The bold design of the open world of Far Cry 2 still bears fruit 10 years later

There are games like Doom that forever change their genres. Then there are games that do not necessarily come to mind on a daily basis, but that come back constantly in the conversation when the developers meet and discuss. Far Cry 2 is a real developer's game: an imperfect jewel, but one that has changed the industry by changing the way people think about games.

The central genius of Far Cry 2 is that it's an open world that does not exist to glorify you, the player. At best, you are a bad guy. Most of the time, you are honestly without much consequence. The intro describes you as the least prepared mercenary in the world and travels to Africa in search of the sought-after arms dealer, The Jackal. It's bad. Even before you can start the hunt, you get malaria, you get bedridden, and the Jackal himself goes around to examine your stuff, pointing out that you failed miserably and you will not get paid until you get lost. . "So long." Few games have been as happy to reduce the stakes to such a non-existent level.

Of course, you do not go home. Instead, the mission quickly falls into the kind of nihilism that would not be equaled before the underrated Game Spec Ops: The Line. You kill because that's what you do, you work for two factions that, at the time, had been criticized for being basically the same collection of psychopathic bottlenecks before people realized that yes, was the goal. In Far Cry 2, there is no good guy or glorious crusade to save the war-torn country of a handy dictator who twirls his mustache. There is only war, malaria, death and greed.

As he was going to become a staple of the series, Far Cry 2 has virtually nothing to do with the game that preceded him, other than being a shooter, and certainly none of the mutants and other idiots who slowly resumed his story . The developers, led by Clint Hocking, explained that the goal was to capture the spirit of the show, even though it often seemed to them (perhaps cynically) that the men of the show were there. Money was not paying attention until it was too late.

Far Cry was a level-based game that had very high levels of openness. Far Cry 2 was a playground. It was true that it was not completely open, in the sense that history was always tied to specific missions and goals, and no matter how many people were killed to kill things, nothing would change until the plot dictated it. But once you were on a mission, everything was allowed. Eliminate enemies from a distance, steal a car and hit a base, run with guns, set fire to objects …

What differentiated Far Cry 2 from the average open middle game was how he managed to exploit the potential of this freedom without sinking into anarchy or appearing ridiculous. You are certainly not a divine presence. In addition to needing regular antimalarial treatments to avoid throwing up your entrails at the worst time, every system and every plot is there to reinforce the darkest elements of the environment, that's it. Acts to track down blood diamonds or carry out brutal assassinations that can only lead to further difficulty.

Another legacy of Far Cry 2: one of the best game trailer, thanks to the perfect coupling with Massive Attack's Angel.

More directly, even standard items, like taking a ball, go a step further than most others. Get hurt and you will be "treated" by unpleasant examples of your wounds repaired in the field. Throughout the game, you are regularly accompanied by mercenary "buddies" ready to lend a hand, pull your injured body out of danger and offer yourself their own goals, but none of them are saints. At the end of the game, the flicker of diamonds and the chances of escape are more than enough to break friendships.

Really, Far Cry 2 was for the military shooter what Deus Ex had been sneaking into urban environments – a game that turned those environments into another weapon and gave them the weight that was lacking in most previous Open World games such as that Cartoony of 2006 Just Cause, or GTA and its endless imitators. It was also primarily a shooting game, unlike RPGs like Fallout 3 or the awkward hybrid that's Stalker.

This has greatly contributed to the fluidity of action, as well as the nature of Far Cry's basic game loops 2: removal of outposts, simple act of navigating the world and use of its physics, its tools and artificial intelligence to spark emerging actions. These elements allowed Far Cry 2 to feel natural in a modest and vital way.

Everything from controlling a real grenade map (spoiler: it explodes) realistically derived from your basic understanding of reality, without you having to think of action in terms of points of life, levels and mechanics of play. If anything looked like a good tactic, it was probably the case, and when things went horribly wrong or well, it was usually a problem. way that made an interesting story.

Despite all this, Far Cry 2 may feel awkward today. Much was done at the time, too. It is particularly strange that the characters speak twice as fast as they should and without much of that human thing we call emotion. Shooting is not what the genre has to offer. And it's hard not to eat away at the NPCs you work for, but you're still a little too static: there's no way to create safe spaces or even face a patrol permanently. outpost. It's good, but still annoying. It is also unfortunate that, despite all the progress made with the open world, Far Cry 2 has finally returned to an initial plan in which the goal of the game would be simply to hunt down and kill the jackal, and you could ignore the fact. story in favor of a beeline for him and putting a bullet in the head. The current game did not have such a possibility. A real pity.

What he has finally achieved is even more impressive. It entertained the players, but most importantly encouraged an industry to broaden its field of vision and explore the power really offered by open worlds. Subsequent games have refined these techniques, with elements appearing in everything from Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft to Just Cause, and The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of Nature.

Although there is no direct influence in playing Far Cry 2, few designers have heard at least a whispered account of what he has done and what has been shown possible. It may have spawned several official suites over the past decade, but the true legacy of Far Cry 2 is the freedom it has quietly inspired.