At the Ubisoft booth this year, I was able to get my hands on the newest installment of Far Cry. In order to showcase how the new game will look, the dev team built a new version of an outpost for players to try and conquer. Now I have to admit right from the start, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the Far Cry universe. When I was asked by the Ubisoft staffer on hand if I was familiar with them, the look of ‘I want to say yes’ that I gave was met with a couple of comically exaggerated eye rolls and a helpful explanation as to what the outpost entails.
This time around players take on the role of Ajay Ghale as he travels to the country of Kyrat nestled deep in the Himalayas. In the midst of a brutal and bloody civil war Ajay finds himself stuck right in the middle of a rebellious attempt to bring down Kyrat’s ruthless dictator Pagan Min. We don’t have much more for details than that but if history speaks for itself you know you’re going to get a solid narrative.
In the Far Cry 4 demo, you were able to play the outpost with three different loadout options. There was stealth, aerial and finally the ability to stampede into battle atop an elephant. Can you guess which one I picked first? Yes, it was the elephant and it was everything I dreamed of. You have full control of the elephant as it smashes doors open, gores guards and throws cars about the map. However, it also gave me a sense of invincibility which, if you’ve played Far Cry before, is not the feeling you want to have in an outpost. Suffice it to say, I got mowed down quite quickly. My second time through, I took a more duck and cover approach and lasted longer, sure, but did end up dying relatively quickly.
I tried stealth next and this was easily my best attempt. Armed with a quiet crossbow and some bombs, I made quick work of several foes and made a pretty good dent into the guards before I was, once again, ultimately dispatched. As for the aerial attempt… well, let’s just say that my ability to fly and aim was not exactly successful since that makes it sound much better than what actually happened; think crash and burn.
Unfortunately, it was nearing the end of the day and the various booths were shutting down, so I took the time to talk to one of the guys showing me the ropes. After some quick jokes at my lackluster performance, he assured me that my outing was very similar to the majority of other players that day. While demos like this are usually a little more difficult since you haven’t had a couple of hours to get accustomed to the controls, AI, etc., he said that the outpost was purposefully hard to show how much they were ramping up the difficulty from Far Cry 3. It was also a showcase for the new animals, some new guns and the stunning new graphics for this open world FPS.
I really would have liked to spend a bit more time with Far Cry 4 but seeing as the show was wrapping up for the day and a few burly looking security guards were giving me the stink eye I made the wise decision to get moving. As someone who has never really gotten into the Far Cry games, the demo, while very hard, was good enough to get me excited about the upcoming game. For anyone who is a Far Cry fan, you’re going to want to keep an eye on that release date; this looks like it could be a winner!
