YMMV / Far Cry 3

"Did I ever tell you... the definition of insanity?"

— Vaas

• Accidental Aesop: This whole game could be considered a PSA on how to plan a vacation.
  • Always use a travel agent or equivalent when vacationing internationally.
  • Don’t go off your scheduled trip and do try to blend in with the population (especially if you come from a family with money). Definitely don’t take traveling advice from strangers.
  • If you have a friend/significant other still trying to decide their path in life, as long as they’re not being self-destructive or mooching off of others be careful how you encourage them to “grow up” lest you unknowingly push them down the wrong path.
  • When beginning a relationship with someone, find out about their past romantic history. Jason would have been far more wary of Citra if he knew exactly what happened between her and Vaas and it’s implied drove them apart.
  • Relatedly, stay out of others' family drama.
• Angst? What Angst?: Riley never really reacts to the fact that his oldest brother died or his other brother is committing mass murder right in front of him (self-defense, but still). He also doesn’t seem particularly downbeat by very obviously having endured days of beatings (or worse, if the lewd comments the Privateers make towards Jason are any kind of indication) or was minutes away from being sold into slavery and torture. To be fair, things happen kind of quickly once he becomes actively involved in the plot- its very possible he just never had time to process what was going on around him.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Main Theme. Beautiful, haunting, epic, and the perfect backdrop to your big confrontation with Vaas.
  • Skrillex and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley's Make It Bun Dem is kickass and trippy, making it the perfect song for burning Vaas' weed crops.
  • Ride of the Valkyries is the perfect song for Riley's first time flying a helicopter while you blow up everything and everyone that gets in his way.
• Base-Breaking Character: Jason has fans for his character arc and being a general deconstruction of the idea "What happens when an ordinary guy starts shooting hundreds of people and takes a crapton of drugs?" (In that he loses it), but he has a lot of detractors who see him as a Flat Character and/or a Mighty Whitey.
• Best Level Ever: Kick the Hornet's Nest, the aforementioned mission where you burn Vaas' marijuana crops. As soon as you start, the soundtrack goes into a perfectly appropriate Dubstep/Reggae mix.
• Complete Monster: Hoyt Volker runs the largest Human Trafficking ring in the South Pacific. Raising himself up from the rank of privateer, Hoyt made his authority clear to the other pirates by executing his former boss in front of the man's family. Using drugs to corrupt Vaas Montenegro into his addled, sadistic right-hand man, Hoyt lets Vaas loose on his prisoners, letting him abuse and kill them as he sees fit. Introduced forcing a group of civilians to run across a minefield, Hoyt later burns one of his own men alive and tells his other privateers to kill any native islander they come across. Hoyt also forces Jason Brody to torture his own younger brother to prove his loyalty. When Hoyt discovers Jason means to betray him, he kills Jason's friend and begins cutting off Jason's fingers, determined to draw out his suffering before finally killing him.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Heavy pirates can take a tremendous beating from conventional weaponry, and are nearly immune to small arms unless you hit them In the Back of their head. But even worse are the pyromaniacs: heavily armored privateers who will burn everything in sight with their flamethrowers and soak up absurd amounts of damage, shrugging off grenade and C4 explosions and openly laughing in your face when you fire upon them. Only a close-range blast from an RPG or the AMR, or a flame arrow is guaranteed to kill them in one hit. You also have to unlock a high level skill in order to be able to perform a takedown on them; notably, you only get it on the second island, partly because privateer heavies lack the weak point at the back of the head pirate heavies get.
  • Molotov pirates. Even though they're clearly drunk off their asses, they can fling those Molotovs with lethal accuracy. They also seem to have more advanced psychic powers than everyone else in Vaas's employ, being able to pick out your hiding spots faster than trained snipers and dogs. Not to mention - while they're on fire, they'll run towards you to spread the joy. And worse - whereas most non-heavy or non-flamer enemies go down with a single accurate burst to the chest, that just makes the Molotov pirates angry. And on fire. It takes two more bursts to put them down, and they'll be moving much, much faster.
