Far Cry 2 is a 2008 first-person shooter game created by Ubisoft Montreal and released by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. A version for mobile phones was made and released by Gameloft. It is the second main game in the Far Cry series. The story takes place in a fictional African country caught in a civil war. Players control a hired soldier who is sent to kill the Jackal, a weapons dealer causing the conflict. Players explore an open world, complete missions for groups and allies called Buddies, and manage their character’s health and equipment. A multiplayer mode lets players compete in teams or individually.
The game took three and a half years to make. Design work began during the development of Far Cry Instincts (2005). Clint Hocking, the director, created the setting and design, aiming for more realism than the first Far Cry game (2004). The story and tone were inspired by the books Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. These influences showed how people might act to survive in difficult situations. The game used the Dunia engine, developed by Ubisoft based on the original game’s CryEngine. To improve realism, developers added features that let enemies and the environment react in real time. The music was composed by Marc Canham and includes vocals by Senegalese singer Baaba Maal.
Critics gave the game mostly positive reviews, praising its setting, open-ended gameplay, Buddies system, world design, and visuals. However, some criticized the writing, artificial intelligence, and technical problems. The game received many award nominations. By January 2009, it had sold nearly three million copies worldwide. Far Cry 2 is still noted for its ambition and survival mechanics. The team used feedback from this game to create Far Cry 3 (2012).
Gameplay
Far Cry 2 is a first-person shooter game where players control a mercenary in a fictional African country during a civil war. Players choose one of nine mercenaries to play as, while the other eight and some non-playable mercenaries appear in the world after the game begins. The game world includes many different types of land, such as deserts, savannahs, and jungles. The mercenary can use 30 different weapons, including pistols, assault rifles, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and mortars. A machete is also available for close combat. Many missions involve attacking or sneaking into enemy camps to collect supplies. Players can choose to fight directly or use stealth, with multiple ways to complete each mission.
After a tutorial, players can explore the open world freely, completing main story missions and side missions for the game’s major factions and a third group called the Underground. Other mercenaries in the world are called Buddies and can be found in settlements or captured by factions. Players can form relationships with two Buddies, who provide optional help during missions. If a Buddy is injured and not healed quickly, they will die and cannot be used again. Players can save their progress in safe houses captured from enemies. On PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, saves are only allowed in safe houses, while the Windows version lets players save anywhere. At safe houses, the mercenary can rest and advance time using a watch.
The mercenary’s health is shown as a bar with five sections, which slowly regenerates unless completely emptied. When health drops to one section, the mercenary enters a critical state, and a cutscene shows them treating their injuries. If the mercenary falls, their Second Best Buddy will try to save them, but if they are shot again, the game ends and must be restarted from an earlier save. Health can only be restored by picking up water bottles or using syrettes, which are limited in number. The mercenary starts the game with malaria, which causes disorientation and blurred vision at regular intervals. Malaria must be treated with medicine obtained by completing missions for the Underground. As the mercenary completes missions, their Reputation increases, unlocking more missions but also making the Underground less trusting and harder to gain medicine from.
The mercenary can move on foot, use bus routes between safe zones, or travel by vehicles like jeeps, quadbikes, boats, and a hang glider. Navigation tools include a map, GPS, and a device to locate blood diamonds, which are the in-game currency. Damaged vehicles must be repaired. Outside safe zones, the mercenary is attacked if enemies are nearby. The game features realistic physics, such as fire spreading or dust storms reducing visibility. Enemies react to the mercenary’s tactics and Reputation. Animals in the game can distract enemies and alert them to the player’s presence. Weapons and equipment are bought with blood diamonds or scavenged from the environment. Scavenged weapons degrade over time, eventually jamming or needing to be discarded.
The game includes a single-player campaign and a competitive online multiplayer mode where teams of up to four players compete for objectives. Multiplayer gameplay has six classes and uses the same physics and environment as the main game. Available modes include two types of Deathmatch, a Capture the Flag variant where players fight over a large blood diamond, and "Uprising," where team captains capture nodes. Matches are ranked, with rewards based on scores. All versions include a map editor for creating multiplayer levels, allowing players to design terrain, place buildings, and share maps online. Online functions ended in June 2021 when Ubisoft closed servers for older games.
Synopsis
After a rebellion against the old government of an unnamed African country, a civil war is happening between two groups from the rebel forces: the United Front for Liberation and Labour (UFLL) and the Alliance for Popular Resistance (APR). Both groups claim to support the people, but they harm and take advantage of civilians. The situation is getting worse because of the Jackal, a weapons seller who gives cheap, powerful weapons to both sides, breaking an agreement meant to stop the war. A hired soldier is sent to the country to kill the Jackal.
