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Set the world on fire.

"The town of Costa Del Porto... burn it! And when he comes to protect the insignificant? Kill his friend!"
General Di Ravello

Just Cause 3 is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix. It was announced on November 11, 2014. It is the third game in the Just Cause series and is the sequel to the 2010 video game Just Cause 2. It was released on December 1, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PS4 and Xbox One.

The game is set several years after the events of Just Cause 2. Protagonist Rico Rodriguez leaves the clandestine group known as the 'Agency' and returns to his homeland of Medici, a fictional Mediterranean island, for peace and quiet. Unfortunately, he finds out that the island is under the control of cruel lunatic General Di Ravello, and the madman has set his eyes on world domination. Wanting to stop him, Rico groups up with the rebels that have been combating him, and goes on yet another chaotic journey to destroy the tyrant's evil plans.

Volumetric terrain has increased to allow more verticality, as well as landmarks like caves and tunnels. The world of the game is composed of five major biomes, with each having unique landmarks and landscapes. In addition to the grappling hook and parachute, a wingsuit has been added to the game which adds gliding. Creativity and destruction are also emphasized in the game, with almost everything in the game able to be destroyed in a variety of ways. The previous game's Black Market has been replaced by Rebel Drop, which allows the player to have the rebels airdrop multiple weapons and/or a vehicle all at once for free, as long as they have a beacon to call in the resupply with.

Despite the multiplayer mod of Just Cause 2 being well-received by players, the game only featured asynchronous multiplayer at launch, in which challenges and leaderboards will be included instead of any co-operative or competitive multiplayer mode, as the studio wanted to focus their manpower, time and resources in creating the world of the game. However, after getting approval from both Square Enix and Avalanche Studios, the same team that made the JC2 multiplayer mod has also released a multiplayer mod for this game. Hell yeah.

The next game in the series, Just Cause 4, was released on December 4, 2018.


The game provides examples of:

