I hear you. I'm really trying to like FC2 but the respawning guard posts and the fact that a stealthy approach is useless make me hate the game.

Teacher: pupil XY...Why do you like this story?
Pupil: XY: I like the story because of the content and the hooker(s).....

This game is gonna be awesome, will blow Crysis out of water!

5 minute gameplay footage (HD)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTXv4SbEZ4[/youtube]

If you can't see the video, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTXv4SbEZ4

Interview with Game Director Patrick Methe:

GR-UK got to ask game director Patrick Methe a few questions about the upcoming Far Cry 3 in an interview.

While that latest trailer is still sizzling our senses, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions: Gamereactor's Kristian fired a barrage of questions to game director Patrik Methe to unearth some solid facts about Far Cry 3.

Can you point out some examples on things you weren't satisfied with from Far Cry 2, and how you'll improve those aspects in Far Cry 3?

Far Cry 2 was a great game, and we tried to keep all the best elements of it while improving on a few key areas. We focused on improving the mission variety, the impact of the player's action on the world, the different types of enemy units you'll be facing, and the variety of things you can do in the open world.

For mission variety, we go from all-out action missions to more tactical missions where you need to protect someone or accomplish a specific task. We even have out-of-this-world exotic missions that will totally surprise you. For the enemy units, you'll be facing a large variety of enemies, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In order to be successful, you'll have to adapt your approach and choice of tactics based on the enemies you're facing.


How will you mix open world gameplay with a more linear mission-based experience?

One word: value. Exploring the island is fun in itself but we made sure that each thing you do or discover while roaming in the open world brings real value to the player.
When we talk about value, we talk about making the player stronger, faster and more efficient. As Jason spends more time on the island, he learns how to survive and adapt to the environment. New skills are learned to help him fight his way through captors and rescue his friends. The player is free to stick solely to the single player campaign if they want to and they'll have a fantastic adventure.
However, they'll most likely enjoy roaming around on the island to discover ancient mysteries, to face deadly situations, to help natives in trouble, to hunt a wide array of animals, and to gather exotic plants because each and every one of these actions will reward him in one way or another.

In a shooter like this, AI is crucial. Will the AI show us something we've never seen before - something new?

One of the things that set the Far Cry franchise apart from other shooters on the market is that we're an open-world game. From the very beginning of the project, one of the key elements for the team was to come up with a AAA shooter experience set in an island begging to be explored.

This means our goal is to create AI as polished as the ones you see in popular linear shooters while ensuring that the enemies can tackle all the different situations you encounter in an open-world game, and this, in a systemic way.
The AI isn't scripted and thus it will react and adapt tactics based on the knowledge it has in a given situation. They can use vehicles, react to diversion, trigger alarms, disarm bombs you placed, search for you, protect an area, retreat to defensive positions, fight against other NPCs, fight against aggressive animals, etc.


Will there be a hardcore-mode - were you only have one life and the save game file is erased if you die?

Are you talking about the Insane mode?

What kind of weapons and vehicles will be in the game, and will there be customizable weapons like in Crysis? Silencer on, silencer off, silencer on, silencer off...

We have a strong suite of weapons, each of them customizable with different attachments. One of our key focuses is to make sure that each weapon has its own advantages and disadvantages so that you play with your full arsenal. Also, we want the player to use different weapons for different situations. There are even some "exotic" weapons that will be a blast for the player as they allow you to do some nasty things to your opponents. I can't tell much more but stay tuned...

At this point, what is the one thing about Far Cry 3 you're most satisfied with?

To be honest, there's not one specific thing I'm most satisfied with. The real satisfaction comes from seeing this enormous amount of features coming together to build a never-before-seen experience. A gorgeous island with multiple environments, a deep and rich campaign, an insane cast of characters, the freedom to roam in the open world to discover dozens of things to do, vehicles to drive, animals to hunt, treasures to find, the satisfaction of becoming stronger, faster and deadlier as you progress in the game, all of this with the AAA shooter feeling you normally only see in linear shooters. That's a huge undertaking and that's what FC3 is all about.

At Ubisoft Montreal, we chat with ‘Far Cry 3′ Producer Dan Hay about the game’s design, quests, weapons, and improvements over its predecessors.


