Why did we never think of this before? Attack dogs are SO 2005, it’s all about angry badgers [That’s so 2011 -ed.] attempting to aggressively acquire your watch now. At least that’s what I’m taking away from the latest Far Cry 4 trailer, which gives a quick tour of the fictional Himalayan region where the game’s set. Don’t worry, it’s not all cute animals, there’s plenty of knife-stabs, gun-shoots and elephant-tramples to go along with that little guy.
Bonus points for totally unironic use of the term ‘death zone.’ And giant tigers helping you through what seems to be a stunningly bad trip. It looks like the tiger will be an ally as you re-enact a legend from the land’s past, going by a short peek of it during Sony’s Gamescom briefing this week. The esoteric design and otherworldly nature of the whole thing is similar to the hallucinations that made up part of Far Cry 3’s main storyline.
There was also a brief bit of co-op goodness shown. One particular moment when a player used the elephant he was riding to alley-oop a soldier towards his friend’s waiting shotgun was a bit of a highlight. Co-op will make anything fun, but the more ridiculous concepts – and you can get a LOT of ridiculous concepts into games as large and ambitious as Ubisoft ones – the better. Now, if I could be the tiger, that’d be really something.
All this and probably some sort of mechanic where you climb a tower and reveal the surrounding area on your map will be available November 18th.
15/08/2014 at 10:05 frightlever says:
Someone is unfamiliar with Gnomoria’s honey badgers – capable of reducing a starting colony to a bloodied mess.
15/08/2014 at 10:57 MrFinnishDude says:
Gnomoria? Blegh.
What about the Fabled elephant? The horrifying carp? Or the most terrifying, GIANT SPONGE!
Although honey badgers still don’t give a shit.
15/08/2014 at 12:13 frightlever says:
Well yeah, DF has badgers AND honey badgers but Gnomoria has them by default every game – although these days the entire of Gnomoria could be described as by default because the game design basically insists that you play it a certain way or get punished. I don’t much like what Gnomoria has become. About ready to get back into DF2014, assuming Therapist is up and running.
Oh, and carp got nerfed years ago.
15/08/2014 at 10:05 FurryLippedSquid says:
I want it, I want it!
15/08/2014 at 10:08 Freud says:
“Pre-order now for a free upgrade to the limited edition. Includes three extra story missions and a bonus impaler harpoon gun”.
15/08/2014 at 10:15 jeeger says:
Read your comment, thought: Heh, funny.
Watched movie. Really? An impaler harpoon gun? Going the Just Cause 2 route, I see.
15/08/2014 at 10:11 rustybroomhandle says:
My sincerest apologies, but this just had to be posted again:
15/08/2014 at 10:20 The First Door says:
By not recognising that clip, I feel like I’ve missed something… quite special!
15/08/2014 at 10:35 FurryLippedSquid says:
I also have no idea what that is from or why it is popular.
15/08/2014 at 12:12 LionsPhil says:
link to en.wikipedia.org
It’s parodying (the clue being that Weird Al is involved) an old western.
In fact, it’s apparently notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. High praise indeed.
15/08/2014 at 12:15 LionsPhil says:
Fuck this comment system. It won’t actually let me give you the answer, even one link at a time.
But it’s Weird Al parodying an old western. Look at the Wikipedia articles for “UHF (Film)” and “Stinking badges” (no, seriously), and YouTube video VqomZQMZQCQ.
15/08/2014 at 13:00 Jason Moyer says:
The actual “we don’t need no steenking badges” line is from Blazing Saddles (which was a reference to that bit from Treasure Of The Sierra Madre).
So that video is basically a reference to Weird Al referencing Mel Brooks referencing an old western.
15/08/2014 at 12:10 SIDD says:
“By not recognising that clip, I feel like I’ve missed something… quite special!”
Indeed you have .. It’s Weird Al’s movie UHF …
link to imdb.com
15/08/2014 at 10:16 GenBanks says:
So Shangri-La is where you go to have a terrifying hallucinogenics trip? Sounds more like Glastonbury than Tibet.