  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Upon finishing the second-to-last story mission, you unlock the ability to have the M488 summoned via Rebel Drop. Said weapon lets you fire a missile that has the effect of Falco Maxime's Bavarium Nuke defense system. As the description says:
    Basically, fire it at something that you don't like, and that thing will be gone forever.
  • Action Girl: Annika. Not only is she buff, but she also accompanies Rico in several missions, where she is more than capable of handling herself, able to take out helicopters on her own if you let her.
  • Action Prologue: The game opens with Rico riding on top of an airplane shooting things with rockets, then proceeds to throw him against the Medici military... and then it's time for a relatively sedate tutorial on how to use the grappling hook, wingsuit, and planted explosives.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Eden, in the DLC. She was made intelligent and self-aware via Bavarium, and sealed off her entire crew and killed them. It's implied most, if not all of the employees you fight in the DLC are actually robots of some kind.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Annika. She is taller than Rico and has some very well-developed arms.
  • Amazon Chaser: Mario, when he sees Annika, is instantly smitten. The fact that she almost caves his throat in with her elbow only turns him on more.
  • America Saves the Day: Defied. In fact, Rico makes it very obvious that he would greatly appreciate it if Sheldon and the Agency would just piss off and stop manipulating the revolutionaries behind his back.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: When Rico frees a province, the locations of all collectibles contained within that province will be revealed.
    • After doing a few secondary missions, you'll get a detector that tells you if there's a vehicle nearby that you have yet to carry to a garage.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Bavarium is an ore only found on Medici, and while it shares some properties with fissile materials, it has some other properties when refined, such as creating Deflector Shields and making an AI become sentient.
  • Arcadia: Played with. Medici is a beautiful land of sunny beaches, sheer cliffs, and pristine woods, dotted with quaint little towns and populated by people like farmers and fishermen... as well as large numbers of rifle-toting goons working for a Tin Pot Dictator who is oppressing the populace and plotting world conquest.
    Mario: I never really thought about it, Rico, but there's a difference between "you look" and "you see". Look at Medici... she's beautiful, she's a jewel in the sun... but you see Medici - she's completely rotten!
  • Artificial Brilliance: Enemies will adapt to the tactics that you use while causing havoc in their bases. For example, entering a base in a heavily armored tank will result in enemies putting away their small arms and switching to RPG's, using a jet will result in enemies scrambling their own to take you down and flying in with the wingsuit will lead to them using any AA guns they have on site.
  • Artistic License – Physics: While the previous games run with it as well, the physics engine has been exaggerated for this entry leading to glorious and ludicrous results.
  • Art Shift: Downplayed. The Stingray Area and Insula Lacrima both have a lighting effect around them that most noticeably darkens the seas and turns the horizons brown.
  • Ascended Meme: The previous game's infamous "Try to transport fuel now, you pipeline jerks!" is referenced in this game, which has a story-tied trophy entitled "Take That, You Pipeline Jerks".
  • As Himself: According to David Tennant, he's actually playing himself in the game. In-game, the Propaganda Minister claims to be a kidnapped celebrity press-ganged into delivering propaganda news broadcasts.
  • Asshole Victim:
    • Zeno Antithikara, a scientist who pretends to defect to the Rebellion only to give their secrets to Di Ravello the whole time.
    • One of the random encounters Rico can come across involves assassinating an enemy informant who is being picked up by limo. As if collaborating with the evil Di Ravello wasn't bad enough, the informants make rude, condescending remarks to Rico when he picks them up with the commandeered limo.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Rico quickly becomes the de facto most important person in the Rebellion because of his experience in fighting dictators, and routinely calls in support in the form of troops and Rebel Drops. Some people will even call Rico "King of the Revolutionaries".
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Even in a game like this, the Automat U12 still becomes this. A full-auto assault shotgun sounds awesome, except it only holds 42 rounds at most, with poor range and low damage against armored enemies such as Black Hand soldiers and Medici Machinegunners. Considering how scarce shotgun ammo can be, and that it takes the two-handed weapon spot, it's much easier to use the Urga Vdova machine-gun for the same purposes.
  • Ax-Crazy: Di Ravello has a disturbing penchant for wanton death and destruction when he is tested in any way.
  • Badass Driver: Rico, as always, but finally given a justification in this installment. The developers have stated in an interview that Rico was a race car driver before joining the Agency.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: Rico's final battle against General Di Ravello is in a volcano.
  • Battleship Raid: The Sky Fortress DLC is one big instance of this.
  • Big Bad: General Di Ravello, who wishes to Take Over the World and is the leader of the army that Rico and the rebellion are up against.
  • Big Good: Rosa Manuela is this, having been the popular candidate for President before Di Ravello's reign, but having to leave when Di Ravello took over and framed her up for the murder of the previous President. During the third act, with Rico thoroughly destroying Di Ravello's army does she finally come home to Medici.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Some of the bases owned by the Medici Military are hypothetically possible but needlessly extravagant, such as an airfield with hangars carved in rock and landing strips sticking out of a cliffside. As always with Just Cause, Rule of Cool leads the way.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • The Medician language is an existing auxiliary language called Interlingua, meaning that any text or speech in Medician is fully understandable to Interlingua speakers.
