Review ‘Far Cry 4’ From The Editor

“An eagle!” my soldier yells. “Look out! Help me!” My men, who I’ve seen stand fast in the face of overwhelming machine gun fire, are scattering because of a dive-bombing bird. The eagle circles overhead, taunting me before swooping down and raking its claws across my arm.

Just as I start to recover, an enemy patrol drives by and spots us shooting into the air. They decide to join the party, aiming at us briefly before a rhinoceros slams into their truck and throws them over a cliff.

And that’s when the mortar fire starts raining down on our heads. Aimed at me? Aimed at my fellow soldiers? Aimed at the eagle? I don’t even know anymore.

Welcome to Far Cry 4.

The toughest decision you’ll need to make in Far Cry 4 is what to do next. Maybe you’ll ride an elephant through a rebel village flipping over cars with your powerful trunk, or grab your bow, head for the forests and take up the more leisurely pursuit of killing Honey Badgers. Alternatively, you might jump into a gyrocopter with a RPG strapped to your back and wreak havoc from above on a passing enemy convoy before looting all the bodies and fleeing the area on the back of an ATV that your buddy’s driving.

You might then ‘flip him the bird’, just because you can, and he might deliberately drive over the edge of a cliff causing you to trigger your wingsuit and make a hasty landing into a lake full of Demon Fish and enemies patrolling in speedboats. Not to worry though, as you may soon see him arrive from the distance in his own boat to pick you up, only his is equipped with a machine-gun turret.

Did you enjoy doing these actions in an easy, consequence-free sandbox without the strain of Far Cry 2‘s realistic malaria simulation ticking in the background?

That’s great, because Far Cry 4 is The Hangover 2 of video games (except Far Cry 4 is actually entertaining and The Hangover 2 was a massive disappointment). Take everything you love about Far Cry 3, put a different name on it, retexture it, and voila!Brand new game. Climb bell towers, liberate outposts that are Nepalese instead of tropical, fight against Pagan Min instead of Vaas, and murder Tibetan wolves instead of jungle wolves.

Even the story hits the same general beats. You’re an American dude, Ajay Ghale, trying to spread his mother’s ashes in Kyrat. The catch, of course, is that Kyrat is under the oppressive thumb of one Pagan Min, the pink-suit-wearing dictator who cares more about blood on his shoes than human lives.

Jumping into the gunner’s position, you could decide to take out the enemies swiftly and head for the nearest outpost, where you might throw a piece of meat at the feet of a group of guards and sit back and watch as a Clouded Leopard tears them apart, before steaming in with assault rifles and grenade launchers to send the outpost up in smoke. After all the carnage, you might want a bit of peace and quiet again and head out into the wilderness to track down Wild Boar before skinning them and making a wallet so that you can carry all the loot that you’ve just found scattered throughout Krayt.

The overarching story is bland “liberate this country” schlock, made even worse by the fact that we’ve literally played it twice over already. It’s not out-and-out as condescending as Far Cry 3, but in some ways it makes even less sense—you voluntarily traveled to a war zone and then… what? Became a revolutionary leader? All you were trying to do was deliver your mom’s ashes!

That central through-line is lost so quickly that every time the game brought up my mom’scremated body again I’d literally go, “Oh right, I forgot about that.” Ubisoft tries to broaden the story a bit by adding in some choices along the way, which slightly change your mission objectives, but this is a by-the-numbers story.

Far Cry 4 must have been a daunting task for its developer, Ubisoft Montreal. Having created one of the best open-world games and most immersive environments of all time with Far Cry 3, there was a relatively small margin for improvement. Nevertheless, although Far Cry 4 doesn’t quite manage to hit those heady heights of its predecessor in terms of its storyline and new locale, fans can once again look forward to a hugely entertaining game that offers a wealth of missions and a breadth of freedom and player choice that should do more than enough to keep fans totally immersed in its world for many hours.

Far Cry 4 is fantastic, if familiar. It’s the warm embrace of a game you’ve already played, back to bring you more. If you enjoyed Far Cry 3, you’ll have fun with this. If you’re one of the Far Cry 2 faithful that considers the sanitized, simplified thrill ride of Far Cry 3 blasphemous, this isn’t going to bring you back into the fold. It’s that simple.