  • Snipers can and will use their deadly accuracy to put devastating rounds into you, given even the slightest chance. Even a tiny gap between trees will invite pinpoint fire. Unfortunately for them, if you've got a sniper rifle, the reverse is also true.
  • Enemies with RPGs (especially armored ones) can be a pain the ass, as the rockets can give you splash damage while you're in cover and leave you vulnerable for other enemies to gang up on.
  • Did you think you were safe from the sharks in the rivers? Hah. Crocodiles are arguably worse, since it's incredibly hard to see them with the camera, and due to the rivers not having lots of boats, you're very open to attacks from them. The worst thing is that crocodiles are never used for crafting, making them worthless to hunters. It helps that they've one of the scariest Jump Scares in the game. About the only good thing about them is that you can, at least, get into a QTE with them to instakill them - sharks require a boat or some range.
  • Tigers. Stealthy, fast, and can eat multiple assault rifle magazines without stopping. Tigers are the #1 cause of random encounter deaths in the game. Leopards are almost as bad, being smaller but not quite as deadly. Bears also take several clips to bring down and can down you quickly if you're not careful. Cassowaries can also be deadly if they get in close, simply due to their raw speed. Dingos hunt in large numbers and can be very stealthy in tall grass. Ditto for komodo dragons.
  • Water Buffalo may look friendly, and they don't get set off as easily as any of the other predators, but make no mistake: bullets have less stopping power against them than any tiger, and they're more than happy to kill you in seconds. There's a reason they get marked as 'predator' when you scout them.
• Disappointing Last Level: The majority of the game leads to the confrontation between Vaas and Jason, which occurs three-quarters of the way through the main plot. The rest of the campaign focuses on assassinating Hoyt, Vaas's boss, who's much less colorful and lacks the motifs Vaas had that made him resonate with Jason. Given the game's theme being a deconstruction of the player being a Rambo-eque action hero this was probably intended.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The game suffers from this. For the vast majority of the game, there's a theme of good versus evil and how those aren't mutually exclusive - sidequests generally have you helping out inhabitants of the island while a main quest will then have you mow through several dozen pirates, with the story focusing on how well Jason learns to slaughter entire armies and implying he's becoming a tribal psychopath, particularly when his attempt to rescue one of his friends ends with an exciting escape sequence and she's completely appalled that Jason was having the time of his life in a life-or-death situation. The ending drives home these consequences of Jason freely immersing himself in the Rakyat's violent ways by forcing him to make a genuine moral choice: save his friends and leave the island as was his original intention, or kill them to cut off his last remaining ties to the outside world and become the Rakyat's leader. Both choices have serious consequences: if you spare your friends and leave, Dennis goes off the deep end; he's spent half the game resenting Jason over Citra focusing her attention on him, and after Jason rejects her, Dennis tries to kill him, only for Citra to get in the way and die. The ending is then narrated by Jason noting that there's definitely a violent, amoral monster within him, and it's going to take a lot of work to reintegrate with normal society after all the killing he's done. If you kill your friends and become the Rakyat's leader, Citra has sex with Jason, only to immediately kill him post-coitus, noting that since he's become one of their strongest warriors ever, his child with Citra will be an even greater warrior. Then the game continues beyond the ending, Jason back in his normal clothes with only one of his fingers still missing as a hint that the last stretch of missions even happened, free to do whatever he wants and kill as many pirates as he can find without a scripted story or dialogue to hint that there's any negative consequences to doing so, which completely subverts the choice. Made the good choice and left the island? Nope, Jason is still here and able to keep killing pirates. Made the bad choice and died for it? Nope, Jason is still alive and able to keep killing pirates.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Vaas gets this big time. Never mind that he's an unrepentant slaver and mass murderer, his entertaining personality, insanely quotable dialogue and hints at a sympathetic backstory have won him legions of fangirls.
• Evil Is Cool: Vaas Montenegro. Thanks to Michael Mando's hammy yet terrifying performance, the iconicity of Vaas solidified him for instant fan approval, and continues to do so now. And this is only complementing his badassery, his dark sense of humor, his sophisticated nature, and his incredibly iconic definition of insanity. You know that a villain is really compelling when many fans consider him a far better character than the protagonist himself. It certainly helps that he has more charm than Buck and Hoyt.
