BLESS THE WARS DOWN IN AFRICA
Playing Far Cry 2, Ubisoft Montreal’s follow-up to the original Far Cry, reminded me of a Don Martin comic I read as a kid.
It told the story of an actor hired as an extra in a war movie. Thrown into a scene without any direction, he stood there helplessly once the director yelled, “Cameras rolling! And action!” Looking straight into the camera, he asked: “What’s this about? What am I doing? Please tell me what to do.”
Naturally, the pretentious director misread this as a profound statement on war. “Cut! Brilliant!” he exclaimed, keeping the scene in the final cut. Critics hailed the performance, and the bewildered extra was propelled to stardom for his “honest portrayal.”
Throughout Far Cry 2, I felt exactly like that actor — a mercenary dropped into a theater of war I know nothing about, with no idea where my actions are supposed to lead. Upon release, the game was generally well received by critics, but it met resistance from players for its repetitive nature, and some regard it as the low point of the mainline series. I sincerely hope they’re right. If the series sinks any deeper, catching up might become… unpleasant.
GROUNDHOG DAY
A game designer’s most pressing task is to disguise the fact that players are stuck in Groundhog Day — endlessly repeating the same core actions. There are many ways to do this:
You can shorten the game so boredom never sets in.
You can distract with strong writing.
You can periodically introduce new mechanics.
You can motivate players with progression systems.
Or, failing all else, you can pay me cash per hour played. I’d prefer the last option.
Far Cry 2 fails on all counts. Instead, it relies entirely on immersion, almost as if it were a simulator. It’s four times longer than it needs to be — and at least twice as long as it has any right to be. The incomprehensible story distracts from what little the game does well. Beyond unlocking new weapons and tools, there is no meaningful progression. Weapons lack stats and descriptions, and you can’t choose the order in which to unlock them. So what, exactly, are we striving for?
A STORY IN NEED OF SENSE
The game begins by having you select a silent protagonist before arriving in Africa with a clear objective: assassinate a corrupt arms dealer known as the Jackal. A driver escorts you through the savannah and into a city during an on-rails introduction reminiscent of Half-Life. It’s an excellent opening. The sun scorches, dust chokes, flies buzz, civilians flee. Civil war is imminent. Only animals remain behind. The question is: what kind of animal will you be?
Whatever the answer, you’re still one rung below the Jackal on the food chain. Minutes after arrival, you collapse from malaria and awaken in a hotel room, staring down the barrel of the Jackal’s gun. Apparently, you now work for him — or maybe you don’t. He leaves you stranded with a handgun in the middle of a war zone.
Enter the two warring factions, the APR and the UFLL. Whenever you’re nearby, they stop fighting each other and focus entirely on killing you. Regardless of the outcome, you eventually pass out again and wake up in the care of someone whose identity I’ve already forgotten — and frankly, it doesn’t matter.
After a few tutorial missions, you begin accepting real assignments, alternating between factions. Presumably, you’re meant to play them against one another, Ã la the Man with No Name in A Fistful of Dollars, but with no overarching purpose or payoff.
THE GAMEPLAY ROUNDABOUT
This marks the beginning of an endless loop: receive a mission, drive through a gauntlet of enemy checkpoints and patrols — or attempt a slower off-road route — and reach a combat arena that feels suspiciously like a multiplayer map. Complete the objective, then travel to the next mission giver.
All 32 main missions and countless side activities boil down to the same template: kill, steal, or destroy something.
The world is technically open, but it’s neither large nor compact enough. Travel is tedious, yet areas are cramped with enemies. Everyone is hostile, heavily armed, and determined to delay your progress. Clear an outpost and move on, and it will respawn almost immediately, ensuring you’ll fight the same battles again on your return.
It feels like an online shooter where you must manually traverse the map before the actual match begins. There is fast travel in the form of bus routes — let’s be thankful they exist and not question how public transportation operates in an active war zone — but stops are sparse and rarely convenient. You’ll likely fight your way there too.
All of this is done in the name of immersion. HUD elements are minimal, loading screens are scarce, and the illusion works remarkably well — perhaps too well. The visuals and sound design are excellent, the controversial weapon degradation and malaria mechanics reinforce the setting, and the AI is impressively dynamic. Enemies help wounded allies, communicate with each other, and spiral into frantic rants when they lose track of you.
You must constantly manage malaria medication. Weapons degrade rapidly. Even checking your map requires physically holding it up, exposing yourself to danger. There’s a fitting madness to it all — but it quickly collapses under the weight of sheer tedium.
THE WAR KEEPS GOING
In the West’s guilt-ridden imagination, Africa is often portrayed as an eternal battleground of greed and suffering. Far Cry 2 leans heavily into this narrative. But immersion into senselessness comes at too high a price. The game is boring.
Its message is delivered within a fraction of its runtime: this is a hellscape created by ruthless profiteers. It’s a strong statement — followed by hours upon hours of monotony.
One system works genuinely well: the freedom of approach to missions. The wide arsenal allows for tactical planning. But if you change your mind mid-mission, you must backtrack all the way to a weapons dealer — or hope a fallen enemy drops what you want. With only three weapon slots, each locked to a specific category, you can’t even carry a shotgun and an assault rifle at the same time. Unsurprisingly, I stuck to a safe, familiar loadout, making every encounter play out in much the same way.
Fire is the most interesting mechanic. Dry grass ignites easily, spreads quickly, and can wipe out enemies while you remain hidden. There’s also a half-baked stealth system and suppressed weapons for the especially optimistic night-time player.
A buddy system lets you free fellow mercenaries who can provide alternative, easier routes through main missions. Helping them matters, as they can later rescue you when you’re near death — particularly useful in console versions, where saving is restricted to mission hubs and select safe houses. They die easily, though, making babysitting them essential.
These elements combine to make individual missions tense and enjoyable — for a few minutes. Then the world opens up again, and the spell breaks. Each system works in isolation, but together they form a crushingly soulless experience.
For me, the freedom Far Cry 2 offers does nothing but prolong misery. It’s a remarkable technical achievement undone by a lack of ideas sufficient to justify its length. I get the sense this is exactly what Ubisoft intended — a faith in emergent gameplay as a cure-all. The result is a game without direction, without momentum, and without anything meaningful to work toward until the final mission finally ends the cycle. Until then, your only measure of progress is a mission counter buried in the statistics menu.
Far Cry 2 draws inspiration from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad* — a tightly structured journey upriver toward an inevitable conclusion. It doesn’t get more linear than that. Ironically, Far Cry 2’s final stretch attempts to replicate this by suddenly becoming linear itself, even naming the starting area “Heart of Darkness.”
Playing that section convinced me that Ubisoft Montreal could create a harrowing, focused depiction of war — if they embraced limitation and direction. Far Cry 2 is not that game. It ends abruptly, halting its endless cycle as if making a final statement — but the moment rings hollow, because the journey never earned it.
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