15/08/2014 at 14:13 SuicideKing says:
I don’t know why the fuck they’re putting that part in. I really don’t want to play that (hated those sections in FC3). Plus i’m sure it’ll not be accurate at all (in a mythological context), so that’ll piss me off too.
Shame, I was interested in playing the game.
15/08/2014 at 16:26 Reavergold says:
You’re still going to play it.
15/08/2014 at 10:25 Crazy Hippo says:
Badgers, badgers…. link to youtube.com
15/08/2014 at 10:35 FurryLippedSquid says:
When was a snake thrown in to the mix?!
15/08/2014 at 11:44 Harlander says:
Nepal has a lot of venemous snakes, and when I was looking for info about them, I found the story of a Nepali man who bit a snake to death. Holy hell!
15/08/2014 at 10:42 Okami says:
They better not make me have to kill badgers!
15/08/2014 at 12:16 frightlever says:
Would it help if you thought of it as culling?
15/08/2014 at 15:49 Vacuity729 says:
There’s a mission where you have to prevent a foot and mouth outbreak from decimating a farmer’s herd of yaks. Sadly, even though you kill every badger in the game, it doesn’t stop the yaks from yakking.
15/08/2014 at 10:54 NonCavemanDan says:
I’m hoping for a touch of The Man Who Would Be King when it comes to the main villain. Also, games – stop tempting me to upgrade my brick of a computer to make you look that pretty!…because I can’t afford to :(
15/08/2014 at 19:21 maninahat says:
I think that’s the idea. They took note of the criticisms of the previous game (the protagonist becoming the mightey whitey king of the helpless stereotype natives) and have made them the subject of this game (by making him the villain instead). I don’t think it’ll be quite as good as Far Cry 2 was about discussing racism, but here’s hoping.
16/08/2014 at 04:20 KenTWOu says:
The protagonist was used as a tool by these sneaky natives.
16/08/2014 at 13:12 Universal Quitter says:
Isn’t the villain supposed to be at least half Chinese?
15/08/2014 at 10:57 Syra says:
What’s the deal with the obviously african sounding narrator in a north indian/nepalese setting?
15/08/2014 at 11:09 GenBanks says:
Sounds kind of hybrid African/Nepalese to me… Then again I suppose Far Cry 3 was set in South-East Asia and had a main character who was Liberian. And indigenous people with Australian accents.
15/08/2014 at 11:44 JFS says:
It’s called globalization.
15/08/2014 at 14:00 GenBanks says:
Soon we will all speak in hybrid African-Nepalese accents
15/08/2014 at 14:19 celticdr says:
Kiwi accents bro.
15/08/2014 at 19:23 maninahat says:
far Cry 3 has some really confusing geography. The Japanese remnents and use of Malay suggest a Malaccan setting, but the tribes and some of the accents sound like they are meant to be Maori.
15/08/2014 at 12:14 Orija says:
Better an African accent than an Indian one.
15/08/2014 at 14:09 SuicideKing says:
I have no clue, but the western pop culture seems convinced that people from the subcontinent sound like that. *sigh*.
15/08/2014 at 11:03 strangeloup says:
It’s making me think of Uncharted 2 an awful lot — except FC4 is first person, obviously — which isn’t particularly a bad thing. Certainly looks quite promising.
15/08/2014 at 11:19 Volcanu says:
To be fair the term ‘ The Death Zone’ is well established in mountaineering, so I’m willing to give them a free pass on that one.
Given the fact that if anything goes wrong above 8,000m you’re more or less f*cked- it’s one of those rare occasions when such a term isn’t really hyperbole.
15/08/2014 at 13:26 Vulgar_Monkey says:
Admittedly the death in the death zone is usually caused by oedema rather than bullets, but y’know, videogames.
I’m not sure how a developer would make drowning on your own bodily fluids a valid game mechanic, but I suppose that never stopped them with malaria in fc2.
