Far Cry 3 Finds "Huge Inspiration" in The Elder Scrolls

[Andy Chalk]

Far Cry 3 Finds "Huge Inspiration" in The Elder Scrolls

The need to keep Far Cry 3 "engaging" led the designers to seek ideas from some unexpected sources.

Most shooters are relatively linear experiences. You shoot some guys, move to the next bit, shoot some more guys, wash, rinse and repeat. Open world shooters face a different challenge: letting players go places and kill things without arbitrarily slaughtering them for wandering into the wrong areas or allowing the action to slip into routine or drudgery. Some sense of balance and progression has to be maintained.

"We've had to take a little bit of a different approach to most shooters," Far Cry 3 lead designer Jamie Keen explained at the Eurogamer Expo. "In order to keep a player engaged over a period of time there are certain other genres we have to look into to keep that engagement over a longer time. So we've been looking at things like MMOs, we've been looking at other open world titles. The Elder Scrolls series is a huge inspiration for us; games like Red Dead [Redemption] and other Rockstar games as well."

To make up for the relatively limited ways that players can interact with the world and its characters, Keen said Far Cry 3 will offer more than 250 "encounter types" and track which ones you've had recently, so you won't see the same thing repeatedly.

"It's important too that you feel like the world isn't - we don't want you to feel like, 'Oh it's this encounter again, I've seen this one'. You know, 'Arrow to the knee', for example," he said. "While the 'arrow to the knee' thing is actually quite cool, we don't necessarily want that."

"You end up with this real feeling of diversity of things going on," he added. "And you will see the same encounter again, but hopefully there's enough of them that you won't remember it, probably."

Far Cry 3 [http://www.amazon.com/Far-Cry-3-Playstation/dp/B0050SXX88/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348769936&sr=8-1&keywords=Far+Cry+3] comes out on December 4 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-09-27-elder-scrolls-series-a-huge-inspiration-for-far-cry-3]


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[Fappy]

This actually sounds pretty interesting. I put down Far Cry 2 after playing for 5-minutes because I just couldn't get into it. Maybe this one will change my mind about the franchise.

 

[BrotherRool]

"Keen said Far Cry 3 will offer more than 250 "encounter types" and track which ones you've had recently, so you see the same thing repeatedly." =D

I was ready to be pretty cynical here, a pointless cash-in on the new game hot stuff months and months too late, but they mentioned other games and specifics that make sense. I'm sure having to kill those checkpoints again and again was most peoples Far Cry 2 lowpoint and knowing they're going out of their way to ensure variety this time is always good =D

 

[Saregon]

This actually sounds pretty interesting. I put down Far Cry 2 after playing for 5-minutes because I just couldn't get into it. Maybe this one will change my mind about the franchise.

I'm kind of there as well, I loved Far Cry, but Far Cry 2, while obviously well-intentioned, and I praise it for trying something new, was far from polished enough. Doing the same mission 50 times for guns, and then a slightly different mission 50 times for some other arbitrary reason, it gets dull, fast, and in addition the removal of progressively harder enemies like the mutant things just exacerbates it. I'm just glad I got it dirt cheap in a bundle with Tom Clancy's Ghost Warrior, which I do like quite a lot.

I'll give Far Cry 2 this though, they make some nice fires in that game.

Captcha: move mountains. Well, hopefully it will.

 

[Spygon]

These guys do realize Bethesda make another free roaming non linear game actually with guns um m it's called the fallout series.

Guys wouldn't it have been better to take inspiration from the modern fallout games than the elder scrolls.

 

[Krantos]

These guys do realize Bethesda make another free roaming non linear game actually with guns um m it's called the fallout series.

Guys wouldn't it have been better to take inspiration from the modern fallout games than the elder scrolls.

I think you missed what they were borrowing/taking inspiration from. Basically, they're injecting random encounters, like finding a pair of Vigilants fighting a daedra, or a woman on the next to a wagon that is actually bait for a trap, etc.

They're looking for ways to keep the world interesting. And, since this isn't a post-apocalypse wasteland...

