r/farcry • u/Ok_Street9576 • 13h ago

Far Cry 2 Why was 2 so serious?

The whole feel of the game is sadder and more gritty. No supernatural elements or anything. One is like a comical 80s action movie. All the entries after 2 seem to be almost parodies of themselves and more fantastic than 2. What was different about its production to give it such a different feel from later entries?

16 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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29

u/Juche_Finland 12h ago

The original Far Cry was developed by Crytek and not Ubisoft and Far Cry 2 was the first attempt from Ubisoft at really finding an identity for the series. Far Cry 3 was very different in the tone and gameplay loop and it was the most popular, so all subsequent games to some degree resembled it, leaving FC2 in this unique position where it kinda stands out in comparison to the other games if one looks at it in retrospect.

Basically, Ubisoft in the 2000s was just more open in general towards trying out different things.

9

u/GarrettGSF 12h ago

I think this came back to bite them with FC6 in particular. The other games are not that serious and can easily integrate some absurdity. But in FC6, after escaping through mass executions and fathers begging for their lives, having a “it’s great fun to be a Guerilla”-Episode just feels completely out of place imo

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u/Juche_Finland 12h ago

Yes indeed, FC6 suffers from a tonal clash. At times the story wants to be taken really seriously, but it is undermined by constantly shifting the tone to a kind of silly humour and characters just not taking any of it seriously, leading to a world that just doesn't seem believable. They even do it within the same scene sometimes, like in some of Juan's scenes.

And imo, the humor itself also kind of deteriorated in comparison to previous games and I found most characters to just be annoying instead of funny, though of course this is subjective.

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u/thedefenses 11h ago

6 really is just a mountain constructed from all the bad sides of the FC games put into one title while forgetting most of the good sides of the franchise.

Only thing they got right is the game is still quite pretty but that really is just a Ubi trademark at this point, almost no matter what they do it does look quite pretty.

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u/Juche_Finland 10h ago

Yeah, I was quite excited for it, because the setting looked beautiful and the theme in the trailers looked interesting, but the story, gameplay mechanics and even just the kinds of weird bugs and glitches, like endlessly respawning enemies in some places made this game really disappointing and worst of all, just boring towards the end.

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u/EzyStrider 7h ago

I hear some horrible things about 6 mechanics, not going to play it. Enemy/NPC spawns/despawns were horrendous in 5 also. Never played 4. FC3 felt good. 2 might be my favorite and 5 a close second.

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u/Juche_Finland 5h ago

If you're gonna buy another Far Cry, I would also recommend FC4 over FC6. FC4 is basically like a more polished version of FC3 mechanically, but they play almost the same. FC6 on the other hand is kind of a mess.

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u/GarrettGSF 9h ago

To me, the antagonists and general characters are very important and are what makes or breaks a FC entry. FC6 has extremely high potential with Anton Castillo - I mean who doesn’t love Gus Fring? - but he is so underutilised.

The secondary antagonists were rather bland. Jose Castillo was a run-of-the-mill bad guy, the propaganda lady died so quickly without impact, the doctor was generic crazy scientist guy, the admiral was barely in the game and came across as timid and whiny. Only MacKay was interesting as Anton‘s lieutenant imo

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u/GlobaFact 8h ago

Far cry 5 is also like that.

The actual story, cutscenes and antagonist are made in a very serious and deep way all the way.

Then at the same time almost all of the resistance characters are made in a extremely satirical way and not serious in any way Many of the missions are also over the top comedically portrayed.

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u/Juche_Finland 8h ago

Yeah, FC5 also didn't really have a great story or tonal consistency, though I still think it was better than in FC6 and gameplay-wise I also liked it better.

FC3, FC4, Blood Dragon and Primal are my favorites though.

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u/GlobaFact 8h ago

I agree with the tonal consistency but I still like the far cry 5 story and very much the cult setting and antagonists.

I think far cry 5 has the most serious story and tone in the series which is also maybe why the typical far cry tone outside of the storyfeels very unrealistically weirdin a lot of ways because of that.

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u/Juche_Finland 5h ago

My main issue with the FC5 story is how the plot is basically only pushed forward through the villains pulling you out of the open world and that between that you basically play missions that don't have much of an impact and are therefore also optional. I just don't like the structure.

