Kris Wall reports from EGX 2015…
Avalanche Studios sure do love their open world sandbox environments, with their Just Cause series and the new Mad Max boasting some absolutely massive environments for players to explore. However, Just Cause 3 might just be one of the most ambitious environments ever created in video games with over 400 square miles of the fictional island of Medici to run, drive and fly around. Avalanche Studios are also a hugely destructive bunch of folks and Just Cause 3 also looks to be taking that to a whole other level with the hugely impressive amount of destruction that series hero, Rico Rodriguez can rain down on the island.
From the moment I entered into the game, we were told there were no restrictions on where we could go in the demo and were encouraged to explore as much as we could in the 20 minutes we had. The first thing that struck me is just how impressively far Medici spread off into the distance in all directions around me through, villages and towns to mountain ranges and smaller islands out to sea, it was all accessible to me and I had just 20 minutes to see as much of it as I could as well as destroying as much of it as I could.
Luckily getting around Medici is a huge amount of fun and there’s seemingly no limit except your imagination for the ways in which Rico can explore the island. As well as driving and grappling around the place, Rico also has access to a parachute and an awesome wingsuit and I spent most of the demo time soaring over Medici without even touching the ground and it was a great feeling to plummet towards earth only to soar back up and over the land with the wingsuit. Considering he’s just one man, Rico seems to be able to command the ground, the roads and the skies with heroic ease.
Back to the destruction though. In the space of 20 minutes I managed to destroy a small village, a police station, several helicopters and high-end sports cars before turning my attention to bringing down a huge military installation, using my parachute and wingsuit to get high above it before bringing it down in an impressive shower of steel, concrete and fire. Besides his pistols, machine guns and rocket launchers, Rico now has access to a multi-tether cable which can be used for all sorts of creatively destructive results. Tether a car to the underside of a helicopter, you’ve got yourself a wrecking ball, tether a structure to itself and it’ll tear itself apart under the stress, tether a man to a gas canister, well that’s just some devilish fun now isn’t it. Just Cause 3 delights in giving gamers the keys to its kingdom and then letting their imaginations go absolutely wild with possibilities.
Pretty much everything in Just Cause 3 has been designed to make you look cool and feel awesome. By the end of the demo, I’d used my rocket launcher to take out an entire bridge while parachuting beneath it, soared through the air in a sports car while standing on its roof and assaulted a military base while hanging upside down beneath a helicopter. I’m not sure at the moment if there will be a coherent and compelling story to tie all this fun and destruction together but if you’re looking for an explosive sandbox to play around in, you might want to mark December 1st on your calendar.
Just Cause 3 is set for release on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC on December 1st
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=sbXoZXr2goI
Originally published October 3, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