• Franchise Original Sin: This game started the process of streamlining many of the more unique gameplay mechanics from Far Cry 2, downplaying the survival aspects in favor of emphasizing the Wide-Open Sandbox. It wasn't seen as a problem because many of the mechanics streamlined from or outright removed after Far Cry 2 were intentionally annoying for the sake of immersion and thus widely disliked, such as having to take malaria medication at regular intervals (and detour to get more after a handful of attacks), weapons degrading with use, and fast travel only working to and from a small handful of set locations, so their departure was welcomed by a significant portion of the fanbase; it's not for nothing that Far Cry 3 is often seen as the series' high point in creativity and gameplay. The problem was the streamlining and simplification continued further into the fourth and fifth games to the point fans started to complain that they were too simple, especially as the elements in question also started to make their way into Ubisoft's other open-world titles like Assassin's Creed and Watch_Dogs, such as activating towers of some variety to expose portions of the map, which is nothing short of ironic considering much of what made Far Cry 3 so beloved was because of attempts to stand out from other sandbox games.
• Game-Breaker: Two of the game's most powerful signature weapons - the Shredder and the Ripper - can be acquired with only moderate effort within the first couple hours of gameplay, and they retain their overpowered awesomeness until the credits roll and beyond.
  • The Shredder is a custom Vector submachine gun with great damage and accuracy, a large magazine, and next to no recoil, but above all it's a silenced weapon that can take down entire outposts at close range without anyone ever noticing there're shots being fired. It's easily powerful enough to be used as Jason's primary weapon for the whole game since it kills even Privateer Heavies in one short burst to the head, and everything else with even less effort. Its only downsides are its rather limited range, its steep price tag once unlocked, and the fact that comparatively few enemies wield submachine guns, making it slightly more difficult to feed the Shredder's voracious ammo hunger in the field, but SMG ammo is dirt-cheap to buy and in plentiful supply in any ammo crate.
  • The Ripper is a massively beefed-up MKG light machine gun with all-around great stats including huge magazine capacity, quick reload and a holosight for accurate mid-range shooting. There's no better weapon when stealth is no longer an option and the lead starts flying in earnest. Heavies fall before it like wheat before the scythe, and it's entirely possible to clear out entire outposts or mission-related strongholds without having to reload once. Like the Shredder, scraping together the funds to buy it can take a bit in the early game, and LMG ammo isn't nearly as cheap as SMG rounds, but the considerate player who places their shots carefully can still easily turn any shootout into a Curb-Stomp Battle even under these circumstances.
  • As an honorable mention, the AMR (Z93 sniper rifle's signature variant) is so powerful and accurate that it's able to mow down any enemy NPC including Heavily Armored Mooks like a breeze, which results in a One-Hit Kill if used right (two direct hits towards vehicles such as helicopters and ground vehicles, if not one directly to the engine). The downside, however, is that the reloading time is rather slow, it runs out of ammo frequently even with extended ammo pouches if used by itself, and it doesn't get the suppressor you can put on a regular Z93. Otherwise, use it only when necessary while liberating outposts.
  • Two sniper rifles basically make any stealth segment a laughing matter:
    • The M-700 Predator, which is a DLC weapon you can grab the second you have the ability to pick weapons. It is a much more powerful version of the regular M-700 with a silencer, to the point any shot is a 1-hit kill on any non-armored enemy or animal - find a nice high bush and go to town, you will stealth every outpost that has some form of long range overlook. Its downsides are that, despite being advertised as having every attachment option the M-700 can use at once, the enhanced zoom doesn't actually work (giving it a lesser effective range), and it loses some of its punch when armored enemies become more common.