A few weeks ago, Game Rant visited Ubisoft Montreal to preview the single-player offerings of Far Cry 3. At the event we had the opportunity to interview some of the creative leads behind the game’s development, including Producer Dan Hay.

In our chat, we discuss what Far Cry 3 draws from its predecessors, what genre the game falls under, some of the game’s weapon and progression mechanics and the experience of losing one’s mind when put in a fight-to-survive situation.


How would you describe the genre Far Cry 3 falls in?

At first, I thought open-world shooter, but now I’m learning that’s it’s an open-world shooter RPG.


“It’s tough to describe it. Like, we’re absolutely a shooter first. We know that. But yeah, we want a little bit of action-adventure in there, and by a little bit, I mean a lot. It’ll be interesting to see how you guys qualify us. We’re looking for that moment of discovery, so for me, shooter with action-adventure, a little bit of RPG, sure. We’ll take ‘em all.”

What does Far Cry 3 draw from its predecessors?


“When you get to Far Cry 2 it’s a completely different experience. It’s a lawless frontier, there are no rules, it’s this huge open world, it’s got really cool stuff like procedural fire, it’s got some really cool weapons, it’s a completely different experience. We come to Far Cry 3 and you say okay, there’s a ton of stuff you can mine from both of those experiences. One’s got a lot of systemic stuff to it that we want to grab, the other’s got an emotional feel to it that we want to grab, and then we want to take it in a very, very surprising direction.

And for us, when we start talking about insanity and we start talking about the characters we wanted to see if we can get a “turn” in the player, so we talk about the turn a lot. When you’re out in the jungle or you’re alone, you’re scared, there’s a moment when you kind of turn, you go into a defensive mode, right – somebody pushes you too far and you get pissed off, there’s a bully at school and they push you too far and you get pissed off – you actually watch people unleash what’s inside. That was the emotional thing we wanted and when we first saw it, it was with Vaas.”

Creating the character of Vaas, they thought they had the script ready and had Michael Mando reading for the part but they couldn’t get it at first. In the motion capture recording area, they told him they had cameras off, that they wanted the guy that if there were no rules, and they crashed, they had a terrible experience, who would that person be? Meanwhile, the cameras were rolling the entire time.

They had Mando read the lines, and simply said no, that’s not that it, each time. They kept making him do it over and over, and they made him get tired, then he snapped and they had to calm him down – that’s the character they want. And Vaas was born.

Jason Brody, the game’s protagonist who must save his friends and survive the island may just be another case study of insanity, an origin tale of sorts.

How does that, Brody’s journey and transformation, play into the RPG elements and progression system of Far Cry 3?


“Did you guys notice the tattoo on [Jason's] arm? That story is going to be told in that tattoo. The island takes its pound of flesh. The mark of the island is left on you and the longer that you play the game, the more you live on this island, just like if you or I were to go over there, the more it kind of sticks with you. The question is going to be is if Jason saves his friends, are they going to recognize him by the time he does it? We wanted to play with that.”

We saw a hint of that with experience points earned during the demo.


“I can’t give you too much but take a hard look at that tattoo. Take a hard look at it because what we wanted to do, we wanted it to feel like there are things that you earn. You go through this experience and it’s written on you.”

As a shooter first and foremost, what can we expect from the weapons of Far Cry 3?


“We go back to Far Cry 2 with fire, so with Medusa [boat mission] I played as a sniper, and what I like to do is actually light fires and almost heard the AI. Far Cry 2 was great for that… I won’t give away too many weapons, but what I can say is in Far Cry we know that we had rough human weapons, it as a black market feel and we took that even further.”

Any weapons that jam?


“No [laughs]. No, no, no, we looked at Far Cry 2 and there were definitely some things that… I played the hell out of that game, but there were some things we got good feedback on, right. It’s like, guys, are you going to have Malaria? No. And the other thing to is that when you build an open world, we want to make sure for Far Cry 3 that we offer you fast travel. The idea is that you’re able to get into the action [snapping fingers]. We have a checkpoint system that makes sure that when you clear an area out, you save that experience and you go back, and that experience is there and the AI hasn’t respawned. There were little tweaks that we could do that would take Far Cry 3 to where the players, they don’t see those things, they’re just in the moment.”

Interview with Producer Dan Hay (continued)

Can you customize or upgrade weapons?


