The demo started out as your average first-person-shooter affair. Shoot, kill, reload, and repeat. It’s a grind we’ve all felt before. After I discovered Far Cry had the basic shooting part down, it introduced something very new and fresh to me. I had just gotten off an ATV where the mission objective was a race against time to get supplies to another character, and there it was–a hang glider that beckoned for me to fly within its embrace, so I did. Flying felt like a perfectly natural extension to the game mechanics, swooping down to pick up speed, pulling up to gain height. While gaining height, my eyes gazed upon an enemy encampment. Could I make it there on the hang glider? Not a problem. Not only did we make it to the shanty houses, but I also happened to land on top of houses, gaining a quite precious "It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground" moment that fired off in my brain.
Last week we had the opportunity to sit down with Jamie Keen, Lead Game Designer on Far Cry 3 and he helped to share some insight to the vehicular decisions within Far Cry 3.
"It’s all about player choice, variety and creating an inviting, believable game world. We want the world to feel as accessible and open, and as much like a real place as possible. People need to move around in this island (it’s a really massive place) so we want to fill it with all the kind of vehicles and transport that you’d expect to find in a place like that (and perhaps a few you might not…). So you’ll find gliders and a wingsuit to travel by air, which is the quickest way to get around (albeit with the highest pancake potential!). On the sea you’ll find different size patrol boats – one of which has a .50cal mounted on it – and jetskis – those things are great for nipping down inland waterways, and there are some cool jumps scattered around the place. On land there are loads of different vehicles, from quad bikes to dune buggies to massive cargo trucks (hammering through pirate roadblocks at 70 in those things – leaves an impression!) We want the world to be fun to travel through the way that you want to – if you want to cruise down and beachside road with the radio blaring, then knock yourself out. But if you want to move quickly from point to point, then we have an extensive fast travel network to get you there quickly. It’s really all up to you."
Far Cry 3 is coming up quickly, Nov. 29 for our Europe fans and Dec. 4 for the U.S.