But that would be a mistake- not only because some of the best games this generation have been open world (and some of the best upcoming ones are all open world, too), but also because open world games are, from a development perspective, massive, mammoth undertakings that are truly a feat of software engineering and programming. The fact that they’ve become so commonplace and trivialized is a testament to how streamlined development pipelines and processes have become over time- because believe us when we say this, these games are not easy to build.

RESEARCH AND FIELDWORK

The most important thing for an open world is believability and immersion- the reason these games work so well is because they sell the idea of this vast, open, massive world existing independently of the player and their involvement with the game- they give the impression that the world exists persistently, that it’s not just a video game sandbox that was built to accommodate the player.

So it wouldn’t do to have the world not be authentic enough- that would completely break the immersion, and take players out of the game. This is why one of the most important steps in crafting an open world happens before a single line of code has even been written- it’s when the developers, having decided on the setting for their game, conduct fieldwork and research to ensure that they can recreate that setting authentically and accurately in their game.

Most modern open world games undergo this process- for inFamous: Second Son, for instance, the team at Sucker Punch decided to set the game in their native Seattle, and specifically went out and conducted research and fieldwork in the city and its surrounding forested areas with audio and video equipment, to recreate all the landmarks of the city, as well as its various sounds – such as the chatter and chirps of the local species of animals and birds – authentically. Similarly, the developers of Mafia 3 are using old photographs of New Orleans as it was in the 1960s to recreate the world. For Just Cause 3, Avalanche collected photographs of Mediterranean islands, and also sent a team out on site to get a better understanding of the area. For Watch Dogs, Ubisoft recorded the sounds of the crowds in Chicago to replicate the accent unique to the city in the game.

Of course, concessions are always made to game design, even when the aim is to recreate a setting accurately- a full 1:1 recreation would probably make for a very boring world from a playability perspective. Which is why, for instance, for Mafia 3, the developers, while trying to stay true to the setting, made changes to the game’s world to suit the game’s story and flow; The Division excises entire parts of New York to better manage progression; for inFamous: Second Son, Seattle was chosen as a setting to begin with because the city’s unique weather, and its blend of various architecture styles, were considered to contribute to playability.

"Concessions are always made to game design, even when the aim is to recreate a setting accurately- a full 1:1 recreation would probably make for a very boring world from a playability perspective."

Interestingly enough, this kind of research also takes place when the setting for your game is fictitious, or mostly fictitious anyway. For Far Cry Primal, for example, Ubisoft specifically had an entire new fictitious created based on the projected reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language, allegedly the common ancestor to most modern languages- again, this was done in the interest of selling a believable and authentic setting, even though, if you think about it, this is not the kind of thing most players notice. But Ubisoft were committed to an authentic setting- so they went the whole nine yards.

DEVELOPMENT AND COORDINATION

One of the most arduous parts of developing an open world is the actual coding for it- there are so many variables and so many moving parts, and developers have to keep track of all of them, coding them all judiciously and properly, while making sure what they are doing also doesn’t break something that someone else is doing. And that part can be really difficult, because simply by virtue of just how big these games are, they can have development teams of thousands of people, all working together on smaller, compartmentalized parts of the larger sandbox, that are only put together near the end- this modular approach to development requires coordination on a gigantic scale.

This approach also defines how the actual coding and programming process takes place. While the final game (for any open world game) is all set in one engine, and runs off of one codebase, during development, coding and programming are broken down into smaller ‘slices,’ each dedicated to different aspects of game development- so for the typical open world game, you’ll have a slice for the development of assets and models, another that handles animations, another for physics, another for AI, another for vestigial systems like weather and destructibility, one for cutscenes and CG rendering, one for handling netcode and multiplayer interactions, one for sound processing, a larger slice handling narrative progression and branches, plus the development (or, if one already exists, then at the very least, updating it as per the new game’s requirements) of the actual game engine, which is the dish that holds all the other slices together. All of this, plus naturally, the different development teams that are handling these different widgets, or slices of the larger pie.

All of these different development teams, and different bits of code, usually have two levels of oversight- there are systems like PreForce or AlienBrain, which are essentially giant data repositories that contain entire backups and builds of the game while it is under development (meaning that a) in the worst case, there is always a backup, and a build to roll back to, and b) at least one data bank exists where all the moving pieces are in one place, even if they have not yet necessarily been put together), as well as something like Agile SCRUM, which is a framework using trickle down management styles that is used to handle large scale projects, ensuring that development milestones are met and that the different teams are on track, and in keeping with the larger vision for the game, making management of all these moving parts a bit easier.

Apart from having software and machines doing the job, there are also, naturally, multiple human managers and overseers, who are there to enforce deadlines, hand out extensions as necessary, decide what makes the cut, and what gets excised from the final game, allocate and reallocate resources, and more.

ENGINE

"The coding of the engine itself (as well as of all the slices and widgets of the game that it encapsulates) is informed by the overall vision or direction for the game."

But all of this possibly takes a back seat to the Herculean task that is the actual coding of the game. As mentioned before, that comes down largely to the game’s engine, and to the various ‘slices’ of game development that were enumerated. The game engine is responsible for the general features that are hallmarks of all open world games – a basic physics engine, a weather system, day and night cycles, and any other parameters that are necessary to add to the world’s authenticity. But the coding of the engine itself (as well as of all the slices and widgets of the game that it encapsulates) is informed by the overall vision or direction for the game.