    • For the second half of the game is your choice of the regular Z93 or its Signature variant in the AMR. Take the M-700 and make it better in every way imaginable, with an extra attachment slot (letting you match extended magazines with the suppressor and your preferred scope enhancement) and power boosted to the point that you can kill Heavies in a single headshot and any other regular human enemy with a single shot anywhere. Alternatively is the AMR, acquired for collecting 20 Relics, which drops the suppressor in return for even further boosted damage, significantly faster availability due to being tied to Relic collection rather than story progression, and explosive rounds that basically guarantee that, if you can see and shoot something, you are killing it in one shot, period.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Thanks to the South East Asia setting, the game is very well liked, perhaps even more popular, in Indonesia and Malaysia.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • Dogs. They come in packs, and they're one of the fastest animal types in the game. Pirate dogs are even worse, because they cheat as much as possible - if they're made aware that something is going on (namely, that you're silently picking people off), they'll immediately home in directly on you, no matter where you are, and once a dog detects you, everyone knows where you are. Unless you've got a silent weapon that's strong enough to one-shot a dog before they get a clear line of sight, you're getting detected with one of them on your case, end of discussion.
  • Boars can be annoying due to their willingness to ram anything that moves to death.
  • While not very dangerous on their own, pirate patrol cars can easily screw up any carefully planned stealth assault on an outpost if they decide to come through and snoop around at the wrong time, which they have a nasty habit of doing.
  • Snakes are perhaps the most extreme example. They'll almost never kill you, but odds are you'll step on one just when something else is about to, leaving you defenseless while you pull the snake off your hand.
• Good Bad Bugs: It's relatively minor, but the player can skip the animation for using any syringe other than the basic healing one by trying to use it while Jason is in the midst of any sort of transition between sprinting and regular movement - starting or stopping a sprint, using the Sprint Slide skill, even shifting into or out of the faster crouched movement from the Jungle Run skill.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Jason's at-the-moment humorous reference to Kill Bill ("His name is Buck and he likes to f...") is nowhere near as funny when you find out Buck has been repeatedly raping Keith during the time he's under his custody.
• He's Just Hiding: There are some around the internet who believe Vaas isn't really dead. Evidence for this is largely based on how the final fight between Vaas and Jason is a Mind Screw from Jason's perspective, and when Jason makes it back to reality he never sees Vaas' corpse.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Vaas' line (seen in Memetic Mutation below) about the "definition of insanity" became this in light of criticism about Ubisoft in recent history, what with the company effectively homogenizing most of their franchises into similar open world formulas with mostly just different settings and a gameplay twist or gimmick individualizing them — a trend that both this very game and Assassin's Creed III have been accused of ultimately jumpstarting in the first place, not to mention helping codify the modern Wide-Open Sandbox gameplay tropes that many other franchises started following thereafter to compete when Ubisoft were trying to diversify their games from the competition and prior titles to begin with.
  • Michael Mando goes on to play his other famous role of "Nacho" Varga in Better Call Saul years later. Guess who plays the main antagonist of Far Cry 6?
  • In the final battle with Vaas Montenegro, Jason finally comes out on top by swinging his dagger downwards and, when his hand is grabbed, dropping the dagger into his other hand and then stabbing Vaas in the stomach. Six years later, Arya Stark used the same tactic on the Night King.
  • One of the Rare Animals that Jason must hunt down is a bull shark called Maneater.
  • Another Rare Animal being a white-bellied tapir becomes hilarious when Far Cry 4 gave all of its tapirs the same coloration - so much for being rare.
  • When Jason meets Hurk, he asks whether his name is short for Hercules, and Hurk replies, "No, man, my parents were pacifists." Fast-forward to Far Cry 5, and Hurk's father is a gun-toting Conservative and his mother's an armed helicopter pilot. Seems they're not pacifists any more.
  • The above rumors that Vaas didn't die are so much more amusing in light of the secret ending to Far Cry 6's "Insanity" DLC chapter, which reveals - surprise - Vaas really didn't die.
  • This game is often called "the Rambo game that never was". Comes full-circle when 6 actually gets a Rambo crossover.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A common complaint about the game; a handful of tattoo upgrades (or simply equipping a Signature Weapon) turns you into Rambo, and it's insanely easy to get these upgrades/weapons in the first third of the game and end up running around the island with literally nothing interesting to fight save a stray tiger or two. Just repeating the same actions over and over.
