Far Cry 3 Preview

Earlier this year Game Rant visited Ubisoft Montreal for a presentation and preview of Far Cry 3's single-player campaign and while multiplayer was off-topic we knew it was coming and that it would embrace the core concepts of the campaign's design.

With Ubisoft bringing Far Cry 3 to PAX East this weekend (we'll be there!) so fans and press can get hands on with the game, the embargo has lifted on press sharing details and previews of Far Cry 3 multiplayer. In short, it looks enticing. Read on for a roundup of today's Far Cry 3 news which includes a detailed breakdown of gameplay mechanics and confirmations of a map editor and a companion app.

When introducing the game to us at Ubisoft's Montreal office, Producer Dan Hay prefaced our demo by breaking down the game’s three core concepts that form the key focus of the game’s development.

  1. At its core Far Cry 3 is a shooter.
  2. Open-world designs that emphasize the ability to take advantage of "360 degrees approach."
  3. The game’s reactive AI works for any gamer’s play style: "your battle, your fight, your way."

As evidenced in the gameplay video below from VG24/7, these three design goals are the focus of Far Cry 3 multiplayer as well.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-jo-AX_7V4

This particular video depicts Far Cry 3's domination mode, featuring the standard capture and defend, popular Call of Duty game type. The style of gameplay blends elements of the modern Call of Duty titles with Battlefield 3, but adds in more RPG elements.

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Another mode select press had the chance to play is Firestorm where there are two supply depots for each team on the map, and players must light the opposition's on fire. The trick is to get both fires lit at the same time before the fires diminish and when both are engulfed in flames, a new objective marker appears, revealing a radio beacon that players must capture (again, before one or both of the fires go out). If your team succeeds in capturing the radio while their depots burn, a plane will swoop by pouring gasoline on the fires, thus making your team the victors. If the other team captures it, a plane comes by and soaks the fires with water and you're back to step one.

  • Players can choose multiple classes.
  • Players can revive downed teammates.
  • Players can tag objectives, enemies, teammates to earn points to call in support.
  • Objective-based gameplay.
  • Open environments.
  • Upgradable weapons.
  • Team buffs (Battle Cry - buff depends on class)
  • End-game mocking of opposition's best player.
  • Kill cams that reveal enemy weapons and points of impact.
  • Multiple modes (including Domination and Firestorm).
  • For mature audiences only.
  • Multiplayer developed by Swedish Ubisoft Massive studio.

As demonstrated briefly in the video, the theme of insanity carries over from the single-player story to the multiplayer. Unlike other modern shooters, Far Cry 3 isn't limited by military realism or regulations, meaning anything goes when it comes to weapon designs, tactics and in this case, chemical weapons which can make players go crazy, killing their own teammates. Note the demons in the yellow haze after that barrel drops in the video above.

In an interview with GameTrailers, Game Designer Daniel Berlin explains that at the end of each match there's a chance to earn flash drives, which takes time decode. This allows players to find schematics for rare custom weapons - and the best part is that you can give them to your friend if it's not the type you prefer. These can be decoded in-game or using Far Cry 3's companion app. The app allows players on the go to trade weapons or use tokens to speed up the decoding process. You can even gift them to other players to help up their decoding.

There are other unannounced modes still to be shown at a later date and we hope some of them include the vehicles from the campaign.

For more in-depth details on Far Cry 3, read the following interviews:

Far Cry 3 will releases on September 6, 2012, for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

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Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Sources: GameTrailersPlayStation UniverseVG24/7