“I’m not allowed to talk about that too much, but the short answer is there are going to be some things that you can tweak on your weapons… Mark [Thompson - Level Design Director] is not going to make a game where you can’t play with the weapons a little… I’m a sniper guy, I know what I’d want.”

What can fans expect from Far Cry 3′s graphical enhancements?


“We got a really great Art Director who looks back at Far Cry 1 and wants the credibility of that experience – That’s where that comes from. And the thing he keeps talking about, he says ‘Guys, I can’t smell it. You need to use all of your senses here. When I go through a waterfall, I want to feel the water splash on me. I want to feel the sun’s glow behind the plant. I want to be able to see incredible draw distances and I want this feeling that it’s a lush, vibrant place. I want points of interest that absolutely, unequivocally call to me, but it’s almost like I can’t pass that lighthouse without being able to go in.’

And you see the fidelity in the plants, in the water, in the mountains, in the mist, in the draw distances, and then you see the fidelity in the characters. It’s just a ton of energy to try and do that. And then there are the memorable moments: using the water, using the environment. If they’re the type of player who wants to use the environment, we want them to swim down in the water and come up and take someone out, that you’re still wet when you come out, that you’re hearing the sloshing. Audio is a big thing for us too. It’s every single sense that we can master, we try and do.”

What can you tell us about the experience points and progression?


“The one thing I’ll say is go back to the tattoo, but what we found at E3 – you know, we want to play with it, we’re still pre-alpha – at E3 you saw the numbers pop-up… look at the tattoo. Really look at it because, to me, the experience Jason has and how he’s leveling up and all those things, it’s got to feel wild and raw. So, when we use the tattoo, it’s almost a storyboard of his journey… It’s good to get a tattoo and have a journal of your experience, but it’s also good to you know that there is one out there that you can get.”

We saw ‘Mission Complete’ notifications pop-up on screen during the demo. Are there side-quests that you can accept and pile on?


“We wanted to make sure the fish hook, the idea that you’re wandering down the road and there’s something out there. The same is true for side quests. We want to make it so that if you’re a shooter player, you have the ability to go from mission to mission to mission, but there are side quests out there that tantalize you. They are the Alice in Wonderland holes you go down.

There’s a character in the game who’s my favorite that you haven’t seen yet and he’s got some quests that send you down an even different road and so yeah, there’s quests that you pile on, quests that you can do.”

Is there a quest journal of sorts?


“Yeah, you’re going to be able to control your missions, to control your quests. As a game player we don’t want to be punitive, we want players to feel… the thing that we’re focused on is realization, that it feels like you’re always keeping your friends in the back of your mind and you’re thinking that you need to get the hell off the island… we want players to have an experience where you meet one of your friends and they’re looking at your with fresh eyes. Fresh eyes. You know, it’s like ‘I left you before and you’re just some dude who sort of showed up on the island and is having a good time.’”

Take a look at Jason at the beginning [of the game] and look at him at the end, because he’s different. And imagine if you can save one or two of his friends, imagine them meeting him after he’s been in the jungle a little too long. That’s what we’re looking for and it permeates through everything: how he moves, how he acts, the weapons and how he uses them, how he levels up and the experiences he has with different characters throughout the game.”

Was there anything you guys wanted in the game but couldn’t include?


“There was one thing we thought would really break some stuff and we cut it and then like two days we were like ‘screw that, get it back in’ so now I can’t tell you about it… it’s pretty cool… but yes, it’s back in.”

What studios are working on the game?


“I can’t tell you the full number because it’ll lead to a series of different questions like what exactly are they working on and what now. We have some great partners. What I can say about Ubi that’s really cool is that they have a deep bench.”

Dan elaborated citing examples of different parts of the game they want to focus on or add that they can outsource to Ubisoft’s different development teams.

Are there any sort of companions and allies?


“The ones you know about are Vince [friend], Willis, the doctor, Vaas and I’ll mention the brother.”

There were four-five times during the interview where Dan really wanted to tell us more about specific characters, the RPG elements, weapons and some of the neat surprises that haven’t been revealed yet. Needless to say, we’ve only seen a bit of Far Cry 3 and there’s a lot more to come.

Far Cry 3 will releases on September 6, 2012, for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Far Cry 3 is my most anticipated title of 2012.

Same here :)

Achieved with CryEngine 1