    • The "CS Odjur" and "CS Bältdjur" armored vehicles, for some reason, have Swedish names, meaning "Monster" and "Armadillo" respectively.
    • The various weapons and military vehicles have names taken from a variety of Slavic languages.
  • Black and Nerdy: Teo. He gushes over the various Bavarium superpowered weapons, and displays his hacking skills on more than one occasion.
  • Book Ends: Every time you start the game, you're treated to the title screen, which has Rico sitting in a chair under an umbrella on a beach, holding a cold drink and watching something smoking out in the ocean. After beating the game and watching the credits, Rico does the exact same thing, except this time, pressing Start has him get out of his chair and back into gameplay.
  • Border Patrol: For the first time in the series. If you travel too far into the ocean, an on-screen message will warn you to "return to Medici or suffer the consequences". Ignoring this warning will result in Rico abruptly dying and his vehicle exploding.
  • Boring, but Practical: In a game with as many methods for chaos as this, sometimes the easiest way to destroy most chaos objects in the game is to just fire enough bullets at it until it explodes.
    • The UVK-13 RPG is the first special weapon in the game, and can easily serve as a solid-but-not-spectacular option to destroy most anything in the game in one to two shots. And unlike most rocket launchers, it's accurate enough to use at range.
    • The CS Predator assault rifle similarly performs well in almost all categories, lacking any specific strength besides how well balanced it is. And its only real weakness is a small magazine size, which isn't a huge deal since reloads are fast as is.
  • Brick Joke: On your way to the final battle, Mario asks what Rico's gonna do once it's all over. Rico says he's gonna just sit back on the beach with a cold drink. After the credits are finished, he proceeds to do just that.
  • Broken Pedestal: Sheldon, for Rico. Rico even tells him that he's pretty sure that Sheldon was responsible for his family's death and if he ever knows for sure, he's coming after him.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Rico's a born Mexican who's a Medician (possibly Italian) on his mom's side.
  • Call-Back: One of the trophies/achievements is called "Take That, You Pipeline Jerks", in reference to the previous game's memetic "Try to transport fuel NOW, you pipeline jerks!" In addition, a lot of the things Rico says when he destroys things follow a pattern of "Try to X now, Y!"
  • Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Civilian towns have loudspeakers constantly spouting Di Ravello's propaganda. Some towns feature a loudspeaker truck driving around as well. Whenever you go to break a town free of oppression, one of your tasks is to swiftly and decisively deal with them.
  • The Caper: The Bavarium Sea Heist DLC.
  • The Chessmaster: The Di Ravello logs show that he has planned out his rise to power since he first enlisted in the Medici army, along with him literally using chess metaphors in describing his actions.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Maria Kane, Rico's female handler and sidekick from the previous two games does not appear this time, with no explanation provided for her absence. Justified as Maria is an Agency asset and Rico is no longer working for them. Instead, the Action Girl role is filled by Annika, a smuggler supporting the rebellion for fun and profit.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: The Di Ravello logs you collect show that he made Dimah work on Bavarium, punishing her by burning her with a blowtorch when she wasn't working fast enough.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The developers have stated that within the game, the "colors of oppression" — red, yellow, and grey — symbolize Di Ravello's hold over the country, and as such are present on most of the Chaos objects. The rebellion, meanwhile, is represented by the much more vibrant trio of blue, white, and orange.
  • Commonplace Rare: The Autostraad D90 and especially the Stria Gioco spawn very rarely in parking lots and AI traffic, despite being unremarkable non-exotic cars.
  • Compensating for Something: Rico may say something about it when you destroy any of the Di Ravello statues.
    Rico: You know what they say about a guy with a big statue...
  • Conlang: The "Medician" language is Interlingua, which looks and sounds enough like a Romance language to be believable as the native language of a Mediterranean island.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: The Final Story Mission and the occurring battle against Di Ravello takes place inside an active volcano. With little to no consequences for Rico.
  • Cool Boat: Bavarium Sea Heist's Loochador. Ridiculous Nitro that lasts much longer than that of any other vehicle in the game? Check. Four miniguns and two gigantic missile launchers on the sides? Check. Punny Name? Check.
  • Cool Car: The previous games had their fair share of cool cars, but thanks to new-generation graphics and pseudo-Italian setting, about 70% of the cars seen in the game are undoubtedly cool, from vintage sedans and compacts to military jeeps to top-of-the-line supercars, and even a Formula-1 racer, all beautifully rendered. The only cars that aren't really straight-up cool are 1970s hatchbacks, modern family cars, and utility trucks, and even those have their fans.
  • Cool Plane: The planes and helicopters in the game are no disappointments either — most of them look cool, and some, like transport planes with usable cargo holds, jet fighters and fighter-bombers, and transport helicopters with miniguns and missiles, are very useful for transportation and combat... even if in the hands of Rico, most of the planes are likely to be used as very large and expensive bullets.
  • Cool Train: Medici has, among other things, a monorail network, with the trains themselves having resemblance to Half-Life 2's Razor Trains, and being available in freeroam for a Traintop Battle or plain old derailment any time you want.