The soldier arrives in a town but becomes very sick with malaria. The Jackal criticizes him for failing but does not kill him, leaving him weak during an attack on the town. The soldier is saved by members of one of the groups and later works for both sides in an attempt to find the Jackal. He meets Reuben Oluwagembi, a journalist reporting on the conflict. After helping Reuben, the soldier gets malaria medicine from the Underground, a secret group that helps protect civilians from the UFLL and APR. During one mission to kill a leader of one group, the soldier’s employer tries to kill him, but the Jackal helps him escape.
Through conversations with the Jackal and recordings found in the game, it becomes clear that the Jackal is unhappy with the war and wants to stop both groups to protect civilians. The Jackal later asks the soldier to work together to save people. The soldier is ordered to kill the leaders of both groups. After completing this task, the Jackal tells the soldier that the groups are still harming civilians, either by killing them or trapping them in the country. The Jackal plans to bribe border guards to let civilians leave and use explosives to stop soldiers from chasing them. The soldier must choose between setting off the explosives, which would kill him, or bribing the guards and then killing himself, allowing the Jackal to take the other job.
After the story ends, the country becomes chaotic despite peace talks. Reuben shares his story on his blog, but the press ignores it. The Underground is praised for helping save civilians, and the Jackal’s body is never found.
Development
The original Far Cry game was created by Crytek using their own CryEngine and published by Ubisoft. It was released in 2004, the same year Crytek made a deal with Electronic Arts to develop a new game using CryEngine, which left them unable to work on future Far Cry projects. Ubisoft then made a deal with Crytek and bought the rights to the Far Cry game series. This allowed Ubisoft Montreal to create more Far Cry games for consoles using CryEngine technology. The goal for Far Cry 2 was to "revive" the Far Cry series by using a new setting and gameplay features. This change in direction was partly to avoid overlapping with Crytek’s new project, which was expected to have a similar tropical environment, and to move away from the original game’s console spin-offs, which had similar settings. The new setting and changes helped refresh the brand, which had lost popularity due to overuse of the original game’s ideas and tone. Many other games and media had also used a jungle island setting. The team spent a long time planning the game, with ideas for a sequel forming before the original Far Cry was released and concept work starting during the development of Far Cry Instincts (2005). Production took three and a half years.
Far Cry 2 was directed by Clint Hocking and co-produced by Bertrand Hélias and Louis-Pierre Pharand. Hocking joined the project after completing work on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, choosing Far Cry 2 as a break from the Splinter Cell series. The lead designer was Pierre Rivest, who found the project challenging because there were no other games to compare it to. Finding staff for the project was difficult because Far Cry 2’s development overlapped with two other large Ubisoft Montreal projects, Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Narrative designer Patrick Redding and Hocking agreed to focus fully on their vision, even if it was risky. The final team had over 150 members, which Pharand described as a major challenge.
When Far Cry 2 was first announced, it was planned only for Windows computers. After a media event in Leipzig, another team showed that the game could work on PS3 and Xbox 360. Impressed by their tests, the game was scheduled for those consoles. Another reason to support consoles was to help other Ubisoft games use the engine in the future and to push the limits of what was possible on consoles. While the console versions had technical limits due to fixed hardware, the Windows version had no such limits. Technical director Dominic Guay said the only real difference between the Windows and console versions was the graphics, with all other aspects being the same. The team also made sure the game was not too demanding on Windows computers, unlike Crytek’s Crysis, which was known for high system requirements. The PS3 version worried the team because it was difficult for third-party developers, but a dedicated programming team helped improve the gameplay on the console.
The team started with CryEngine technology but modified it to create an open world. They rewrote about 90% of the code, creating a new engine called Dunia. Engine development happened at the same time as game development, causing changes in the budget and gameplay adjustments. The goal was to create a square kilometer of game terrain in one day. They also designed a system called LivePosture to control how vegetation and the environment moved. Guay insisted on creating new design tools instead of using existing ones. The team used Procedural Data Generation to handle the game’s environment and reactions, saving time and reducing the engine’s workload. Guay planned to slowly introduce new staff to the engine to avoid problems from adding too many people at once.
