Part of it has to do with the writing and part of it has to do with the nature of the sandbox genre. Unfortunately, the game has trouble sustaining that level of intensity as the story progresses. I don’t want to spoil how the rest of this scene plays out, but it does a brilliant job of setting the game’s tone. Way up there in the fucking sky…but down here…down here, you hit the ground,” Vaas vehemently proclaims. “You see, the thing is, up there, you thought you had a chance. An ill-fated skydiving excursion onto the Rook Islands has resulted in you and your friends being captured by slave trafficking pirates led by the wonderfully disturbing Vaas. When these moments are revealed to be nothing more than video-captured memories on your smart phone, reality quickly sets in. It shows you, Jason Brody, and your friends partying it up on the beach, in a club, and high in the sky, enjoying what looks to be an adrenaline-fueled vacation. Slavery, torture, prostitution, nudity, sex, rape, incest, drug use and violence…lots and lots of violence, this is Far Cry 3.
The newest installment returns the series to a tropical island setting, this one off the coast of Bangkok, and like its predecessors is a very mature-rated sandbox shooter. Veni, vidi, vici, as original developer Crytek use to describe it: I came, I saw, I conquered. While most video game franchises focus on a singular or group of heroes, or an overarching story, the Far Cry series has always been more about a brand or style of play.