ELEPHANTS
Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson told OutsideXbox that a C4 upgrade lets you stick the explosives on random surfaces. For example, you can stick C4 on the back of an elephant and then set it on enemies. Once the elephant reaches the hostiles, you can detonate the explosive.
The elephant is ride-able and can be used as a battering ram, it will mow down enemy soldiers, smash through doors and smack vehicles out of it's way - possibly the most powerful weapon in the game when alive.
You simply walk up to an elephant where you will receive a prompt - that allows you to mount the animal and from there you control the direction the animal goes in - You can also shoot while riding the animal.
It is possible to get more than one elephant to cause carnage, but make sure they are attacking your enemies and not you - as for skinning these animals (with the Elephant they can be killed but not skinned)
Wingsuit is back and with it comes the new grappling hook
Dan Hay says in an interview that in FC3 the wingsuit didn't become available until quite far through the story - this time around they will be available a lot earlier in the game.
With the new setting we can eventually get to heights of around 14 thousand feet where we can leap off and use the wingsuit from areas all around this new deadly playground.
This new grappling hook will help us to get around some of the more difficult areas that we will encounter.
It is now possible to move across specific areas designed to work with the grappling hook, you can climb up / down or move from side to side & when needed swing to the other side.
KICK
This new feature allows us to kick things over, so far we have only seen this new feature work with barrels - you can place C4 onto a barrel
then kick the barrel into the direction of the enemy
with a bit of luck if you get the timing & direction right you might take out all 3 below.
A question would be "does Kick work in MP and can we use C4 in MP" ?
BUZZER & GUNS FOR HIRE
The above image is from this new COOP session which has been shown called "Guns For Hire" basically one other player can be invited into your game in the single player world, all missions and progress stops and you are both free to roam around and have a tear up coop style.
The new flying machine is referred to as the BUZZER, one player flies it and another can climb on it seems
I am sure we will be able to drop Molotov and C4 packages down on people and also shoot any other weapon from up in the sky.
If you are on PS3 or PS4 and have Playstation Plus you can be invited into a game of FC4 via the Keys To Kyrat method which is exclusive to Sony's platform - it involves a rather large download but the length of time they say will be significant enough for you to make your mind up on the game, Story Missions are locked but the open world is there to explore, you can also invite any player online to help you at any time in the single player game - if you are on your own this also works with A.I. but if you have been playing the single player game making sloppy / bad choices then the level of the A.I. might not be as helpful as you hoped.
In Coop we get to choose either Ajay Ghale or Hurk (who was in FC3)
Check out the sounds at 02:15 when the Buzzer get's damaged with white smoke pouring out - very nice.
WILDLIFE
There is talk of a snow leopard, honey badgers, Demon Fish and many more new additions - the one that could be seen in some of the E3 videos is this Eagle.
We can now be attacked from above by these birds apparently.
This I found very interesting, a bird just swoops down and grabs what looks like a goat and then carries it away - all non scripted, the animals can be in the right area and they do their own thing.
Is that a Honey Badger attacking Hurk in the image above ?
New Weapon
The crossbow is a new weapon which fires 2 arrows at a time, looks great.
The Bow is still in the game and has been confirmed so fear not
The Harpoon Gun which was featured as a Bonus when purchasing the game at some retailers, I am sure this will become available at some point in the game anyway.
As DLC in Far Cry 2 (Fortunes map pack) we got a similar Sawn Off Shotgun - loved that weapon for any close up action - glad to see it back.
The Mortar returns (I loved this in FC2 even though it was hard to aim)
Now things are so much easier as we get a birds eye view from above when firing so you can do some serious damage with this weapon if you need to.
I am sure there are a lot more new weapons in FC4 as well as some of the classics from the previous games.
New Grenade Launcher ?
Shooting While Driving
We can now shoot while driving which is how it used to be in the early Far Cry games, so expect the controls on driving to be a little different from FC2 / FC3 - This is excellent news, I believe the same applies to the enemy they can also shoot while driving - Some A.I. can swim and climb also so things should be a lot more interesting now.
