Games
The must-haves that’ll make Avalanche Studios’ new-gen sequel a GTA-beater.
Avalanche Studios and Square Enix have officially announced Just Cause 3 – the PS4, PC and Xbox One-bound sequel to one of the maddest, biggest and most physics-defying sandbox games ever made. Only, they've already shot it in the foot. In a recent interview with Game Informer, Avalanche's CCO Christofer Sundberg revealed that JC3 will arrive bereft of a multiplayer mode. That's despite the roaring success of the fan-made PC multiplayer mod for its predecessor. Insane, right?!
To help steer the dev team in the right direction, we've plucked out the best bits from JC3's many rivals to create a feature rich wishlist – all the elements it needs to borrow to be crowned the best open-world title around. Here's our recipe for sandbox success...
Multiplayer mayhem
Let's get this one out of the way first: Just Cause 3 is screaming out for online multiplayer. Watch five seconds of footage of the hundred-player madness to be had in the JC2M mod and you'll know why. Grappling Boeing 747s to fighter jets as a team, participating in mass skydives, and running amock among an incomprehensible swarm of gunfighting anons all make Just Cause 2 worth the price of entry alone.
Avalanche has said there'll be nothing stopping PC gamers modding Just Cause 3 in the same way, but why should they have to? And what of poor console gamers? To us, not including online play out of the box seems like a good way to turn down boatloads of cash.
First person mode
Why so much fuss over the re-release of GTA V? It's not because of a few smoother textures and some slightly prettier virtual vistas, we can tell you – it's the inclusion of a fully-featured first-person view. Check out any of the clips emerging online and one thing becomes immediately clear: playing GTA through the eyes of your chosen protagonist is a completely new, and far realer, experience.
High-speed crashes become horrific, windshield-smashing shocks to the system instead of mere annoyances. Shootings take on a harrowing new level of immersion, and jumping from the top of Mount Chiliad will flood your system with adrenaline. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Just Cause 3's insane breed of impossible, OTT action would melt our synapses in first person, which makes it a must.
A stellar cast
Can you remember the name of any of the characters in JC2 other than Rico Rodriquez? Us neither. It may well have been intentional, but Just Cause 2's laughable B-Movie voice acting, and the oft-repeated civilian quips, all felt a bit old school in a world where few AAA games release without a celebrity voice or two in their roster.
We're fine with Robin Atkin Downes reprising his role as our square-jawed hero, but it'd be nice to see JC3's supporting cast gain an extra dimension by way of a smorgasbord of cameos from top vocal talent and Hollywood stars. Think something along the lines of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe in Beyond: Two Souls, rather than a laundry list of also-rans and dodgy accents. Put it this way, if we have to hear the police scream "He's got me with his wire thing!" ever, ever again, we're out.
Easter eggs galore
Just Cause 2 was no slouch when it came to littering its gargantuan map with secrets. There was the 'Lost' island that downed any plane you flew towards it, the enormous steam-punk settlement buried with its own optional missions, and erm… the bubble gun. But this is 2014, and Rockstar has seriously upped the ante. Head to any GTA V forum and you'll still see people scratching their heads over the year-old secrets of the 'Chiliad Mystery' – a cryptic set of messages atop the game's tallest mountain that no one knows how to solve.
And Avalanche could learn a thing or two here. While Just Cause 2's map was big, beautiful and varied, it did fall foul to an old sandbox trope of filling in the gaps between settlements with immense stretches of barren, boring, repeating textures. We reckon Just Cause 3 can rectify this with clever use of hidden trinkets and the odd wild goose chase.
More varied missions
Head to base X, shoot everything that so much as blinks, capture base X, repeat. That was the way of things in JC2. Thankfully, the near limitless possibilities for mayhem proffered by the game's mechanics made up for that stale mission design, but this time around we need to see some more inspired set pieces for Rico to smash his way through.
We want to embark on huge heists and epic cross country races, complete high profile assassinations, and stealthy, silent takedowns. Essentially, we want some reason to be bothered to complete the story at all, rather than just muck about in the tropical topology – especially in the absence of a multiplayer mode. When it comes to missions, the Saints Row series gets things exactly right.
Indoor action
In JC2 we could count on one hand the times Rico ventured indoors. A few lovingly designed interior shooting, stealth or platforming sequences would not only spice up Just Cause 3's level design, but they would force Avalanche to dramatically improve the way our protagonist moves around his environment. It's one thing to jump off a cliff, parachute down and grapple onto a passing car, but Rico has always been rubbish at the finer things in life, like shooting from well-thought-out vantage points, or running from cover to cover to avoid gunfire.
JC2's Rico was a glider, rolling effortlessly across the ground like a leathered-up tank, and doing so with only a handful of animations. But if Just Cause 3 took us into some uniquely designed interiors brimming with chest high walls and patrolling guards, we'd appreciate the vastness of the outdoor antics even more. And it would force some cleverer movement mechanics to boot. If Avalanche looked to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series for inspiration here, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Destroyable environments
Remember that building collapse scene in Battlefield 4? It's one of modern gaming's finest large scale set pieces, and it really leaves its mark. For Just Cause 3, we want to see more of that, and we want to see it every five minutes. Imagine a cross between the blasse environment-crushing antics found in the arcadey Mercenary games and the impactful, scary sequences that new-gen can provide.
Sound good? Let’s go even further. Picture a choice-based system cooked right into the foundations of Just Cause 3's monster Mediterranean map: if you choose to pummel a skyscraper so much that it crumbles, you might miss out on the missions, goodies and whole storylines that nestled inside it while it gets rebuilt. And each time you revisit that area, construction of the replacement tower inches further and further into the sky. Maybe we're asking too much, here. Or maybe we're right on the money? Only time will tell...
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