Far Cry 4 is undeniably one of the most anticipated titles of 2014 following the amazing success Far Cry 3 had two years ago. Ubisoft Montreal hopes to build on FC3’s achievement by delivering a brand new Open-World exploration experience that is located in a completely different setting and involves a new set of characters in the latest installment of their beloved First-Person Shooter franchise. The thing I realized once I walked away from the 15 minute demo I had at the Montreal Comic-Con was how the developers played it safe with Far Cry 4. It is mechanically identical to its predecessor and that’s not a bad thing at all. In fact, the familiarity is the reason why I enjoyed my short hands-on session with the Outpost side mission that much because I already knew what I was getting into and, ultimately, why I was having mindless fun with Far Cry 4.
The demo kicked off as I was located right outside of a structurally Asian-inspired fortress-looking outpost right on the outskirts of Kyrat, the fictional Himalayan region where Far Cry 4 is set in, without any story context whatsoever. My only objective was to storm the outpost and clear it from all of its enemies. As I started moving my character towards the location, I couldn’t help to stop and look at the incredible vistas and backgrounds filled with visually-striking mountains from afar. Far Cry 4 looks like a next-gen version of Far Cry 3 in terms of graphics, but that’s not saying much since FC3 was already a pretty amazing-looking game back in 2012. There is just an extra level of detail that pops in Far Cry 4, and the power of the PlayStation 4, which was the console where I played the demo, really made that aspect stand out. Unfortunately, the game still runs at 30 frames per second, at least on consoles, but I found that it did not affect the gameplay at all as I was already used to this frame rate with Far Cry 3.
Far Cry 4 is more Far Cry 3 action, and that’s totally fine
After being impressed by the initial look and feel of the game, I spotted a couple of wild elephants hanging out right outside of the outpost. Having seen some gameplay footage from E3 and Gamescom, I knew the player could interact with the animals in some kind of way, so I immediately approached one of them, hopped on its back and stormed the front door of the outpost. It was that easy. Even if this sounds like the most absurd thing in a video game, it felt awesome, and it was just hilarious to smash the giant front door and relentlessly kill a dozen enemies on the back of an elephant with my Light Machine Gun. Though it was extremely fun to do so, it made me an instant target as a vast array of reinforcements rapidly made their way into the base. I was forced to abandon the elephant and play a little bit more passively as I tried to destroy the multiple alarms surrounding me while staying in cover instead of only focusing on the enemies. I had to switch up my initial strategy and fully use the arsenal at my disposal, which made me discover a cool feature that is exclusive to the PlayStation 4.
Thanks to the system’s Dualshock 4, switching weapons can now be done with just a single swipe of the controller’s touchpad. Even though I couldn’t fully master this mechanic during my time with the game, it is a lot quicker and intuitive to use than pressing a button to pull out the weapon wheel and selecting the gun you want to use.
After a few minutes of maneuvering around the map and trying to stay alive by healing myself with syringes and bandages (Which work the same way as in Far Cry 3 and have the same animations), I was eventually killed by enemies and sent out back to the beginning of the mission. However, my excitement of retrying the mission was quickly diminished because of the long loading time that took about 45 seconds to put me back into the action. Like I have expressed at the start of this preview, this was only a demo build, so I don’t know if this problem will be present come the full game’s release. However, this excessive wait does worry me nonetheless.
Elephants man, elephants
Once loaded back in, I went for the same guns-blazing strategy with the elephant as before, but I eventually found out that there were multiple ways to take on the level. There was the obvious option to ditch the elephant and go for the sneaky approach, but there was also the option to pilot a Gyrocopter, a small helicopter, that would’ve given me a more tactical view of the fortress. Realizing that there was multiple other ways to take on the mission raised the question of why would anyone go for the stealth approach when a murderous animal can be ridden to help you relentlessly kill everything in sight. Don’t get me wrong, I love some variety in the mission structure, but those other options sound way more boring than the action-packed elephant approach. Then again, I only played a small chunk of the game, so who knows what the options will be like in the full release. However, I think it is important to point out that concern as this could lead to a lot of repetition if the only interesting and fun approach is to use animal as allies. But I am sure Ubisoft Montreal already has that in mind and will work around it.
Obviously, all of this is only based on the 15 minutes I have played of the game and it does not illustrate the final product whatsoever. Just from a mechanical standpoint, Far Cry 4 plays exactly like I want it to and seems to be ten times as ridiculous as Far Cry 3. I cannot wait to see how the story of the main protagonist, Ajay Ghale, is going to play out, especially with Pagan Min, Far Cry 4’s villain, which looks even more insane than Far Cry 3’s villain Vaas Montenegro, and that says a lot. Plus, I can’t forget to mention how excited I am for the co-op play that will definitely be a big part of the full game. We’ll just have to wait until November 20, 2014, the day the game launches, to find out.
Are you excited for Far Cry 4? (I know I am) Let us know why in the comments below and, as always, stay tuned to Gamer Headlines for all things gaming.
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