Far Cry 3 to tackle violence differently – Video Games Update
Ubisoft has revealed that Far Cry 3 will be taking a different approach when it comes to killing enemies in the game. The motivation behind all the violence will be explained in the game’s story mode and it won’t be just another game mechanic present just
to advance the plot.
The lead game designer for Ubisoft Montreal, Mark Thompson, has stated action shooters these days strive to be realistic but forget to address one of the most important aspects when it comes to shooters; that is the impact on the protagonist of the countless
enemies which he guns down like it’s no big deal. Thompson believes that it really takes from the realism and the character feels really shallow.
“One mistake that games can make is to simply not acknowledge the violence and pretend like it isn’t important that their protagonist is nonchalantly killing a ton of people. If you ignore what your core mechanics are asking players to do, if you pretend
like players aren’t being rewarded for killing, then it will undermine the narrative,” said Thompson in an interview with VG247.
“It isn’t about creating a morality play. We simply take someone who hasn’t killed before and force them to kill, in order to save their own life and then the lives of their closest friends,” continued Thompson revealing that Far Cry 3 will not just be another
‘feel good’ shooter game like Call of Duty but will have serious psychological implications for killing enemies.
The recently released Spec Ops: The Line also took a similar approach as the game focused on the horrors of war and made gamers think twice about killing enemies. Even though Spec Ops was no technical marvel and had quite a few bugs, it managed to score
above average reviews because of its storyline alone.
The question is will Far Cry 3 be able to pull the same feat that Spec Ops did so flawlessly? Ubisoft is taking a risk with the story direction of the game as there are many gamers who only play games for personal gratification and don’t want to be bothered
with the moral dilemmas in the story.
Gamers will have to wait until the game is released on November 30, 2012 to see if the formula is a hit or a miss.
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