Just Cause 3

Just Cause 3
Developer(s)	Avalanche Studios
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Director(s)	Roland Lesterlin
Producer(s)	Omar Shakir
Designer(s)	Francesco Antolini
Artist(s)	Zach Schläppi
Composer(s)	Henry Jackman
Series	Just Cause
Platforms	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4, Xbox One NA/PAL: December 1, 2015
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Just Cause 3 is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix. Announced on November 11, 2014, it is the third game in the Just Cause series and the sequel to 2010's Just Cause 2. It was released worldwide on December 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, receiving positive reviews, with critics praising the open world, destruction mechanics, and its promotion of player agency, while criticizing performance issues and the uninspired narrative.

Gameplay

Just Cause 3 is an open world third-person action-adventure game that is set on a fictional Mediterranean island known as Medici with Rico Rodriguez set as the protagonist. The map size is similar to that of the setting of Just Cause 2 with 400 square miles (1,000 km²) dedicated to the new setting. However, its volumetric terrain has increased to allow more verticality – as a result of this, it is now possible for the player to explore subterranean caverns and to scale buildings more effectively and realistically. The world of the game is composed of five major biomes, with each having unique landmarks and landscapes.

A variety of tools are provided to players for traversal in the game. Just Cause 2's signature features – the grappling hook and parachute – reappear with improved mechanics. The focus on chaos and exaggerated physics also remain. A new wingsuit, which is permanently equipped by the player, is featured in the game and allows players to glide across the world in a much faster way. When the player almost reaches the ground while using the wingsuit, they can draw themselves back up in the air by using grapples. Players can switch between using the parachute and wingsuit freely during missions or free-roam. In addition to the equipment provided, a wide range of weapons, like missile launchers and shotgun RPGs, and vehicles, such as fighter aircraft, planes, ships, and exotic cars, are included in the game. These vehicles can be customized by the player and can be used as weapons.

Other game mechanics have been overhauled and updated. For example, Rico now has the ability to attach and tether multiple objects together with his grappling hook, with the amount of tethers available increase by activating in-game 'mods', earned by completing challenges. Also parachuting is more stable and allows players to shoot enemies from the air. Every object and non-playable character can also be hooked by the player with the use of the grappling hook. In-game currency has been left out of Just Cause 3, making the series' supply drops more easily accessible and imaginative for the player. However, this affects difficulty; for example, if the player chooses to ride a tank, the enemy AI matches the power of it and adopts weapons that are able to take down a tank. Another new feature is giving the character infinite C4. The C4 can be placed free over the world by the player but only three at a time, though by using the in-game featured 'mods', up to five can be deployed. Unlike previous installments that required players to purchase C4, Just Cause 3 instates this weapon to allow for more chaos. In Just Cause 2 players were able to stand on top of moving vehicles but only in the center; players are now allowed to move around on vehicles freely in Just Cause 3. Players can liberate hostile military bases and towns featured in the game; they act as fast travel locations if the liberation is successful.

Creativity and destruction are heavily emphasized in Just Cause 3. For instance, many things in the game, including structures like bridges and statues, can be destroyed in a variety of ways. A new mechanic called Rebel Drop was introduced. It allows the player to pause the game to select equipment, weapons, and vehicles through a pause menu. The selected objects are dropped into the game's world and can be used by players. The game also features Challenge Modes. It includes mini-games like wingsuit races and the destruction frenzy mode, in which new objectives and challenges are unlocked when the player destroys an enemy base.

Despite the multiplayer mod of Just Cause 2 being well received by players, the game only featured asynchronous multiplayer at launch, in which challenges and leaderboards were included instead of any co-operative or competitive multiplayer mode, as the studio wanted to focus their manpower, time and resources in creating the world of the game.

Plot

Six years after the events of Just Cause 2, Rico Rodriguez returns to his homeland of Medici, a fictional Mediterranean island under the brutal control of dictator General Sebastiano Di Ravello, who has set his eyes on world domination. Wanting to stop him, Rico goes on a journey to destroy his evil plans.