Bait & Animals
To the left of the image above there is an animal entering the screen for some bait, this is something new which we can do in FC4 - Throwing down bait can attract different animals, it should be possible to get bait close to the enemy where they will be attacked if the right animal is in the area.
Weaponizing Animals
Weaponizing Animals: Each animal has the potential to be a toy – it’s up to the player to understand it and find out what they need to do to leverage it.
Posters
Looking at the poster above I think it says NO GOLDEN PATH
As Ajay explores and discovers more about Kyrat he becomes involved in the rebellion and The Golden Path, following in his parents’ footsteps. The rebels are willing and able but their leadership is divided and, through his actions, Ajay begins making choices which will steer the Golden Path towards the liberation of Kyrat, one way or another.
Maybe it's some form of Quest (removing the posters)
Mark Thompson spoke about the upcoming Far Cry 4 and some things the new locale allows for.
"We wanted to have an accompanying refresh in visuals for the environment, so we decided on the Himalayas," Thompson says.
"The world is a lot more vertical, [which] gives us a lot more new gameplay opportunities," he continues. "It allows us to add new features like the gyrocopter, the grappling or climbing system."
"Then every time you move to a new location in Far Cry, you have a new ecosystem. We have a new set of animals that bring their own unique opportunities. We have eagles now, so [players] will be vulnerable to attacks from above. [The verticality] adds another dynamic to the way the open-world is seen."
Thompson admits that this makes for some hilarious situations that simply weren't possible before.
"Sometimes you’ll [look into] the forest and you’ll see Molotov’s being thrown up in the air. It’s because an enemy is being attacked by an eagle, and he is trying to fight back with a Molotov." Thompson laughs, "You’ll then see the forest on fire."
These mountains are something that the team hasn't tackled before, and due to their commitment to a level of reality, players are going to have to make some preparations before scaling such heights.
"Later on when you start to get to the tops of those mountains, we start to play with the environment a little bit, we have lizards. Some places you even need to use oxygen to get to that altitude."
The Rickshaw one of the new vehicles seen in The Press Has Spoken video (below)
Far Cry 4 is Multi Platform on PC / Xbox One / PS4 / Xbox 360 / PS3
"The real difference between the two games, though, was in the visuals. The last-gen console versions were poor by comparison to the PC edition, with a shoddy frame rate, draw distance and noticeable audio compression, and while we didn't see PC at least on PS4 and Xbox One it's now jaw-dropping on a console"
Far Cry 4 Creative Director Alex Hutchinson gave quite a lot of new information on the game, during a podcast on Game Informer.
The map size is relatively the same square footage of Far Cry 3‘s rook island, however due to the mountainous regions, the map is far more dense than that of FC3.
The team behind Far Cry views the games as more of a series than a franchise, as it doesn’t need to worry about narrative baggage. This factors in to what Dean Evans and his team are doing. It might not be Blood Dragon 2, but rather something unexpected
When asked about temperature, Hutchinson said he would love to make an extreme Far Cry game akin to what the modding community might come up with. His ideas were you get hypothermia when in cold water, you contract diseases when certain animals bite you, permadeath, etc. However, the main game doesn’t have anything to do with these hardcore options, the team might consider making a mode for it if there is interest.
No sharks in FC4, but there are demon fish and honey badgers.
Thin air is a factor in some mountainous areas. You need to have oxygen in these areas, and you do not have much of it.
There is an avalanche setpiece in the game, but players can not trigger them freely.
When a player buys the PS4/PS3 version of FC4, they will get around 10 tickets called “Keys to Kyrat”,that you can give to friends. They will be able to download a limited version of FC4 that has all the co op content and everything but the single player content. They will only be able to play the limited version if you are playing the main version of FC4. Hutchinson is not sure, but Sony might implement a time box.
There’s no split-screen co-op.
There is a competitive multiplayer mode in FC4. No details were given. The team views FC3′s multiplayer as unsuccessful, but are using lessons they learned to hopefully build a fanbase with FC4‘s mp.
You will unlock the wingsuit pretty early into the game.
