Revealed a few weeks before the start of E3, Far Cry 4 will not be (no pun intended) a far cry from its 2012 predecessor.  While the potential for having a gorgeously stunning environment has endless bounds – being set in a fictitious Himalayan mountain region in Nepal – there seems to be have been more of a focus on adding to the gameplay, and adapting for the new surroundings, as opposed to major refinements or changes.  We were fortunate enough though, to get to play the new co-op mode with the game’s developers at this year’s E3 conference.

As shown at the Sony press conference, players in Far Cry 4 will be able to call on a co-op player to tackle some of the game’s challenges.  Here, the dev joined me to help conquer the fortress from the demo. There were three options to doing so: stealth, ride and fly.  Stealth was my preferred method of attacking outposts in Far Cry 3, and the fortress (a more heavily guarded and harder to scale outpost) certainly proved more challenging when attempted by stealth.  Guards are much more heavily equipped and it would have been much harder to enter had it not been for the addition of a grappling hook.  Given the mountainous terrain, this seems like a prudent and intelligent addition to the game.

While you could drive into outposts in previous games, none allowed you to storm them on the back of an elephant.  Yep, the pair of us scaled ‘dumbo’ and ‘stampey’ – conveniently sitting outside the fortress – and rode them straight through the gates of fortress.  They had excellent ‘durability’, actually controlled quite well and packed a mean punch when charging into cars or running over enemies.  Maybe the specific environment was conducive to it, but the potential destructibility was a little on the lower side.  For example, you couldn’t run through wooden fences.

As seen in the press conference footage, you can man a gyrocopter, take the skies and deliver retribution from above.  I had suggested that we play ‘Flight of the Valkyries’ while manning our assault but it doesn’t seem this will get through to the final game…  Still, it was fun to rain down a valley of grenades into the fortress and watch the enemies scramble.  However, once more reinforcements were called in and the gyrocopter substantially damaged, we retreated for a bit, then made a final push while carrying grenade launchers.

Oh and if you needed one more thing to sell you the game – it has HONEY BADGERS in it!  That is all…

Ahem… in any case, the time with Far Cry 4 did not giv e any indication whether issues such as the unbalanced progress would be resolved.  However, it did show off some amazing landscapes and something that is more exciting than the spiritual story set against another deranged sociopath (now voiced by Troy Baker).  That is, the penchant for wonton destruction and chaos through a variety of means and the randomness around every corner.