Mind you, it’s a good excuse for the hallucinations. Maybe that’ll be some big plot twist – you’ve been slowly dying from malacclimatisation the entire time due to running around like an idiot. :D
15/08/2014 at 11:27 Mogglewump says:
I’m really hoping that there are no achievements or requirements to kill any animals. There seems to be a worrying trend in gaming these days towards killing animals for the sake of progress which I find quite off putting.
15/08/2014 at 12:20 LionsPhil says:
I dunno about that being a recent trend; Lara Croft has been trying to finish off endangered species since day one.
15/08/2014 at 14:10 derbefrier says:
You do realize these animals are not real.
15/08/2014 at 14:18 SuicideKing says:
Yeah but I find people in real life are more likely to not care about killing animals, when compared to people. So not sure if it’s a trend that we should be reinforcing, I didn’t like it in FC3 either.
I mean, considering animals have been and are killed for sport, gamifying their killing again, even virtually may not be the best idea.
Not sure it’s that big a deal, though.
15/08/2014 at 15:14 derbefrier says:
Its not. Killing aninals in a game isn’t going to make me want to go deer hunting anymore than killing humans in a video game makes me want to go out make make Hard Target a real thing.
15/08/2014 at 19:53 Arglebargle says:
Killing animals helps when the game goes to the rating board stage. Wiping out anything besides humans apparantly makes the boards happier. Hence ‘Decimate Robots/Zombies/Demons, etc.’
16/08/2014 at 13:19 Universal Quitter says:
I’m no hunter, but shouldn’t we care more about killing people than animals? I mean, given a ludicrous forced “sadistic choice” scenario, I hope you’d put down the endangered white tiger over a presumably innocent human being.
15/08/2014 at 19:29 maninahat says:
I can understand why people would be uncomfortable about being encouraged to hunt endangered animals in games. Ubisoft games typically punish you for killing civilians and animals (like in the Call of Juarez and Assassin’s Creed games). But I think in the Far Cry games, were you typically inhabit the body of a morally dubious, clueless Westerner, being permitted to make Siberian tigers into purses seems consistent with the role and themes of the story.
Due to the relative dearth of decent hunting games, I’m all for being given the chance to hunt.
15/08/2014 at 11:29 Chaoslord AJ says:
Let’s not forget D&D, Neverwinter Nights 1&2 DIRE badger – standard tank for many 1st level mages. Anyway reading about climbing on towers to reveal the landscape sounds like the old boring AC / Farcry 3 formula yet again. How about you know hidden stuff which doesn’t show up on the map like in old times? Unmarked places of interest or is it too hardcore?
15/08/2014 at 12:29 int says:
Can we ride the tiger? I think I have the power.
15/08/2014 at 14:17 strangeloup says:
You can see his stripes but you know he’s clean.
15/08/2014 at 13:58 khalilravanna says:
This all seems really familiar. Different animals, different guns, different climate but it all just seems like a reskin of FarCry 3. Even the spiritual hallucinations bit is back. And the hang glider is just transformed into a wing suit.
15/08/2014 at 18:22 LennyLeonardo says:
Clearly you didn’t play more than half of Far Cry 3. Then you’d realise that you are right. Um.
15/08/2014 at 15:07 rpsKman says:
Can you turn off the story in this one?
15/08/2014 at 15:54 gorice says:
I’ve had a wary respect for badgers ever since I had an especially traumatic experience with one in Unreal World.
15/08/2014 at 17:38 mpk says:
Sayin nuthin
15/08/2014 at 23:09 unit 3000-21 says:
Wow, a Postal 3 reference – now that’s what I call obscure.
16/08/2014 at 11:21 Kong says:
“Hey warrior, death and honour. When you have killed another thousand men you may fuck me eventually. Kill your loved ones and do not barf when skinning another tiger. Blablabla”
FC 3 was fun, although its principle design idea seemed to be to avoid greatness.
Hopefully FC 4 does not have a pubescent writer making up fantasies for just mature gamers. And better UI, please, yes? No?
“ugh, skinning animals. Gross!”
17/08/2014 at 08:03 iMagiNation says:
“an ally”, not “a ally”.
sorry, those always bug me.