In some of the games cinematics, players can interrupt them with actions, however they player will not have a prompt to do so. These will be hidden. This was made to address Far Cry 3‘s quick time event-driven boss fights. Also, it sounds like there are no QTE’s in FC4.
You can throw grenades through enemy car windows while you are driving, and drive away.
Fire still spreads in Far Cry 4 like in previous games of the series.
You can turn off the HUD, and each element of the UI, like XP feedback, etc. It’s designed with the next gen consoles sharing features in mind.
There are multiple endings, but they are less clear than in Far Cry 3, so there’s no press LT for good ending, RT for bad ending.
You can pick sides with the different factions. This will effect relationships with different characters and can effect the endings.
You can reset outposts, but the team is giving a narrative reason for it.
KYRAT
Kyrat is the fictional Himalayan region in Far Cry 4. It is ruled by a despotic self-appointed king Pagan Min.
The name Kyrat actually seems to have been derived from the real name Kirat. The Kirāta (Sanskrit) is a generic term in Sanskrit literature for people who lived in the mountains, particularly in the Himalayas and North-East India
Kirat Chuli or Tent Peak is a mountain in the Himalayas. It lies on the border between Nepal and India.
In the trailer (Below), the people of Kyrat are shown to be speaking Hindi-Urdu, a lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent which actually should be Nepali (the national language of Nepal) which is different than that of Hindi-Urdu.
With Far Cry 4 taking place in Nepal, Ubisoft has opened up an entire new world according to narrative director Mark Thompson.
"Players will start off in the foothills, they will be more in the forest, and then as you progress more through the world, you’ll climb higher, higher and higher"
"Nepal itself goes from sea level to the highest mountain in the world in a tiny, tiny country, so we have that gradual progression."
Because of this, Ubisoft Montreal can differentiate each stage of the title's campaign.
"Our intention was that if you take a screenshot during hour one, five, ten, and then 35, the color palate, the architecture and the environment will look radically different."
Nepal will be about the same size as Far Cry 3 - the last experience in the franchise.
"The overall footprint is pretty much the same size as Far Cry 3, we've just added more to it," he continues, inferring that the added verticality allows for each square foot of the land to be utilized.
Ubisoft director explains why ‘Far Cry 4’ will not feature avalanches
What's the first thing you associate with mountains? Snow, heights, avalanches?
Is it possible for us to trigger avalanches, sending our foes running for their lives?
That thought proved to be a bit overzealous. Speaking with narrative director Mark Thompson, he lets us down easily, saying that doing so would be a waste of resources due to the immense amount of workload it would create.
"Yeah we have some moments where you have ledges you can interact with and fall down them, but we always try and focus on the systemic version,"
"Rather than a big avalanche set piece, they’re fun, but they happen once and that’s it, and as a developer you spend a million dollars and it’s gone."
The big issue for Thompson? The fact that developers can't control where the player is looking without taking all control away from them.
"Someone could be looking in the wrong direction [and miss it]. We never control the camera, so we focus more on making gameplay ingredients for those environments."
Regardless, if Far Cry 3 proved anything, it's that Ubisoft Montreal is prodigious at creating such awe-inspiring locales for players to explore. And with the migration to the Himalayas, that marvelous backdrop will be even closer to your fingertips.
The radio towers from Far Cry 3 have been replaced with Bell towers that players must work their way up in order to disrupt the radio broadcast across Kyrat. Activating these also helps players build their map of the country. “Pagan Min has attacked the historic cultural practices, silenced the bells, and taken them over for distribution for his propaganda radio,"
This concept piece (above) is an example of a shrine which players get to go inside and and explore. "This is a useful benchmark to the artist for testing lighting indoors,"
"In Far Cry you spend a lot of time outdoors, so that contrast when you come indoors has to be rich and it has to be interesting.”
Kyrat has a rich sacred history. One of the taglines that the team has explored is "Sacred is under attack." Throughout the game, players come across areas like this where both sacred and natural beauty intersect – then just over the hills they will encounter legends of Pagan Min’s royal army.
Work In Progress - More to be added soon.