This week Ubisoft's follow-up to its acclaimed 2012 hit Far Cry 3 is released.
It's the latest in a unique, open-world first-person shooter franchise that puts players in exotic environments with ferocious wildlife and terrifying bad guys.
Far Cry 4 follows Ajay Ghale, an English-speaking Nepalese native who returns to Kyrat, a wild and untamed region of the Himalayas, to scatter his mother's ashes.
Once there, he becomes caught up in a civil war as the people struggle under the despotic regime of self-appointed king Pagan Min, ruling under an oppressive monarchy.
Far Cry 4 features a score composed by Cliff Martinez (Drive, Spring Breakers) and Pagan Min is voiced by Troy Baker, the man behind main characters in The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, Batman: Arkham Origins, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Recently I caught up with Far Cry 4 director Alex Hutchinson and to find out more about the game.
You didn't work on Far Cry 3, so as a player, what did you dig about it?
I really liked the huge amount of freedom I had to tackle problems the way I wanted to tackle them. The different vehicles, weapons and tools I had at my disposal to solve problems were great. The outposts were perfectly executed little nuggets of gameplay that you stumble across and tackle the way you want. The base of the open-world was just super strong.
The Far Cry 3 mission where you burn the drug plantation as Skrillex plays, that was one of the most memorable set-pieces of gaming in recent years. Is there anything similar that will top it in Far Cry 4?
We hope so. The funny thing about that mission - you often spend lots of money and time working on something, then the really simple things end up working better. That particular mission was really simple. They had a goal to burn a bunch of things, they had an awesome track playing that made people laugh and it just worked. We've tried a bunch of times to get gameplay with similar results, but you never know until you see it in players' hands.
I loved Far Cry 3, but one criticism I made about it was the tonal mix. Some of it was pretty serious, dealing with real heavy, provocative issues, but mostly it has this contradictory sort of punk, joyous vibe. What would you say to that?
I think you're spot on and I think that's something we've tried to work on in the new one. In my head at least, Far Cry 4 is a really, really black comedy. It's funny, but the characters in it aren't jokes. They'll occasionally tell jokes, but they shouldn't be jokes themselves. The game's world is upbeat, but it's upbeat about really horrible things.
Vaas was a really cool villain in Far Cry 3. The new game's Pagan Min looks interesting; what sort of a bloke is he?
We wanted to create someone who was different. He's still outlandish, because these extreme, over-the-top characters really work for us. Far Cry games aren't military shooters so we can go a bit crazy, but we wanted someone fresh. Pagan Min is someone who isn't crazy, but he is so powerful and in control of his area that he can do whatever he wants, without consequence. He can murder people, destroy things, do whatever he wants and nobody can say anything about it.
There was some controversy about Pagan Min's race and sexuality when he was revealed. How did that go down with the team?
I got into trouble with the PR people because I tweeted pretty much immediately saying he's not white. It is funny to see people aggressively hunting for controversy, instead of giving people the benefit of the doubt. If they'd played the game and had a problem with something in it, that's fine, but jumping on a still image is a bit crazy and just shows how judgmental the audience can be. When people said 'he's clearly a gay character', my response was 'how do gay people dress?' I have a lot of friends that are members of different subcultures and they all dress differently. So I didn't think that was fair.
Ah yes, the imaginary gay uniform people must believe is given out at the imaginary gay agenda meetings - you didn't realise you put Pagan Min in one of those, huh. In that first image of him what struck me was how he looked like Dutch trance DJ/producer Dash Berlin.
That's funny because people have said there's this celebrity Korean chef that he looks exactly like. Others say he looks like Patrick Stewart in a wig. Everyone's saying we've stolen the character of some specific local celebrity, who are usually people we've never heard of. That's kind of awesome, I guess.
I loved the massive choice you had to make at the end of Far Cry 3. It was like one of the horrible decisions you'd get in the Telltale Walking Dead games, but at the end of this really rich gameplay experience. What was the feedback on that like, are there similar choices in Far Cry 4?
That's interesting, I don't think we got a lot of feedback on that specific part. I think people liked the end of the game, but it didn't generate much discussion. We've definitely tried to bring in more choice in Far Cry 4, giving the player a greater ability to customise their experience in the core narrative. There's choices all the way throughout the game that affect objectives, missions and the ending. The choices are much more embedded within the main game.
I'm looking forward to the Shangri-La missions, which sound trippy and weird even for a Far Cry game. What are they?
Everyone liked the drug trip moments in Far Cry 3, but they were always gameplay-free. They were just experiences that weren't part of the game. So we wanted to do something similar, but put gameplay into them. And then when we were writing fictional mythologies for Kyrat, we thought we could let the player play these myths and legends. While exploring the open-world, you'll find these tapestry pieces called thangkas. If you meditate on them, you can live through the founding legends of Kyrat. They are sort of more extreme and trippy, but at the same time they're grounded within the fantasy setting.
That sounds cool. The psychedelic aspects of Far Cry 3 were part of what made it unique in the crowded first-person shooter market.
I was joking about how you can't make a modern version of Hexen, you couldn't do a contemporary, alternative shooter like that. You just couldn't get the budget. So we've sort of snuck five hours of that sort of gameplay into Far Cry 4.
To talk about mediums besides gaming for a moment, what TV shows or movies have you been enjoying recently?
For me the best modern TV show is Breaking Bad. I thought that was just astonishing - every episode was tight, the overall arc was amazing. I liked the black humour of it as much as I liked the more serious stuff. I liked Fargo, the TV show, I thought that was terrific and True Detective was great. TV has been amazing recently. And just recently I went and saw a movie for the first time in like two years, which was Gone Girl, and that was phenomenal.
And back to gaming - what makes it such a great medium?
It's really exciting how great the breadth of the industry is at the moment. People play games on their phones, PCs, consoles. In terms of genres, we've never had such a diverse range of gaming experiences available as we do right now. So it's a super healthy time for the industry. As far as gameplay goes, we're finally embracing the fact that it's an interactive medium. A lot of games have less emphasis on story and more on what we can do really well: provide interactive experiences with a lot of choice for the player. These games enable people to make their own fun, instead of trying to control them and making terrible movies.
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Far Cry 4 is released in New Zealand tomorrow on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
3 News
source: newshub archive
