Far Cry 3 is an open world action-adventure first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal in conjunction with Ubisoft Massive, Red Storm Entertainment, Ubisoft Shanghai, and Ubisoft Reflections, published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. The game was released on November 29, 2012 in Australia, November 30 in Europe, and December 4 in North America. A stand-alone expansion titled Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was released on April 30, 2013.
Far Cry 3 is set on a tropical island between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. After a vacation goes awry, protagonist Jason Brody must save his friends, who have been kidnapped by pirates and escape from the island and its unhinged inhabitants.
The third installment in the Far Cry series, Far Cry 3 was critically acclaimed upon release, with reviewers praising its world design, open-ended gameplay and story, while the game's multiplayer mode was criticized. Following the game's success, Ubisoft announced a successor, Far Cry 4.
Gameplay:
Far Cry 3 is a first-person shooter, which also features role-playing game elements including experience points, skill trees, and a crafting system. The player has the ability to take cover behind objects to break enemies' lines of sight and to peek around and over cover and blindfire. The player has the ability to perform silent takedowns by performing melee attacks from above, below, or close behind. The game's narrative director, Jason Vandenberghe, said that the story mode map is around ten times larger than the game's previous installments. Players are given the ability to survey and plan out their attacks with stealth takedown combinations and tag enemies with the camera in order to track their movement once they break the player's line of sight.Equipment is controlled by a simple system. As missions are completed, new items are unlocked to be purchased or crafted by Jason, using the pelts of various animals found around the island to improve items, weapons, and ammunition carrying capabilities. When scramblers on radio towers are removed, areas of the map are opened and weapons in the shop are first made available for purchase, and ultimately made available for free. Apart from the basic models of each category which can be picked up from slain enemies or at the start of several missions, most weapons can be upgraded with one or more additions; silencers, larger magazines, better sights are the most common improvements. A special group of weapons (one per category and unlocked depending on achievements) possess "maxed-out" statistics in their respective categories and/or unique abilities. All weapons are based on existing ones, using most or all of their official designation, and each come with a description of their main advantages and inconveniences. Weapon comparison can be evaluated across 5 statistics : accuracy, damage (per round of ammunition), range, rate of fire, and mobility (the better the mobility, the faster the character can move while firing). Apart from guns, the player will also have access to a few unique items or tools. Ammunition for each weapon category can be picked up, or, in the case of arrows, retrieved after use. Reloading and magazine swap speeds vary from weapon to weapon. Reloading takes place automatically when the weapon runs empty, or can be triggered manually. For the bow, arrow nocking and pulling takes time before shooting, and conditions the arrow's arch, precision and power : the longer, the better. Area effect arrows can eventually be crafted.
As outposts of Vaas' pirate group are attacked and retaken, the vicinity around the outpost becomes safer, it unlocks new side quests for that area, involving missions like hunting the many different wildlife species on the island to upgrade ones equipment.
Skills are collected by gaining experience from completing missions and killing enemies, and are unlocked in three skill trees, which correspond to the Spider, the Heron, and the Shark. Each skill tree upgrades different aspects of Jason's abilities, with the Spider upgrading his stealth takedowns and hunting skills, Shark for assault takedowns and health, with the Heron upgrading his long-range takedowns and mobility. As skills are collected, the tattoo on Jason's forearm grows which is made up of several different tribal designs resembling the three animal skill trees.
Plot:
Wealthy American Jason Brody, accompanied by his older and younger brothers Grant and Riley, his girlfriend Liza, and their friends Daisy, Keith, and Oliver, go on vacation in Bangkok to celebrate Riley getting his pilot's license. While skydiving, they land on an archipelago known as Rook Island, controlled by pirates led by a lunatic named Vaas Montenegro. After being captured, Grant and Jason are held and taunted by Vaas while the others are taken to be held for ransom. Grant engineers their escape but is killed by Vaas; distraught, Jason manages to scramble away. He is met by Dennis Rogers, an inhabitant of the island working with the Rakyat tribe to seize control back from the pirates. Dennis sees the potential in Jason to follow the Rakyat "path of the warrior" in rescuing his friends, and gives him a magical "tatau" that gives Jason the strength and knowledge to defeat the pirates, and which grows and spreads across his arm as he fights the pirates and grows stronger.