• Jerkass Woobie: Vaas. The reason why he is so mentally unstable is because of Hoyt's influence, who manipulated him with drugs for years. To say nothing of whatever Citra did to him considering how furiously he talks about her.
• Just Here for Godzilla: People like Pyrocynical consider Vaas the only truly excellent aspect of the game.
• Love to Hate: This game has many deplorable yet memorable villains such as Buck and Hoyt. However, Vaas takes 1st place as the most memorable of them all.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?" has been one since before the game even came out. It's taken several double meanings online, especially with the YouTube community, who like to joke that Vaas is secretly taking a jab at games in the military first-person shooter genre and the players who continually buy the "same game".
  • "I like this phone. This is a nice fucking phone."
  • Sam's "BLITZ-KRIIIIIEEEGGG!!!" is also pretty popular, perfectly encapsulating the essence of a Leeroy Jenkins who speaks in Gratuitous German.
  • Machinima's infamous description of the game as "like Skyrim with guns", which has been mocked endlessly by the gaming community.
  • From The Far Cry Experience:
    • “That’s a subjective philosophical point of fucking view.”
    • "One time is funny, two times is fucking annoying, no?"
    • "He did the same joke about three times already. I don't think it's funny anymore."
• Misaimed Fandom: There's a certain section of players who enjoyed Jason's decent into Blood Knight madness too much, and felt that he'd be better off as a pirate king. This, of course, completely defeats the point the game was trying to make, and if you go down that road you get the Downer Ending where Jason kills his friends and dies, having totally lost himself in the thrill of his wanton slaughter. Even Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw fell for it, and felt the Golden Ending was disingenuous.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Despite his tragic backstory, Vaas likely threw away any kind of redemption with the brutal murder of the prisoners, casually torturing them to death. And unlike the other examples below, a DLC from Far Cry 6 confirms that he survived his encounter with Jason, making him a total Karma Houdini.
  • Hoyt Volker proves what a scumbag he is when, in retaliation for his drugs being burned, he forces a trio of villagers to run through a minefield, killing two of them. If that isn't enough, he has Jason sadistically torturing Riley before selling him to the slave trade. All this shows that, despite his hammy nature and attempts to appear affable, Hoyt is a ruthless Amoral Afrikaner all the way through.
  • Buck's mistreatment of Keith sends him soaring beyond the line, plus his attempting to betray Jason after he honoured their deal.
  • Jason possibly crosses it if he elects to kill his friends and brother at the end. He comes perilously close throughout the rest of the game, but the good ending is his redemption.
  • Citra and Dennis cross the line when they abduct Jason's friends and then brother, killing the innocent Dr Earnhardt in the process, and try to have Jason kill them to sever all ties to his past. Citra may, of course, have crossed it earlier with her mistreatment of Vaas, which sent him down the wrong path and let Hoyt corrupt him with drugs.
  • Citra crossed it quite a bit earlier, when she raped Jason while he's out of his mind on drugs.
• Narm:
  • Anyone who has seen The Room (2003) cannot take Jason screaming Liza's name seriously.
  • The second island tries to be dramatic by occasionally spawning mercs with burning vehicles near them - the implication being they did something horrible to the driver - but this is heavily undercut by the vehicles exploding a few seconds later, usually taking the mercs with it.
  • The voice acting is...not always great. For example, Jason often sounds high (or Canadian), which may have been the point but still causes a lot of scenes to lose their potential resonance.^note His voice actor was re-cast two years into its three-year production, so it's likely there wasn't a lot of time to re-record lines.
• No Yay: During Jason's Mushroom Samba fight with Vaas, he can witness his brief fling with Citra, but with himself replaced with Vaas.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Just because a region of the map has been cleared of pirate outposts doesn't mean that you're not gonna run into random pirate patrols - they'll come around less often, but they're not going to completely stop until every outpost is cleared.
