Far Cry 2 had 50 stories, Far Cry 3 has one

Ubisoft is taking a more focused approach with Far Cry 3's story than in Far Cry 2, asserting that "traditional storytelling" is more powerful than multiple choice. Don't tear your hair out in rage just yet, non-linearity fans: the game will support and respond to a range of gameplay approaches.

"Far Cry 2 had an almost procedural story: the different things you did told different tales," lead design director Mark Thompson told OXM in an interview. "There were 50 different stories you could unwind."

"This time, we wanted to tell one story and we wanted to tell it well. We wanted a good singular narrative - it's obviously easier to write one good powerful story than 50 different ones. There's a reason that in literature there's thousands and thousands of years of single stories, and choose your own adventure books never became as powerful as traditional storytelling.

"We embraced that, and then we could take out these moments. We know in the story what the player is doing in hour one and hour five, and then again hour 20 and so on. We picked the moments, like the way you would pick acts in a movie. We had the whole thing on a wall, and we'd go: 'this mission; combat, this mission; combat in a different sense; exploration, this mission.'"

Thompson insisted that the distilled storyline wouldn't shackle the game's open world. "With Far Cry 3, we have to try and allow for everything. We give people a possibility space, we give them the tools, we give them abilities. We expect them to test the limits of that. It's part of the fun, right?

"I shout and the game echoes, it responds, whether it's the AI or the environment. So from a certain stealth approach, we have some dialogue that if you're stealthy in that moment, Jason's going to reflect that, and reinforce to the player that yeah, you're doing something that's perhaps a little cool."

For more on Far Cry 3 - which allegedly blends aspects of Far Cry 1 and 2 - buy issue 83. Ubisoft's new shooter is our cover game, and there's a six page preview within. New to these parts? Check out our first look from E3 2011.