Far Cry 2 is considered to be a cult hit nowadays. While most gamers might not care for it as much, fans of simulation games with a lot of exploration do not mind spending hours exploring the world of Far Cry 2. The game was a decent success too; its last recorded sales number was 2.9 million. And Ubisoft considered it a decent hit.
Besides featuring a very rough location that tested gamers at every step, this game also did away with a bunch of other shooter conventions. It did not have a mini-map, which had become the norm in open-world games back then. One can say that Far Cry 2 was without a doubt a unique game that deserved all the success it got. Given how its director thought back then, it makes sense they made such a game.
Far Cry 2’s game director made some accurate predictions about the future of shooters
Back then, Far Cry 2 was not the blockbuster it had set out to be. It sold a respectable number of copies, and it earned its publisher a decent amount. Its critical reception was also pretty good; everyone was praising it for its visuals and immersive ideas.
But there were games that were going in a separate direction altogether. The biggest example of that was none other than Call of Duty. Modern Warfare had recently launched, and it had become a phenomenal success. The game singlehandedly made its franchise a blockbuster.
Back then, Ubisoft was interested in doing its own thing, and that’s indeed what they did. The development of Far Cry 2 was well underway; it was an open-world first-person shooter. A game where players explore remote African locations and deal with a disease their character suffered from.
The game’s director, Clint Hocking, was then asked by an interviewer about the state of linear shooters and open-world shooters. He was asked if linear shooters had a future or not. His answer was, without a doubt, very interesting.
“My feeling is, tightly controlled and scripted ‘cinematic experiences’ like CoD4 will always remain competitive, but that the number of studios who can deliver this level of polish will diminish rapidly. I think the environment will become even more competitive than it is now.”
It turns out he was right; the guy predicted it right on the money. Linear shooters were a success. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released in 2009 and took the world by storm. The series became a force of nature that could not be defeated.
But still, there are very few studios around the world that actually create such experiences. Machine Games, ID, Activision, and EA are some of the examples of studios and developers that release linear first-person shooter games nowadays. Otherwise, the market is crowded with open-world experiences.
While he created Far Cry 2, Clint Hocking failed to save Watch Dogs
Fans must be aware by now that Ubisoft has decided to put the Watch Dogs franchise on hiatus. This is said to be a result of the failure that Watch Dogs: Legion met. It was an incredible game in many ways. Its visuals were pretty good, and its gameplay was engaging in many ways.
One thing that developers saw as its USP was instead this game’s doom. They made it possible for gamers to recruit anyone they saw as a hacker and play with them. While it sounded good on paper, its implementation was not so good; those characters felt paper thin, taking away one prime thing from this game: an interesting protagonist.
Clint Hockings was brought in to save this franchise, but he seemingly failed big time. Maybe they overlooked the importance of an interesting protagonist in a game and decided “play as anyone” to be its USP.
Now rumors say that Ubisoft is also in the process of reinventing the Far Cry franchise with its seventh installment. It remains to be seen how good that game ends up being.