  • No matter where you are, tigers, leopards, komodos, or dogs can show up, and often your only warning is when they bite a chunk out of your arm or leg. The indicators on the map of where they can be found are just a warning that you'll see them more often in those parts of the island.
  • The fundamental nature of the game's themes about insanity, the subtle supernatural underpinnings, and Willis' warning that the jungle drives people crazy bit-by-bit are a potent form of psychological paranoia. Is it the stress of what's happening that is driving Jason further into his Blood Knight tendency, or is it something more?
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Jason and Daisy are clearly good friends, but considering that it's Daisy who Jason tends to open up to in his more emotional moments, such as them mutually breaking down over Grant's death or Jason sharing with her his growing "winning" mindset about killing, it can easy to feel like Daisy is his girlfriend rather than Liza, with whom Jason tends to brush off or argue more with.
• Player Punch:
  • Vaas shooting Grant. The player may try and slow the bleeding, allowing a nice close-up of Grant's face as he dies slowly and in agony.
  • Goofy Aussie that has Keith turns out to be a vicious rapist. Foreshadowed by a Kill Bill reference when Willis tells Jason about Buck.
  • Jason torturing Riley to maintain his cover.
  • Hoyt casually killing Sam.
  • Citra's ending, all of it.
• Quicksand Box: There is an entire archipelago of islands available to play. There are two large islands (each surrounded by several smaller ones) for single-player, as well as smaller individual ones for Co-Op Multiplayer and Competitive Multiplayer.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • After his "death", Vaas either fled to New York and changed his name to Mac Gargan or fled to New Mexico and changed his name to "Nacho" Varga.
  • James A. Woods portrays Keith here. Two years later, he is Ajay Ghale.
    • Speaking of Far Cry 4, Mylène Dinh-Robic, who played Liza here, portrays Noore Najjar in that same game.
• Shrug of God: Even the lead writer doesn't really know what happened to Vincent Salas.
  Jeffrey Yohalem: His current status is unknown.
• Signature Scene:
  • Most of Vaas's scenes, but especially his "definition of insanity" rant.
  • "Kick the hornet's nest", an early mission where Jason is sent to destroy Hoyt's cannabis fields... with a flamethrower.
• Special Effects Failure: The console remaster makes some shortcuts pretty apparent.
  • You can see down Rongo's shirt but don't worry, the only thing you'll see is the ground behind him as the character model doesn't extend very far below his neck.
  • Sam's Offscreen Teleportation in his intro mission is undercut by his shadow instantly disappearing after he passes the corner, making it clear the character model was simply despawned.
• Spiritual Licensee:
  • Replace pirates with hillbillies and the islands with the rural south, and you've got a decent adaptation of Deliverance.
  • BBC Three drama Tatau (first broadcast April 2015) has elements in common with Far Cry 3: Young Western travellers in trouble in the South Pacific, tattoos, hallucinatory visions...
  • Some people call it the best video game adaptation of Taken with its setting now being at a tropical island.
  • Using a bow and arrow turns this into the best video game adaptation of Arrow that never got made.
  • A group of western backpackers find an unspoiled tropical paradise to party on, and find themselves drawn into a conflict against drug dealers. The protagonist sleeps with a woman who lives on this island, which causes untold drama and death. He also takes hallucinogenic drugs and eventually starts to think of himself as a video game hero, while being at his core just a douchey white guy. This is The Beach. Even better when you're a german fan of both the Beach and Far Cry 3: In the German Dub Jason is voiced by the same guy who also dubs Leonardo Dicaprio in basically all of his movies, including The Beach.
• Squick: After the battle with the Ink Monster, Jason wakes up to Citra having sex with him. Considering that you just spent at least the last few minutes having a drug-induced vision quest, Citra may have raped Jason while he was out.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Gameplay-wise, nearly everyone agrees Far Cry 3 managed to solve all the flaws Far Cry 2 had with the introduction of outpost liberation, the RPG-like skill tree and the reduced enemy health in comparison to Far Cry 2. At the same time, there are those who lament that Far Cry 3 shed some of Far Cry 2's more ambitious elements like the buddy system, Diegetic Interface, and the heavy and player-unfriendly atmosphere of the unnamed African country (the U.A.C as referred by the fanbase).
