A new Far Cry 3 footage emerged today, courtesy of GameTrailers, and showcases what is wrong with the gaming industry these days. You see, Far Cry is known for its freedom. Yeah, freedom (mark this word because it’s really important). However, Ubisoft seems unable to offer what all of their fans have been asking all these years. Instead, the company decided to go the Uncharted route and include one hell of scripted events and scripted gameplay sequences that were made exclusively for that scene.

The new gameplay footage of Far Cry 3 starts with you, waking up inside a burning building/facility. Naturally, you’re trying to save a girl that is in danger (and is obviously part of the game’s story). While searching for her, the protagonist does not shut the F up. I mean seriously now, he’s like a tutorial. First he says that he can’t believe there is water in that place (while at the same time we’re witnessing the water from the pipes that extinguishes a fire) and then he hints you about the pipes. You know what Ubisoft? We get it. There are pipes and by shooting them, we can extinguish the fire. Oh, and was it necessary for him to tell to a girl, who was tied up on a chair, that he’d smash the door? It’s really lame when the protagonist talks to himself about silly things. Unless of course it’s Duke Nukem or Serious Sam with their black humor that suits to the game’s atmosphere.

But this is a minor issue. Okay, some might enjoy the hero speaking to himself as they may be doing it themselves in real life. Or for whatever reason. But what is really wrong with Far Cry 3 is the scripted events. God save us all, because this game looks scripted as hell. Scripted explosions to add to the game’s atmosphere, scripted movement, scripted sequences, scripted rollercoaster gameplay.

We’ve said it before and will say it again; a lot of scripted events can – actually – ‘damage’ the gameplay of a game. Recently, Frictional Games’ developers stated that players should be in full control during the ‘greatest’ moments of a game and that scripted sequences should be avoided. And we totally agree with them. But Far Cry 3 is simply copying the Uncharted series, in an attempt to attract those gamers that want to experience a rollercoaster game. And that’s what worries us.

At one point, the game’s protagonist loses his balance and grabs a ledge. Fair enough, it looked cinematic. But will you be able to do these ‘grabs’ while actually playing the game? No. Obviously, there will be some scripted sequences but most of the times, the player won’t be able to grab on a ledge while jumping, meaning that he’ll… well… fall to his doom (we’ve already seen similar death sequences in previous gameplay footages of Far Cry 3). Will you be able to stick on every wall and move like the scripted sequence that is featured in this footage? We doubt it as you can easily notice when the game ‘enters’ and ‘exits’ this sequence. Will you be able to grab on every rope or every tree? If no, then why do we get that silly scripted sequence (at around 1:50)? Why are we participating in a game instead of, you know, actually playing it?

Now lets go back to what we said in our prologue. What was the thing that made Far Cry famous? That’s right; freedom. Well, that cinematic sequence does not provide any freedom at all. It’s as linear as it can get and although the rest of the game won’t – hopefully – be as linear as this, it’s really disappointing watching such footage. Why it’s disappointing you say? Because we, Far Cry fans, want to see a gameplay montage that showcases the game’s freedom and how the player can approach his objectives. This is in what Far Cry excelled.

Ubisoft is trying to hype their game. That’s all well and good but this is not the Far Cry you knew and loved. And why is it so hard to actually get a good story with characters that you can sympathise, without using those overused scripted sequences? Hell, even the game’s debut trailer was as scripted as this one. Is Far Cry 3 THAT cinematic? Or is this actually an attempt to hide a bad story? That remains to be seen.