With Dennis's help, Jason locates Daisy at the house of Dr. Earnhardt, who treats her injuries from escaping and agrees to shelter Jason's other friends from Vaas. Jason then rescues Liza and brings her to Earnhardt's, where they both find Daisy within a cave located underneath Earnhardt's house, who is working to repair an old boat in order to escape the island. Jason tells Dennis he is not strong enough to defeat Vaas, and is introduced to Citra, the leader of the Rakyat and Vaas' sister. Citra tells Jason she will offer her help if he can retrieve a ceremonial knife revered by the Rakyat. Jason experiences a drug-induced vision given to him by Citra that identifies Willis Huntley, an eccentric man claiming to be a CIA agent operating on the island. Willis brings Jason information on both his missing friends. Willis has been monitoring Hoyt Volker, a deranged South African slave trader, who Vaas works for, selling those he captures into human slavery even after the ransoms have been paid, as well as engaging in drug trafficking. With Willis' help, Jason rescues Oliver before he can be sent to the slavers. Willis informs Jason that Keith has already been sold to Bambi "Buck" Hughes, who offers to give Keith back to Jason in exchange for finding a special knife. Jason eventually finds the knife after searching a series of ancient Chinese temples located on the island, but when Buck attempts to renege on the deal, Jason kills him with it. Jason brings Keith back to Dr. Earnhardt's, where Keith reveals that he saw Riley shot and killed. The others try to convince Jason to leave with them, but Jason, now set on a path of retribution, vows revenge on Vaas and Hoyt and spend his life in the island.
Jason brings the knife to Citra, and he is revered as a hero of the Rakyat. She makes him drink a liquid, which induces another drug-induced state. He is in the temple compound, and a huge giant rises from the temple, attacking him. Using a bow and arrows, Jason defeats the giant. With Citra's help, Jason infiltrates Vaas' compound and kills him. Willis, who has been given orders to leave the island, provides Jason with transport to Hoyt's island and information on Sam Becker, another CIA operative that has gained the trust of Hoyt and is working deep undercover in Hoyt's army of privateers. Sam helps Jason to similarly gain Hoyt's trust by identifying and subduing a group of renegade privateers who plan to steal from Hoyt. Hoyt offers Jason the ability to interrogate a prisoner which turns out to be Riley. Jason, with Sam's help, is able to discretely reveal himself while still feigning his support for Hoyt by beating up Riley to get his name. Hoyt is pleased with the results, and offers Jason and Sam the opportunity to come to a private poker game. Jason and Sam arrange to kill Hoyt and rescue Riley at the game, but first work to make sure that Hoyt's men cannot respond quickly enough by destroying their fuel depot and communication network. At the game, Hoyt suddenly kills Sam and slices off one of Jason's fingers, having figured out the deception, but Jason is able to kill Hoyt during a knife fight. Hoyt's last words revealed that Riley is about to be flown off the island to Yemen, so Jason races to stop this. He frees Riley, and Riley takes control of one of Hoyt's helicopters to make their escape.
They return to Dr. Earnhardt's, finding the building aflame and Dr. Earnhardt dying after an attack by the Rakyat, who took their friends. They fly to Citra's temple, where Citra drugs Jason and forces him into making a choice to either "complete the path of the warrior" by murdering his friends and allowing Citra to be his mate, or to let them go and abandon Citra to return to the life he came from.
The player's decision affects the game's outcome. If the player chooses to complete the path, Jason kills his friends to Citra's praise, and then he and Citra have sexual intercourse; after this, Citra then stabs Jason, and as he dies, she tells him that he dies like a warrior, assuring him that his child, which she now assumes she carries, will become the new Rakyat leader.
If the player chooses to save his friends, Jason rejects Citra and throws down the knife, done with violence. Dennis, who was quietly in love with Citra, becomes outraged that Jason refused to accept Citra's love, and rushes to stab him, but Citra moves in the way and takes the blade herself. As Jason and his friends leave the temple unopposed, Dennis breaks down in remorse at having killed Citra. The friends are then seen leaving the island on the boat, with a voiceover by Jason suspecting that it will be impossible to fully recover from his ordeal, but holding out hope that there is still good in him, and that he can nurture it to come back.
Development:
In August 2010, PC Gamer reported that development of Far Cry 3 was in "full swing" at Ubisoft Montreal. In the same month, Game and Swedish retailer Webhallen listed the game for a 2010 release, which did not happen. In January 2011, Ubisoft declined to comment on speculation that Far Cry 3 would be hitting shelves in October after Game Informer listed the game as an October arrival in its 2011 preview feature.In February, the Official PlayStation Magazine suggested that the game was due for release at the end of 2011 as the following quote suggested, "Start taking the malaria medicine in preparation: Far Cry 3 could be arriving before the end of the year." This statement was withdrawn in next month's edition where it was stated that the game would be shown on 2011's E3 and that the release date would be bumped back to 2012. In May, the CVs of a couple of stuntmen listed Far Cry 3 as one of their previous projects.
