How Far Cry 2 Made War Boring

Hey, I don't hate Far Cry! Just bad stories ;)

In my last article, I expressed disappointment with Far Cry 3's inability to make the story and gameplay work together, and it ended up being a fun game with a story that just doesn't work with the gameplay. This is very often the norm in video games, however. You'll get a dramatic cutscene about how this is a life and death scenario, and then you'll take 30 bullets to the face and not die. However, the reason I took such issue with Far Cry 3 in particular was that this series had already gotten it right.

But before that, just a quick disclaimer: please play Far Cry 2 first. If I tell you what it's all about the effect will be ruined. Just go in blind and you'll get it. Maybe.

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Far Cry 2 is an anti-war game to it's very core. Everything from the story to the gameplay is perfectly in tune with what it wants to do, in stark contrast to Far Cry 3. This is pretty much the best execution of an anti-war message I have ever seen. It doesn't make any grandiose statements. It just is, and it's a hell of a thing.

Far Cry 2 is all about war. From the moment you start the game you hear about war. You're shot at 5 minutes in. You can't go more than a few meters between soldiers. The region's very identity has been erased and replaced by war. It's all you do in gameplay, it's what all the missions are about, you cannot escape war.

Already we can see that it's doing much better than Far Cry 3. That game is unable to reconcile the difference between the player and story, constantly talking up how violence consumes while giving the player total control over everything. Fary Cry 2 keeps it constant. The game is about war, and thus the story follows. It's certainly an easier line to toe than 3, but it achieves what it sets out to do.

That's about where I stopped with 3, since if a game fails there it can't really go much farther. However, 2 does indeed go one step further. It's one thing to have the gameplay and story work together. Plenty of games do this. It's another thing entirely to make the game convey a message through all this.

Because Far Cry 2 can get pretty dang boring. Enemies never run out and you need to clear camps every. Single. Time. You move through them. Missions never change much either. You'll run a gun related mission to unlock more stuff in the shops. You'll constantly get in and out of cars looking for meager handfuls of diamonds.

And it's not like the region will ever change, either. It's not like you're able to change anything. At the end of the day, everyone will shoot at you, no matter what. You can get to a new area, but that doesn't change anything, just expands it. You can run mission after mission, and nothing, nothing, will change.

I hope you're seeing my point. This is all very intentional. That's very often a defense thrown out for bad game design (I am looking SQUARELY at you MGS4), but Far Cry 2 gets it right, oh so right. The reason this simply isn't sloppy game design is that it follows the story and tone very tightly, to such an extent that this simply had to have been intentional. The entire plot is tedious and barely changing. The soldiers are hard to tell apart. And it's not like anyone goes about being happy or optimistic. This tone was taken very seriously, and reflected right in the gameplay.

It's not always going to be a fun game! It's really not! You'll grind through camps forever. Maybe you'll get a terrible sniper rifle or an awkward mortar. Maybe you'll get a slightly different pistol. It's all the same in the end, though.

Far Cry 2 makes war just so fucking boring. And I think that is the most powerful thing about this game. You can fixate on the gunplay, the fire physics, or the story, but at the end of the day, this is a game hellbent on showing you the crushing awfulness of war through a feeling common to many games: boredom.

You hear a lot about boredom in war stories. Look at any interview with a soldier and they're likely to talk about the crushing boredom inherent to war. It's not like games portray. It's not adrenaline pumping action, it's a whole lotta waiting. Far Cry 2 knows this.

But what if you push through all that? Surely, if you push through and kill the Jackal, the supposed source of this conflict, it'll all be over, right? Only it turns out the Jackal is on your side, you've been flaring tensions up for nothing, and in the end to actually help people the Jackal is going to have to die. Oh, and even if you somehow make it out alive you have malaria and are going to die anyway. Fuck you.

War consumes everything in Far Cry 2. It consumes the characters, the region, the game characters, and perhaps even your fun in the end. It's got a clear message and intent, and every element of the game works with it. Far Cry 2 is a sterling example of how to weave the gameplay and story, and I do hope more people take a close look at it.