Clint Hocking’s bold idea for Far Cry 2 saw the once level-based shooter series move into the open world for the first time. Now, open world games are a dime a dozen—there are over a dozen games in the series today with another on the way—but the second game in the series was a major diversion from the series’ original level-based gameplay structure.
Speaking to FRVR on the long-awaited FRVR Podcast episode (sorry), Hocking explained that Far Cry 2’s design philosophy revolved around the original game’s often wild gameplay encounters. While level-based, the original Far Crys offered large expansive levels and enemy AI could often work in magical ways that would create unforgettable, dynamic gameplay.
“There was the original Far Cry and then Ubisoft made console ports of it. And then Ubisoft made two or three other Far Cry consoles games that were Predator, Instincts, all of this stuff. And that’s fine. But they’d really kind of milked that cow, I think, and we needed to go in a different direction because it was always tropical island and green and sandy beaches and all that stuff. And that was cool and everything, but we needed to go somewhere really different,” Hocking said.
As a fan of immersive sims, so much so that Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was designed first and foremost as an im-sim game, Hocking wanted to double-down on what he called the original games’ “anecdote factory”.
For Hocking, the focus was on expanding the “interconnected systems that would lead to kind of chaotic outcomes”. This served as the main push to bring the game from level-based instances into a full open-world where anecdotes could spawn anywhere, enemies could follow you, and wildlife had its own systemic impact on the world.
“Far Cry 2 is where we really mastered it,” Hocking said. “You know, charging into an enemy compound and like sh*t blowing up and vehicles crashing in and fire propagating and all of the chaos that came from it really, really created this magical, magical experience.”
Hocking recognises that this “became the kind of hallmark of the Far Cry brand going forward”. Far Cry 2 is the kind of major redesign that an established franchise simply doesn’t do. Outside of Assassin’s Creed, which has since reinvented itself as an RPG franchise, franchises typically shy away from major reinventions.
As for the series’ iterative design approach since Far Cry 2, Hocking respects the developers that have tried to put their own stamp on the series. “What matters most is that the people who are making games have the creative freedom to make the game they want to make, you know, within that sort of reasonable set of constraints,” he said.
For more of our chat with Hocking, read about the designer’s thoughts on the massive team sizes the industry has crafted. Additionally, read about Hocking’s thoughts on AI in game development and how techbros chasing profit may have ruined the conversation around the technology.