You get the idea.

 

[Electric Gel]

They should take a look at the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series if they really want to get an idea of how to make an open, living world work from an FPS viewpoint. Sure the areas aren't huge, but it feels well and truly alive.

 

[silverbullet1989]

December 4th? god dammit has it been pushed back again!
anyway does anyone know if it has been built on the Dunia engine? because its looking very good compared to far cry 2... also would be awesome if it shipped with that map editor =) just please god don't make the multilayer matchmaking like fc2...

 

[Zeckt]

Actually, this sounds like just what the bland boring corridor FPS games these days need. A dose of randomness and an open enviroment. It won't be like a COD where you play through once for 4 hours and have no reason to ever touch it again. I'll keep my eye on this one now, thanks for the news.

 

[Animyr]

I hope they weren't inspired by the 250 caves all full of the spiders.

But despite everything I rather liked FC2, and I'm looking forward to this one.

 

[Fasckira]

will offer more than 250 "encounter types" and track which ones you've had recently, so you see the same thing repeatedly.

Should that not read, "so you wont see the same thing repeatedly"?

 

[LazyAza]

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the only people in the world who thinks Skyrim (and by extension the whole open world fantasy rpg genre in general) is highly overrated and gameplay wise at best is tedious, monotonous and more often than not incredibly bland.

But I guess some aspects of their design work well provided you give a shit about the gameworld and what you're doing in it. I'd love to see Crytek do a full on open world shooter; a proper evolution of the original Crysis. Far Cry 3 might be cool though, haven't really seen anything about it to grab my interest yet.

 

[antipunt]

Hm....

yeah man. I'm digging this d-^_^-b

 

[Bullfrog1983]

You know I thought about posting something witty, but then I realized the last game was a brick of shit and nothing short of people saying it is the best game of all time will ever make me play it. That said, if you're looking forward to it, good luck with that.

 

[Murmillos]

FarCry2 had its bucket full of significant flaws, but it was still a damn fun game.

Night time stealth needed a tweak and the check-points... the check-points needed a slap in the face.

 

[latenightapplepie]

FarCry2 had its bucket full of significant flaws, but it was still a damn fun game.

Night time stealth needed a tweak and the check-points... the check-points needed a slap in the face.

And the tone of the narrative didn't really work with the gameplay.

The gameplay was all about random, emergent and dynamic where often hilariously fun things happened like stray gas tanks spinning out of control to blow up a car that then burns down a large area unexpectedly flushing you and/or enemies from cover.

Whereas the tone of the narrative was bleak. It was war-torn Africa, refugees were dying and the player character was doing truly awful things to increase his wealth/influence.

It wasn't a huge disconnect, but I noticed it. I mean, I was just having too much random fun killing dudes and blowing up shit for the story to really resonate.

 

[kommando367]

This game keeps looking better and better.

 

[Murmillos]

FarCry2 had its bucket full of significant flaws, but it was still a damn fun game.

Night time stealth needed a tweak and the check-points... the check-points needed a slap in the face.

And the tone of the narrative didn't really work with the gameplay.

The gameplay was all about random, emergent and dynamic where often hilariously fun things happened like stray gas tanks spinning out of control to blow up a car that then burns down a large area unexpectedly flushing you and/or enemies from cover.

Whereas the tone of the narrative was bleak. It was war-torn Africa, refugees were dying and the player character was doing truly awful things to increase his wealth/influence.

It wasn't a huge disconnect, but I noticed it. I mean, I was just having too much random fun killing dudes and blowing up shit for the story to really resonate.

Then you missed the narrative as well, as you, the player, was working for the factions (and against each other) responsible for causing the plight of the refugees. That's why 90% of the side missions was to helping the refugees and 90% of the main missions involved killing somebody with a gun. The narrative clearly set up that premise up.

 

[Keepitclean]

Sounds great, Far Cry 2 was so close to being awesome but was killed by the repetitiveness. I loved the game for the first 10 or so hours, after that it became almost unbearably dull.