So we sat down and brainstormed all these different characters we didn't think about context, we just said we'll talk about how we'll use them later. When we started Far Cry 3, we thought, fuck archetypes, we want to talk about realistic people. I think game designers have gotten into a bad habit of starting and ending with archetypes in their writing – it's a mistake.
You don't tend to meet actual individuals in shooters these days – it's all rapidly respawning archetypes … The rather insane pirate leader you come across, Vaas, is interesting. I want to make sure that's what we're delivering in Far Cry 3. That is a powerful human myth and it's one of the reasons the original Far Cry hit so hard. When I'm confronted by the darkness – whether that's monsters, bad guys or solitude – I've got to overcome that by learning more about who I am. It's Robinson Crusoe, it's Castaway, it's any environment where I'm cut off from civilisation and I have to rely on myself to survive. What's the emotion we're going for? And to me, Far Cry is all about a fantasy I call Man Alone. When I come on and work with a brand I really want to understand what makes it tick. So you're using the island as it's often employed in literature, as a place of self discovery? You're going to get more detail about who he is. But when he picks up the AK-47, it's not the first time he's handled a rifle, and not the first time he's killed. You see he's got a camera with him and that implies certain things. But this time, you're playing a guy named Jason Brody – we wanted to create a modern hero, someone who's grown up in this age of technology, someone who's connected to the world we're in right now – a native of the 21st century – and you'll learn more about that as you go. Ha! We're not talking too much about the narrative right now. Who are these people and why are they killing people and dumping them in the sea?
So in Far Cry 3, the hero washes up on an island and finds a bunch of thugs with AK-47s.
As with the other titles in the series it's an open-world shooter, providing players with multiple routes through the lush tropical setting.īut what implications does this design approach have on the game content, and as shooters become more realistic, how will gameplay change? To find out, we spoke with the creative director on the series, Jason VandenBerghe, who has some interesting ideas on how games will need to adapt in the coming years. Last week, we ran a preview of Ubisoft's promising sequel, Far Cry 3, which follows Jason Brody, a man of mystery who finds himself deserted on an island teeming with modern-day pirates. W here are first-person shooters going? Will they always be glorified interactive Michael Bay movies, or can we expect deeper experiences as visuals improve, AI deepens and designers become more confident with creating functioning open world environments?