Hocking and Redding created the game’s story, which connected to its setting. Unlike the original Far Cry, which was inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau and had a science fiction tone, Far Cry 2 was influenced by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now (1979). The goal was to create a darker, more realistic story. Some surreal elements were kept to support the game’s art style. A theme of Heart of Darkness is how far people will go to survive, and how they might become monstrous. Another influence was Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, where the main character resolves a deadly conflict. The game’s conflict was inspired by events in Nairobi, seen as a symbol of African conflicts. Voice actors from or near the ethnicity of in-game characters, such as South African actors for faction leaders, were used.
Unlike other games at the time, Far Cry 2 did not use traditional cutscenes or a strict path for players. Redding called this approach “dynamic story architecture,” aiming for a story shaped by the player’s choices. This required a dedicated narrative designer, and Hocking convinced Ubisoft’s management of the role’s importance. Redding focused on making the game world support the character’s journey into madness and violence, allowing players to fail at objectives without disrupting the story. The story’s progress depended on the player’s reputation, an “invisible counter” that influenced in-game events. Later, the team felt a relationship history matrix between players and NPCs might have worked better, but changes could not be made due to the game’s complexity. The narrative was described as an example of the team’s “all-or-nothing” approach, such as ensuring all twelve “Buddy” characters worked properly together.
The script was written by Susan O’Connor, who worked on games like BioShock, along with Armand Constantine and Ubisoft’s Kevin Shortt. Redding said O’Connor understood the challenges of writing for games compared to film or TV. The team worked closely to avoid unclear character motivations. To create the “Buddies,” Ubisoft brought in Malcolm Clarke, a filmmaker who made documentaries about African mercenaries. A key part of the design was giving faction leaders and lieutenants unique personalities, so their deaths affected the game world. Due to the game’s focus on hunting a target and fighting trained soldiers, the team ensured players could not open certain features.
Release
The first signs of Far Cry 2’s existence appeared in September 2006, when screenshots, artwork, and video footage from several games in development were shared online. The game was officially announced for PC in July 2007, though earlier hints were found on online store listings. Console versions were announced in January 2008. Because the game was very complex, the team decided not to create a demo but instead focused on improving the final product. To protect against piracy, the Windows version used a special software called SecuROM, which allowed the game to be installed on up to three devices, as long as older versions were removed first. The game worked with a Philips-made device called amBX, which used light and vibrations to make the player feel more immersed in the game world. Production ended on October 14, 2008, when Ubisoft Montreal said the game was ready for release.
Far Cry 2 was released in North America on October 21, 2008, followed by Australia on October 23 and Europe on October 24. Alongside the regular version, limited editions were sold in North America and Europe. A special version sold only through GameStop included a real-world map of the game’s world and six extra missions. A European version sold only through GAME included an artbook, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a guidebook, and the map. In 2014, the game was released again as part of a bundle called Far Cry: The Wild Expedition, which included all Far Cry games up to that time. It was also made compatible with the Xbox One in 2018.
The console versions were released in Japan by Ubisoft’s local team. The Xbox 360 version came out on November 21, and the PlayStation 3 version on December 25. The PC version, which had a translated manual, was published by E Frontier on December 12. A mobile phone version was made by Gameloft and released in 2008, after the PC and console versions. This mobile version was different, as it was a top-down third-person shooter where the player completed ten missions as a mercenary.
As part of PlayStation 3 promotions, themed environments based on Far Cry 2 were added to PlayStation Home. Ubisoft later updated the game so players could start multiplayer matches through Home. In November 2008, a downloadable content pack called “Fortune’s Pack” was released. It included three new weapons, two vehicles, and five new multiplayer maps. Between November 2008 and June 2009, Ubisoft released three software updates to fix bugs, balance gameplay, add a harder difficulty setting, and improve how the game used hardware. One update also allowed the PC version to run without needing the game disc.
A prequel novel titled Far Cry 2: Blood Diamonds was written by Michael Bhatty and released in Germany on May 21, 2008, by Panini Comics. The story follows a veterinarian named Paula as she survives a civil war after discovering important information. Bhatty wrote the book while also writing a novelization of the original game. The novel introduced characters like Marty Alencar, a playable mercenary, and Zam, an ex-CIA agent who only appeared in the book. Other characters from the game were also included. Bhatty used game materials to write the novel, though some details, like a character’s name, differed. These changes were explained as the character using a fake name for safety. All characters had names from Central and South Africa, chosen to match their roles in the story. The main character, Paula, was inspired by a character from the TV show Daktari and the video game character Lara Croft.