When he arrives at Medici, he meets up with his childhood friend Mario Frigo and scientist Dimah al-Masri, who are now serving in the rebellion to overthrow Di Ravello. They proceed to liberate Manaea, Medici's former capital, and destroy the Vis Electra power plant, which powers a military base. Furious with the rebellion's success, Di Ravello orders his soldiers to raze the town of Costa del Porto. With Rico's help, the rebellion turn the tide on the military. They also learn that Di Ravello plans to use Bavarium, an explosive and magnetic mineral, as a means to conquer the world.

Dimah requests Rico to retrieve a Bavarium scanner, only to find out he's delivering it to Tom Sheldon, Rico's Agency coordinator. Angered because he knows of the Agency's operations in toppling dictatorships, he destroys the scanner before giving it to Sheldon. Rico and Mario later escort Zeno, a scientist defecting from Di Ravello. Di Ravello's forces launch a Bavarium missile aimed at a town. Rico prevents the damage by changing its course so that it destroys a military base instead. With the successes of recent operations, Mario steals some casks of wine from Di Ravello's stash and has Rico drive it to the rebels for celebration.

Some time later, Sheldon informs Rico that the Di Ravello's military are sending frigates after Mario and Dimah, who are out in the sea. He rescues them and they engage in a firefight with Di Ravello's forces. Rico meets Annika and Teo, two foreign smugglers also fighting against Di Ravello. In the firefight Mario is severely injured, and Annika offers to aid him if Rico is able to help her with favours.

The smugglers ask Rico to steal the Imperator tank, an armoured vehicle with a Bavarium shield. Rico and the smugglers later hit a Bavarium refinery, as well as trying out an electromagnetic pulse device reverse-engineered from the Imperator tank. Rico becomes wary of elements within the rebellion who act as a mole to Di Ravello, causing him to be able to grasp their every movement. During this time Mario recovers due to the smugglers' treatment. Di Ravello's soldiers attack the rebels' hideout. The rebels repel them and after that, destroy another power plant.

Rico escorts Rosa Manuela, a Medician politician, as she returns to Medici. Rosa recognises Zeno as Di Ravello's scientist and Rico finds out that Zeno is the mole. Rico stops a train carrying Bavarium out of the country, and help the smugglers free their comrades imprisoned by Di Ravello. Rico, Dimah and Sheldon stop another transport plane carrying a Bavarium bomb. The military attacks the rebels again, as a ruse to free Zeno. Rico confronts Zeno and destroys his helicopter.

The rebels engage in a final battle with the military, as well as destruction of Di Ravello's central command. Dimah cannot disable the missiles aimed at the base, so she pushes Rico away as the missiles hit the control tower she is in, killing her. The rebels learn later that Di Ravello has escaped in an advanced helicopter using the same Bavarium shield as the Imperator. Rico confronts him at a volcano island, destroying the helicopter Di Ravello is piloting. The player, as Rico, can choose to execute Di Ravello by shooting him, or wait until he commits suicide by falling into the lava. After Di Ravello's death, it is implied that Rosa becomes president of Medici.

Development

The development of Just Cause 3 began in 2012, and was handled by Avalanche Studios' satellite studio in New York, which has around 75 staff members, while the main studio in Sweden focused on the development of Mad Max, which was announced in 2013. The game's controls received an overhaul, and several members from Criterion Games, the developer of the racing video game series Burnout, joined the studios and worked on the vehicle handling of the game. Inspiration for the game's asynchronous multiplayer was taken from racing games like Need for Speed and Forza Horizon 2, while the "Destruction Frenzy" mechanic was inspired by the Red Faction series. Inspirations for the game were drawn from the modding community of Just Cause 2. As a result, the upgrades featured in the game are called "mods".