For instance, take The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt RED wanted to make the game a uniquely narrative focused open world game, so they specifically created an all new engine, the REDEngine 3, to help reconcile the other self contradictory goals of a multi tiered, multi branched, complex story with vast open non linear environments. On the other hand, for something like Fallout 4, Bethesda want to emphasize the interactivity with the game world, from the physics engine to the crafting- so they use the Creation Engine that was also used in Skyrim, but update it for a better character creator, sophisticated visual effects (such as dynamic lighting and temporal anti-aliasing). Rockstar used the RAGE engine for Grand Theft Auto V, updating it for the on the fly character switching, as well as for larger draw distances to accommodate the game’s larger world.

This brings us to the next major consideration with game engines for open world design- since open world games are so vast, and so time and resource intensive, the old development practice of creating an all new proprietary game engine for each game that a developer develops is simply economically unviable and unfeasible- companies usually have to decide to share development pipelines or reuse codebases. Even when companies create an all new engine for an open world game – such as CD Projekt RED with The Witcher 3, Konami with Metal Gear Solid 5, and Nintendo with The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild – the engine itself is almost always created with the intent that it and its underlying codebase will be used for future games, streamlining costs and resources then.

Other times, companies simply reuse existing codebases and engines, overhauling and tweaking them as necessary for each game’s requirement. Ubisoft, for instance, are known for having a unified and consolidated development pipeline that all of their games use – one reason that they can pump out such massive open worlds so quickly – which they then modify for each individual game’s requirements and necessities. Bethesda have used, in some form or the other, the Gamebryo engine ever since the release of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in 2002, which was almost a decade and a half ago. Most of the times, reusing existing development pipelines and engines, and bolting on new parts (while refurbishing existing ones) as necessary is a far more effective and efficient strategy than spending a lot of time, money, and development personnel on creating a new engine repeatedly.

The game engine is also responsible for loading and streaming of data for the game world- put simply, since an open world is one massive level, and since having separate loading screens for it would break the immersion and seamlessness, an engine must specifically be programmed to load data seamlessly, and on the fly. Developers can utilize multiple techniques to ensure that no loading screens break the flow of an open world – the entire world can be loaded beforehand, before the game even begins (this is similar to the technique that CD Projekt RED use for The Witcher 3, and also the reason that it has such long loading times); alternatively, a central ‘hub’ could be loaded, with other areas of the map being loaded on an as needed basis. Put simply, this would mean that a central portion of the world is loaded, and the player’s character’s movement on the world is constantly monitored via coordinates. As the player begins to reach the edge of the hub, relevant portions of the map or the hub are loaded (while the previously loaded portions of the map may be removed from memory, to be loaded again when needed)- this is similar to the kind of system that Rockstar use for Grand Theft Auto. Finally, a variation of the hub loading technique is the one used by Bethesda, where the map is sectioned off into a central hub and its offshoots, the offshoots being the dungeons and buildings. In this case, the map is loaded into the memory beforehand, with the dungeons or buildings being loaded only when the player enters them (which is why a loading screen appears when you enter or exit a building in The Elder Scrolls and Fallout).

AI AND NPCs

"As long as the game world is populated by characters who look and seem real and persistent to the player, instead of just a prop placed there to add to the sense of realism, then the illusion of the world being real is enhanced."

The unsung hero of open world game immersion, though, is the humble NPC- as long as the game world is populated by characters who look and seem real and persistent to the player, instead of just a prop placed there to add to the sense of realism, then the illusion of the world being real is enhanced. And the extent to which companies go to to create convincing NPCs sometimes goes seriously under-appreciated.

For instance, it was already brought up earlier how Ubisoft went to Chicago to record random sound bytes of people on the streets talking- just so the Chicago accent would be replicated accurately and authentically in the game. Or how they created an entire new language just to add to the sense of authenticity and genuineness of their tribal, prehistoric world which, I need to remind you, by virtue of being prehistoric, is enough of an unknown that literally almost no one would have known the difference, or been able to call Ubisoft for being wrong, had they just winged it.

Then there are other such instances- Bethesda, for example, created the Radiant A.I. system for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, to allow the behavior of NPCs to be dynamic and unscripted- general goals would be given to each NPC, which they would always follow, but how they followed them would be left to them, adding an element of emergent gameplay even to entirely programmed interactions. Or there was the other extreme, such as when Nintendo programmed the entire schedule for every single NPC in the The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, that they would follow without fail, giving the illusion of people with specific goals to achieve that they would attempt to, with or without the player’s involvement with the world.

ODDS AND ENDS

After everything is done, the mammoth task is still not finished- then come the hard parts, such as QA, which involves scanning the thousands upon thousands of lines of computer code to find whether there is anything that isn’t behaving the way it is supposed to- and the process gets even harder the more systems the game is releasing on, and the more languages it will be released in. There is the marketing campaign, which for a game this size has to be almost as big, a coordinated effort that comprises, usually, of a media blitz, social media engagement, nationwide tours, contests and tie-in promotions, pre-order campaigns, and more.

All of this, and we still haven’t gotten to the DLC yet- because of course there is DLC, and development on that has to begin soon, too. There will also be patches and updates for the game, some released on the developers’ own schedule, some released in response to complaints about some bug or glitch that somehow escaped QA and made it into the final code.

Development of open world games, in short, is a major, massive, mammoth undertaking, almost inhumanly massive in its scope and ambition. Honestly, the fact that open world games manage to release and run at all seems like a marvel once you know how they are made- it’s almost enough to make you want to be a bit more tolerant of glitches and errors that crop up in these games (not that you should be, though!). In the end, however, these titanic projects have netted us some of the most influential and memorable games, not just in this generation, but in every generation of gaming there has been so far- so we’re going to continue celebrating non linear, open world game design, and we will continue to hope for the best from, and look forward to, the plethora of open world games that are on the horizon.