Reception
The Windows version of Far Cry 2 was the most sold game in North America during its first week. The 360 version ranked fourth, and the PS3 version ranked fifth. According to a report by the NPD Group, Far Cry 2 was the fifteenth most sold Windows game in November 2008. By November 12, the game had sold one million copies worldwide across all platforms. Sales increased to 2.9 million by January of the following year. Gaming journalists generally gave Far Cry 2 positive reviews. On the Metacritic website, the Windows and console versions received scores of 85 out of 100. These scores were based on 34 reviews for Windows, 49 for PS3, and 75 for 360.
Thierry Nguyen of 1Up.com said Far Cry 2 was one of the best shooters of 2008 despite some small issues with gameplay balance. Edge Magazine enjoyed the main gameplay and praised the twist ending for matching the game’s overall theme. Christian Donlan of Eurogamer described the game as "a game that was born to struggle with itself," noting that some elements did not fit well with its design. Matt Miller of Game Informer found the basic combat weak but praised the game’s design and player freedom, especially the emotional connection with the Buddies. Shaun McInnis of GameSpot was positive about the variety of content and freedom in missions.
GamePro gave the game a perfect score, calling it one of the best shooters on the market, though it noted that the game’s scale might be too much for experienced players. Dave Kosak of GameSpy praised the open combat design but criticized the difficulty of moving through the open world and the lack of clear character motivations. GameTrailers highlighted the game’s ambitious design and realistic feel, noting that it was enjoyable to play on both consoles and PC. IGN’s Charles Onyett praised the gameplay and graphics, giving the PC version a higher score due to better graphical performance. Leon Hurley of PlayStation Official Magazine – UK praised the game’s design and aesthetic, though he noted some technical issues and a lack of in-game guidance. Cameron Lewis of Official Xbox Magazine appreciated the variety of gameplay approaches. John Blyth of PC Zone was mostly positive about the game’s mechanics and design but criticized the voice acting and the behavior of non-player characters. Tim Edwards of PC Gamer praised the game’s world design and open-ended gameplay but found the story delivery underwhelming.
Most reviewers gave positive feedback about the game’s story and tone, though some noted issues with how the story was presented. The pace and tone of the dialogue were questioned by Miller, Onyett, and Blyth. The basic combat and open gameplay were generally praised. Reactions to vehicle travel and combat were mixed. The Buddies received praise for their role in both gameplay and storytelling. The malaria mechanic received mixed opinions, though Blyth and GameTrailers called it an innovative feature. Many reviewers criticized the AI for acting unpredictably. The multiplayer mode was generally seen as enjoyable but standard. The game’s visual style was appreciated despite some technical issues, though Donlan noted that some design choices clashed with the game’s realistic atmosphere. The PC version was praised overall, though all reviews mentioned that it required powerful hardware to run smoothly. The mobile version received favorable reviews, with Pocket Gamer calling it a strong game in its own right, and IGN enjoying it despite considering it less advanced than the console and PC versions.
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Far Cry 2 for "Action Game of the Year" at the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. It was also nominated for "Best Shooter" at the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards. In 2008, the game was nominated in the "Graphics/Technical" category at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers ceremony. At the 2009 Game Developers Choice Awards, it was nominated for "Game Design" and "Writing." In the book Gaming and the Arts of Storytelling, Darshana Jayemanne noted the game’s similarities to Heart of Darkness, calling it an example of interactive storytelling. Chris Remo of Gamasutra wrote that Far Cry 2 encouraged thoughtful, slower-paced gameplay, allowing players to create their own experiences.
In a 2021 article ranking all Far Cry games, Game Informer placed Far Cry 2 eighth, calling it the "black sheep of the family" that many players love despite others disliking it. Polygon’s Austen Goslin called it a game ahead of its time due to its mechanics and themes. Doc Burford of USGamer noted its ambition and called it an example of storytelling through gameplay. Phil Hornshaw of Digital Trends mentioned that the game had some outdated elements but found it more immersive than later entries. Marsh Davies of Rock Paper Shotgun called it the best game in the series despite its flaws, describing the journey as "painful, arduous but unforgettable." Goslin and Davies compared the game’s difficulty to the Dark Souls series.
Legacy
Ubisoft Montreal was the main developer for the series, starting work on a new game called Far Cry 3, which came out in 2012. This game returned to the tropical setting from the first game, changing or improving parts of the game that players had mixed opinions about from Far Cry 2 while making the main gameplay better. The character known as the Jackal, even though some fans had different opinions about him later, started a trend of having strong, charismatic villains who played important roles in the story and marketing. Far Cry 2 was the first major game to use Ubisoft's design idea of creating long-lasting game series with large open worlds on new gaming technology. This approach was later used in other Far Cry games, the Assassin's Creed series, and games based on the work of Tom Clancy.