• That One Achievement: "Fully Inked", unlocked by learning all the skills in all three categories. Not only is this a massive time sink, but it can actually be rendered Unwinnable because one of the skills requires you to clear at least two Outposts without a single guard seeing you. Since the game has come out, Ubisoft patched in an option that allows for the player to reset all outposts, making this easier now.
• That One Level:
  • The helicopter section near the end of the game can be incredibly frustrating. You must protect your chopper from hordes of enemies with a turret that has horrible accuracy. It gets worse when you encounter enemies with RPGs that are hard to spot and can do massive damage to your copter. There are no checkpoints within this section as well.
  • Any time you need to snipe enemies under a time limit. While they can be challenging even with a mouse, the console versions have a truly awful, inadjustable deadzone on the right stick that can drive even those used to aiming with an analog stick insane.
    • The "Bull's Eye" trial in particular gives you an SVD, the weakest sniper rifle in the game with very aggressive recoil. Basically, you need to deal with a time limit, enemies who can survive multiple shots and have lots of cover to use^note Some cover can be shot through, but not all, a gun that can miss even if the crosshairs is directly over the target, and on console you need to make miniscule movements that the game simply doesn't let you do. Fun.
  • "Warrior Rescue Service" has Vaas stripping all of your weapons and you must deal killing the Pirates with the weapons dropped like the AK-47. And there are snipers that can easily kill you especially if playing in "Insane" difficulty.
  • The crown of the hardest missions in this game is "Doppelganger". The goal is sneaking past Privateers with only using rocks. Privateers can easily detect you making a mission a failure and there's too many of them and worst of all you can't take down or shoot enemies so prepare to fail this mission way too many times even if you're playing in the easiest difficulty. If you don't have the "Jungle Run" skill which makes you move faster when crouching, it makes the mission a extreme nightmare as hell to complete.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A shared point of criticism among players is that Vaas dies far too early in the game, as his confrontation with Jason happens at the two-thirds mark. Afterwards Jason is up against Hoyt but his animosity against him is far less personal for the most part. A hindsight idea would have been to keep Vaas around longer or have him appear as a manic Spirit Advisor after his death to taunt Jason, which wouldn't be out of place given the game's already numerous dream-sequences.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Vaas proved such an iconic character and villain that every mainline Far Cry game since has tried to recapture his magic, with the results varying. While Pagan Min was seen as a solid follow-up, the Seed Family were seen as taking all the wrong lessons from Vaas, especially the overly-long cutscenes and kidnapping mechanic. Mick and Lou were similarly poorly received due to only surviving certain parts of the game due to the player character's Cutscene Incompetence, and being overt braggarts who fail to live up to their hype. Even in this game, Hoyt is seen as a poor follow up to the sheer insanity that Vaas has that many players wished that he stayed the Big Bad.
  • On a more general level, this game for the rest of the series. 3 was a hugely defining game in Ubisoft's open world structure, with many of their followup IPs for the following few years such as their Ghost Recon games, The Division and Watch_Dogs all cribbing notes from this game. But usually, critics feel that they either fail to innovate on the formula made by 3 enough, or fail to properly capture the pacing of the open world in the same way 3 did.
  • While almost every game in the series since 3 have had a mission where you burn hallucination-inducing drugs, Kick The Hornet's Nest is usually considered to be the best one thanks to no-one expecting it and for just being plain awesome. As such, the other missions that ask you to burn drugs feel like they're trying to imitate this one and as such don't come off as special.
• The Woobie: Riley. It's easy to miss, but he probably had it the worst out of all the kidnapped characters. Riley gets shot, is captured much longer than everyone else, is being held by Hoyt's privateers who are even worse than Vaas' Pirates, quite obviously gets the shit beat out of him (both by the privateers and his brother) but never stops and never gives in. He's the one to convince Jason to torture him to keep up the charade and once he's freed, he immediately figures out how to pilot a helicopter. By the end of it, you really want to give him a hug.