Does Far Cry 3 Give Us the Next Gen Early?

DX9

DX11

Is Playing Far Cry 3 a next generation experience?

I have been running the PC version of Far Cry 3 on a DX9 graphics card on the games highest available settings with a strong Intel CPU. The latest edition of DirectX is DX11, which the game supports, introduces many valuable improvements and technologies into gaming and computing. The last generation of home-consoles contained DX9 capabilities and the ‘next boxes’ will undoubtedly utilise DX11 features. It is highly probable that the new DX11 consoles will be able to run specific titles under a DX9 mode to maximise performance when desired. Players running the game in DX11 are due to experience an even prettier Far Cry 3 than I was able to.

For the most part, characters are realistically animated using motion capture and complex organic calculations. Bodies pile up on top of eachother and limbs intertwine. Shapes and forms are unable to blend into eachother leaving everything seeming solid. This is very different from the limitations of the last gen where corpses and items needed to fade after a certain number or amount of time had been reached. Unfortunately, one thing that these new graphical technologies can’t do is ensure high production values and measures; many lesser important NPC interactions and their accompanying animations are simplistic, with animations that are somewhat lazily re-used and ill-fitting.

Far Cry 3 shows that the problem of loading screens is solvable. In a single game session, player changes to game environments are saved and cached accurately and without loss while other data is streamed smoothly from media and memory to enable new levels, environments and their elements to appear instantaneously.  Unlike with many last-gen games, loading is not hidden behind cut-scenes as and when it could have been; possibly as a design choice, at the start of a new chapter, mission attempt or story sequence lies a short load screen. The next gen consoles will be able to provide shorter loading times and in some cases none at all. Made more convenient by advanced next gen hardware, this omission is an exciting prospect for both gamers and developers because a game experience without loading screens will always be more immersive.

All surfaces are sharp and detailed with texturing that is typically too defined to get blurry or pixelated when viewed up-close and many objects that look precisely as they would in real life. At the next stage in the progression of graphical fidelity in videogames the only way to improve quality and realism is by way of the artists. Dunia 2,  the engine that Far Cry 3 uses, a CryEngine derivative, is capable of incorporating all of the latest graphical techniques such as ambient occlusion, global illumination and complex lighting, advanced post processing tasks and simple tessellation to name a few. Most of the techniques are used here but only in a minimal form; water reflects accurately but glass doesn't, higher detailed versions of objects fade in noticeably and visual quality isn't uniform. Despite its limitations  the Island is beautiful, well designed and immersive with superior detail and numerous surprising scenes; the game-world frequently feels real.

The game features expansive RPG elements including an item hunting/crafting and skill-tree progression. This micro-management, multi tasking focus is due to be more popular in the next gen as gamers become smarter, genres merge and games are required to be more complex. A videogame where you always have so much to do and everything is awesome? There is such variety in Far Cry 3.

In the next generation we should see an increase in open-world titles, with levels that are linked by environments as opposed to loading screens. Side missions/mini-games will be present to add to variety. All of Far Cry 3’s side missions and mini games are fun, complex and feel like second, third or fourth iterations as opposed to underdeveloped afterthoughts with lots of room for improvement. In its vast and lush open-world, interactivity is somewhat scaled back, presumably for RFI, with trees, walls and other structures rendered as indestructible. Despite the freedom to create fully destructible environments in the next gen, most developers will want a certain level of control over the player so will ensure not everything can be altered.

What Far Cry 4 might look like..

On PC, with all the expensive and advanced hardware available, you would expect Far Cry 3 to run more than well, as most other mutiformat games do. Currently a top of the range thousand dollar graphics card, The Geforce Titan, struggles to run this 2012 game on its highest settings at a steady 60 fps in HD+ resolutions. Without extreme hardware optimization, the next gen consoles won’t be able to produce visuals much better than what is seen here in Far Cry 3 on PC at 1080p. Other steps must be taken to improve visuals on the next gen consoles such as utilising the extra processing power and 8GB memory for advanced calculations to increase realism and sheer awesomeness... blades of grass bending under my foot, with ants and insects crawling between... only there on my inspection.

Few of the launch-window titles on either Sony or Microsoft's next console will have more complex visuals than this game. 

To be clear, Far Cry 4 looks like DX9 FC3 running on its highest settings - just with a different locale, extra polish and added features. You owe yourself something great if you miss out on Far Cry 3 on PC.