Emergent gameplay and the series of things that can get triggered all of a sudden as you explore the world became a staple of the Far Cry franchise for several entries now. You saw things going too crazy when trying to take an outpost, or perhaps unexpected consequences when dealing with the wildlife. Now with Far Cry 6, and as we were talking to its world director precisely, we wanted to learn how is the game evolving in this beloved aspect.
"With Far Cry 6, we really wanted to concentrate the open world, feeling like it is running by itself", explains Ben Hall in the Gamereactor video interview below. "So you are, as a character, as Dani Rojas, you're in this world, you're a local Yaran, but we did not want the world to feel like it revolved around Dani. It was really important to make sure that there are other people and other things happening in the world".
"And for the first time ever, we have brought the holstering system", he continues, "which really means you can actually take in the world in a whole new light. So you can put your weapons away and, as long as you are not in a zone that's restricted by the military, you can actually pretty much go undetected so you can see things that are happening in the world and choose whether or not you want to interact with it. Therefore, you can actually see the military maybe they're harassing some of the guerrillas that they have found and then you as a player can choose whether is the right moment for you to get involved with that and try and help those people. Helping them might end up getting you some really useful information that it is going to help you progress on your journey or on your path. Or you can actually decide that right now I am not ready for that, I am not tooled-up for that, I do not have the right tool for that job. So I am just kind of keep to myself and bypass that. It really brings a new notion to the way you can explore the open world because you can take in a lot more of Yara".
All in all, according to Hall, the key was to "put the emphasis onto making sure that we've got all of those anecdotal systems functioning and running. With the wildlife system you get to see the predator and the prey, you can scout that out, you can scope it out now for much more time you could previously. It really allows the world to feel like it is rich, it is diverse and it is constantly moving".
How does Yara look to you as an action-packed open world so far? Far Cry 6 releases October 7 on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series.