‘Far Cry 4’ offers gamers a Himalayan sandbox filled with toys

TORONTO – Executive producer Dan Hay recalls an early meeting about “Far Cry 4” that set the tone for the video game.

He gathered key Ubisoft developers in a room and asked them what they wanted from the game.

“I remember very clearly,” said Hay. “Pat Methe, our game director, said ‘I know what I want to do. I want to ride on the back of an elephant into a fortress and I want to be able to smash it down and I want the fortress (and its inhabitants) to be able to kill me.’ And then somebody said “I want to be able to do that in co-op.’ And everybody went ‘Oh my God.’

“It was Herculean to pull that off and make it work.”

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The “Far Cry” franchise, which has sold 20 million copies to date, is a first-person shooter set in such exotic locales as Africa, an archipelago in Micronesia, and unidentified Pacific Islands with the protagonist facing everything from mercenaries and pirates to arms dealers and warring African factions.

“Far Cry 4” takes the gamer to the fictional modern-day country of Kyrat in the Himalayas region.

Despite such colourful choices, Hay says the “Far Cry” games don’t start with location. Developers look for features to fill the game’s sandbox with appropriate toys — “a living world that you can play in and give you the opportunity to play the game the way you want to play it.”

New toys to play with include bait for animals, guns for hire, a grapple hook and a gyrocopter, plus co-op in the real world of the game. A wingsuit is another tool to help the gamer take advantage of the verticality of the setting.

“The star of the show is the toys, and the opportunities for the player,” said Hay. “And what it is we’re going to give you so that you can stitch these things together in a way that’s going to be surprising for us.”

In “Far Cry 4,” the game begins with Ajay Ghale, a Kyrati-American who is returning to his homeland. Things go south quickly and Ghale finds himself in the company of Kyrat despot Pagan Min.

Hay dispatched staff over to the Himalayas in the “early-to-middle” part of game design — to do some reconnaissance work, sending people from several different departments.

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“What was interesting about it was on Day 2 (of the trip) they called back and said ‘We have a problem … It’s not like what we built,'” Hay said.

They had built a “traditional, earnest deeply rooted in history version of Kyrat.” But when they got to the region, they found people wearing North Face jackets and “Angry Birds” T-shirts.

So they modernized the country.

Ubisoft Montreal led the way on the game with help from sister studios in Toronto, North Carolina, Kyiv and Shanghai.

“The team did just a jaw-dropping job on this (world),” said Matt West, a Ubisoft Toronto level design director.

Ubisoft Toronto handled the Shangri-La portion of the game, a section that delves into the fictional country’s mythology. It’s a different world, from the visuals to the weapons. There are no guns in this portion of the game but there is a 600-pound tiger who becomes an ally.

“Far Cry 4” is rated M for Mature for the PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One, and PC.