Far Cry 3 features a sandbox editor. Furthermore, after confirmations of PC split screen on the Far Cry 3 official site as well as content delivery service Steam, the feature was dropped days before release.
The game's writer Jeffrey Yohalem claimed that the intention of the game's plot was to make a statement about "what shooting means and what it does to humanity". The game's protagonist Jason Brody is not a trained soldier, but rather an everyman who is forced to become a killer over the course of the game. Yohalem claims that as a result the game examines "what happens when that guy is put into a situation where he has to survive minute by minute and save his friends? Will he pick up a gun and how does that affect him? This is a story about a normal guy who picks up a gun and that can't end well". Producer Dan Hay emphasized that the emotional "turns" in the characters were a major theme in the game, stating that "that was the emotional thing we wanted and when we first saw it, it was with Vaas." Hay further commented that the game merged the systemic feel and emotional feel from the previous two Far Cry games in order to take the game in a "very, very surprising direction."
Marketing and release:
Players who pre-ordered Far Cry 3 received The Lost Expeditions Edition of the game. It contains two exclusive missions not available in the regular version. These missions, "The Forgotten Experiment" and "Ignition in the Deep", offer 40 minutes of additional playtime, plus a Type 10 Japanese World War II flare gun for use in the game's multiplayer modes. Players in America who pre-ordered Far Cry 3 from GameStop received The Monkey Business bonus pack. It includes four more missions "hosted by Hurk and his bomb-carrying monkeys", and "two bonus ways to humiliate your friends" in multiplayer. The Insane Edition of the game includes all pre-order bonuses and all other forms of launch DLC, along with a Vaas bobblehead and a manual teaching survival skills for usage in real situations of danger.
Ubisoft commissioned Michael Lambert, a Minecraft enthusiast, and artists Axel Janssen and Yohann Delcourt to create a custom map and texture pack mimicking Far Cry 3's setting and characters within the popular indie game Minecraft. The Far Cry 3 Minecraft texture pack, was released, along with a Far Cry 3 Minecraft custom adventure map, on October 26, 2012 on the official Far Cry 3 website.
Ubisoft released the free exclusive DLC High Tides for the PlayStation 3 version of Far Cry 3. The DLC was later released for PC on February 1, 2013 as a free Uplay reward.
Reception:
Critical reception : Far Cry 3 received widespread critical acclaim. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 3 version 89.18% and 90/100, the Xbox 360 version 89.14% and 90/100 and the PC version 88.12% and 88/100.
The game was highly praised by Eurogamer, who awarded it a 10/10, claiming that "Far Cry 3 is all the best things about open-world gaming". Edge also added to the praise, calling the game "wild, reactive and unpredictable", giving Far Cry 3 an 8/10. G4TV gave the game a 5/5, praising the game's open world, long and satisfying campaign missions, solid gunplay with a variety of weapons to unlock and customize, and a compelling story. Game Informer gave the game a score of 9.0/10, praising the game's story, characters, open world exploration, and gameplay. GameTrailers gave the game an 8.6/10, criticizing the repetitive feel of the island, but praising the story, characters and its likeness to Assassin's Creed. IGN gave the game a 9.0/10, praising the game's excellent cast of characters, unpredictable enemy encounters, and its open world environment.
Parts of the story were not universally praised; some commentators felt the story was unrealistic, the player and his companions unlikeable, and the inconsistency of the plot's tone awkward.
Sales : Far Cry 3 was a commercial success. It had sold about 4.5 million units as of February 2013, and more than 6 million copies as of May 2013. On October 30, 2014, Ubisoft revealed that Far Cry 3 had shipped 10 million units.
Awards : For the 2013 D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards, Far Cry 3 was nominated for seven awards including: "Game of the Year", "Action Game of the Year", "Outstanding Character Performance" for Vaas Montenegro, "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction", "Outstanding Achievement in Animation", "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction", and "Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition". Far Cry 3 also received two Game Developer's Choice Awards nominations for Best Visual Arts and Best Technology. Also received numerous nominations at the 9th British Academy Video Games Awards in the categories of Best Game, Artistic Achievement, Audio Achievement, Game Design and Story, while winning the category for Best Action game.
Sequel:
In June 2013, in light of the acclaim garnered by Far Cry 3, Ubisoft promised they had plans for a Far Cry 4. Ubisoft said it would most likely be an open world game, which they believe is the future of gaming. In March 2014, Eurogamer published an article stating that Far Cry 4 will be set in the Himalayas and will have "ridable elephants." Also stated was the game's release will be in the "first half of 2015." On May 15, 2014, Far Cry 4 was officially confirmed by a Ubisoft financial report and was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on November 18, 2014 in North America and November 20 in Europe.
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