When designing the game's world, the studio collected photo books of the Mediterranean area and sent a team to several Mediterranean islands to get a better glimpse of the area. The environment of the game is inspired by the landscape of Monaco and the southern Mediterranean area. Avalanche Studios considered such areas "an untapped resource" which no other developer had worked on before. In order to portray a world with dictatorship, the developers of the game established a color scheme, which is composed of mainly grey, yellow, and red, to reflect and show a sense of "oppression". The size of the game's world is similar to that of Just Cause 2, but Avalanche promised that the content featured in the world would be "denser" than its predecessor. Environmental destruction is expanded in Just Cause 3, as Avalanche considered it a key element in creating a cinematic experience and a mechanic to give players more freedom. The team also considered that with the advancements in technologies, they were able to add more destruction mechanics, which are of larger scale, to the game.

In an interview, the CEO of Avalanche Studios Christofer Sundberg stated that the game would continue to retain and expand Just Cause 2's joy and humor, and that the tone of the game would not be very serious, but slightly more so than that of Just Cause 2. He described the tone of the game "70 percent wacky and 30 percent serious". The game's campaign explores the series' protagonist Rico Rodriguez's backstory, as the game is set in his motherland. His image was made more "approachable", in which he wears casual clothing like jeans throughout the game, as oppose to his uniform in the original Just Cause and Just Cause 2. His gadgets and equipment are made more realistic. The art director of the game explained that the studios "[wanted] just a touch of that James Bond agency feel [on Rico Rodriguez] without going too far into the goofy and outlandish like XXX starring Vin Diesel."

The game was first teased by the CEO of Avalanche Studios on February 27, 2013. In August 2014, Avalanche Studios announced that 2015 would be their "biggest year since the inception of the studio". Several "surprises" were also teased. The game was rumored to feature a free-to-play structure and microtransactions. However, the developer denied such rumors and confirmed that it would be a full-price game without microtransactions. The game was officially announced on November 11, 2014. The first gameplay demo for the game was shown at Square Enix's E3 2015 conference.

Release

The game was released worldwide on December 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. A Collector's Edition of the game was announced on March 12, 2015. People were allowed to vote for the items included in the Edition. The result of the poll was revealed on July 9, 2015, and the Collector's Edition includes a grappling hook, the Weaponized Vehicle Pack content, a poster of Medici and an artbook. At Gamescom 2015, Square Enix announced that players who purchased the game on Xbox One would receive the backward-compatible version of Just Cause 2 for the Xbox 360. Console players who purchased the game's Day One Edition are eligible to enter a contest held by Avalanche and Square Enix, which tasks players to score Chaos Points to top the leaderboard. The winner of the contest would get a real-life island, or US$50,000 cash.

The game's expansion pass, Air, Land and Sea Expansion Pass, introduces three different mission sets which add new weapons, enemies, missions, and vehicles to the game. The first mission set, titled Sky Fortress, which includes a jet-powered wingsuit and a new aerial area, was released on March 15, 2016 (March 7 for players who own the Expansion pass for the game). The second pack, Mech Land Assault, which introduces new weapons, areas and enemies, is set to be released in June 2016. A multiplayer mod developed by the team that created Just Cause 2: Multiplayer Mod is also in development.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic (PC) 74/100 (PS4) 73/100 (XONE) 71/100 Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 8/10 EGM 9/10 Eurogamer 8/10 Game Informer 8/10 Game Revolution GameSpot 8/10 GamesRadar Giant Bomb IGN (PC) 8/10 (Consoles) 5.9/10 PC Gamer (US) 67/100 Polygon 8.5/10 VideoGamer.com 6/10

Just Cause 3 received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the open world, destruction mechanics, and its promotion of player agency, while criticizing performance issues and the uninspired narrative. Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the Microsoft Windows version 74/100 based on 48 reviews, the PlayStation 4 version 73/100 based on 42 reviews, and the Xbox One version 71/100 based on 23 reviews.

External links

• Official website