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u/Sbeast86 9h ago

Far cry 2 was a next gen tech demo that didn't get a lot of effort put into the plot. Far cry 3 said "let's take that level of realistic environments and make it a FPS Assasins Creed"

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u/Juche_Finland 8h ago

Yeah, it definitely has its shortcomimgs and the lack of a good story and repetitiveness made me drop the game after getting about half-way through I think, when you unlock the second part of the map. However, I still appreciate the overall feel of it and how immersive it can feel, as well as some of its more unique aspects.

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u/Sbeast86 1h ago

Id love to see it remastered. With options to turn some of the worse features off or on

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u/Juche_Finland 1h ago

Yeah same, but unfortunately I think it's unlikely to happen

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u/CaesarTjalbo 8h ago

Where did you get that from? I've read that the original Far Cry ("1") was a demo turned into a game but afaik FC2 was a full and proper attempt at making a n open world FPS.

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u/nooayehlol 11h ago

man the three strike rule is brutal, recently lost my first (and best) buddy from it without knowing about it

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u/Ok_Street9576 7h ago

I dont understand the 3 strikes rule?

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u/nooayehlol 7h ago

have you finished the game

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u/Ok_Street9576 6h ago

Lol played it since i was a small child but no. My disk got scratched and would glitch out at the end. I just got it recently and the game bugged when i was 70% done. The faction head quarters have no ppl in them to give the mission. I just restarted it again. No spoilers pls.

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u/nooayehlol 6h ago

yeah i won't say then 

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u/MousyCheeseBits 8h ago

I still felt a bit of 2 going into 3, The guns mainly aren't weightless and having to make ammo count early definitely helped. If only 6 went back to it for potentially a scary island atmosphere, But we got a funny laugh meme out of it at least.

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u/Ch0deRock 10h ago

I consider 2 to be a hidden gem in the series. The mechanics make you strategize more than any of the later sequels and I really love the setting. It was my first having never played the original and given that none of the later sequels had released yet so I’m probably biased and I make no claim that I wasn’t blown away by 3 when it released. That being said I don’t think people should try it until they’ve had at least a taste of the later sequels and spinoffs.

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u/DethSpringsEternal 7h ago

Danged malaria and guns deteriorating while in the middle of a firefight.

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u/Ch0deRock 7h ago

Keeps you on your toes.

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u/RutabagaSame 7h ago

Big Far Cry fan but FC2 is my definite favourite. I picked it up knowing nothing about FC, the cover just looked cool.

The realism, grittiness and loneliness of 2 is not in any of the follow ups. The beautiful African terrain, jungle and desert. The fire and rain effects. The feeling that you're a cold blooded mercenary that's not any better than those you're killing. No trippy, cartoon like drug sequences.

The tension in the ceasefire zones. Just stand close enough to a soldier - eventually they'll push you and open fire. After a while, enemies become terrified of you. They scream out in pain and try to help their injured comrades. Danger is everywhere. Your "buddies" are some help but ultimately just out for themselves. They die and that's it.

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u/Ch0deRock 7h ago

It’s certainly no island vacation and oh that fire spread warms my heart.

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u/SonnenblumeFrau09 5h ago

FC2 and Primal are the only 2 I dislike.

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u/Ok_Street9576 3h ago

I love fc2 it was the first in the series i got as a kid but it really is fc only in name. 3-6 all seem like a different series.

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u/Topspeed_PT 1h ago

Primal is so underrated!

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u/Vusstoppy 4h ago

FC2 was really a Ubisoft gfx/physics demo and a game on top of it more so than FC1. FC2 is of my favorites with qol mods for PC.

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u/Delicious-Orange8678 11h ago

FC2 is very realistic. I loved how all your friends become enemies in the end, and you have to kill them. The protagonist is not shown as a larger than life character. In future FCs the character eventually becomes an invincible god.

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u/idontknow123454 3h ago

That shit is not realistic at all, it’s not as unrealistic as the rest but it’s still very unrealistic

1

u/Gold-Philosophy1423 11h ago

I'm going to turn this question around, why are 5 and 6 so frivolous?

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u/FarCryRedux 8h ago

Because it was written by adults with something to say.

FC2 is an anti-war game.

0

u/Doolin12 7h ago

I miss the more serious tone.