  • Create Your Own Hero: Once upon a time, General Di Ravello was dissatisfied with the outcome of a race he'd rigged in order to kill an opponent. Now, Di Ravello remembers the driver who'd won the race, so what does he do? Burn his house down with his family inside. The general only left the racer himself alive in order to give him to the Agency as a way to uphold their bargain. The kid's name? Rico fucking Rodriguez.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The last time there was a Presidential election was in the middle of a civil war, which Di Ravello orchestrated. On election day, President Dante was torn limb from limb by angry protesters.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Bavarium could be a revolution for the world's energy supplies; Di Ravello could have taken economic control of the world and gotten his name in the history books just by being a magnate of the stuff. Sadly, by the time he had access to Bavarium, he was long past being subtle (or completely sane).
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
    • In Just Cause 2, right mouse button throws grenades and F fires the grappling hook... and in Just Cause 3, right mouse button fires the grappling hook and F throws grenades, which can easily result in a lot of blowing yourself up (or at least wasting grenades). Fortunately, the settings can be remapped to whatever buttons you want in the controls menu.
    • Arguably the worst case of this is that hitting spacebar while in a vehicle causes you to bail out with no warning. Since spacebar is more commonly used for handbrake, you'll find yourself quite often accidentally bailing when you meant to slow down to turn. If that's not bad enough, the mech added in DLC has a jump function, which, since spacebar, was taken got mapped to Shift. Unfortunately, since on foot jumping is done with spacebar, you get more instances of accidental bailing when you meant to jump over an obstacle. Doubly unfortunately, this will constantly happen as you will switch between being in a mech and on foot, unlike the handbrake which at least you can unlearn by avoiding playing other games.
  • Death from Above: The eDEN Spark is a "gun" that allows you to point a laser at a point in the ground. After a few seconds, a large blast of lightining will fall on the target.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you die during a mission, you will simply restart from the last checkpoint. If you die outside of a mission, you will always respawn somewhere nearby with your ammo replenished. This comes in handy if: A, are killed while trying to liberate a base, and B, have a certain Bavarium-based FOW currently in your arsenal.
  • Deflector Shields: One of the properties of Bavarium is that some high-end vehicles made of it have what is called a "Bavarium shield". This Twitter link says as much. The story trailer shows it right around here.
  • Destructive Savior: Tweaked a bit from the previous games. Rico's still blowing stuff up for freedom, but because the people need infrastructure, chaos objects vital for an area's operation (like water towers and transformers) are only found in military bases. In civilian towns, chaos objects are propaganda items like billboards and Di Ravello statues.
    • Also becomes a Discussed Trope: Mario acknowledges that Rico will be destroying things like power stations that help keep the country going, but things need to be blown up so people can see Di Ravello isn't invincible. He assures Rico that the rebels will be there to rebuild anything that gets destroyed.
  • Difficult, but Awesome: The wingsuit in spades. Unlike the parachute, it's a bit harder to maneuver, and hitting anything will result in Rico crashing. But once you get the hang of it, it's one of the fastest and most versatile traversal methods in the game. Goes doubly for using the tether while flying. It's tricky to aim and time your tethers on the fly, but flying past a chaos object as you pull it down is always awesome.
  • Disc-One Nuke: The Urga Vdova 89 machinegun is the standard weapon of Medici Machinegunners and is extremely easy to find on Insula Fonte. Even with its atrocious accuracy and handling with a slow rate of fire, it still out-damages any other non-special weapon in the game, destroying most Chaos Objects with only a few rounds. Once the Precision Aim mod is unlocked, aiming down sights will reduce spread and recoil to the point it becomes viable at mid-range. Add to that a huge magazine and the fact it can use assault rifle ammo makes it next to impossible to ever run dry. It's entirely possible to destroy an entire military base using nothing but that one gun.
    • The only other weapon that exceeds its DPS is the DLC Bavarium Splitter, which can be found the moment the Eden Airship is unlocked. Boasting even worse accuracy, it has a blistering rate of fire that can cut down entire groups of enemies in seconds.
    • The eDEN Spark is an incredibly destructive weapon that causes lighting to fall on whatever you're pointing it at. Doing the Sea Heist secondary mission will make it fire and reload faster and increase the damage it causes. Plus, it doesn't need ammunition.
  • Disaster Dominoes: The developers went on record saying they deliberately programmed the physics engine and set up the explosive-prone objects in military bases in such a way that one explosion is likely to set off a chain of other explosions, all in the name of the Rule of Fun.
  • Diving Kick: Single-grappling and reeling into people will result in this, thanks to the grappling hook redesign. note 
  • Doom Troops: As described below, Di Ravello's Elite Mooks walk around in full tactical gear, with bulletproof vests and balaclavas, have Terminator-like voices, and are notably more dangerous than the regular Medici Military or D.R.M. goons.
  • Dude, Not Funny!: Rico doesn’t seem to find Mario’s “kiss the cow” trick funny.
  • Easy Level Trick: Destruction Frenzy challenges are built around you causing as much damage as possible to a base with a specific weapon. However, every base has a helicopter with guns and missiles which you can use to shred the base, and since the timer doesn't start until you destroy something, you can feel free to go and pick it up.
  • Egopolis: Citate Di Ravello. Lampshaded during a story mission when Rico and Sheldon fly over the city, and Sheldon states that the name translates to "City of Di Ravello" before taking a jab at Di Ravello's ego. There's also a smaller town called "Costa Di Ravello", the residents of which have gotten so intimidated that they can't even remember the place's original name.
  • Elite Mooks:
    • Later on in the game the Medici Military begin to employ upgraded APCs and attack copters, equipped with Bavarium energy shields that protect the vehicle from all damage (until they go down that is.)
    • The Black Hand mooks come in three flavors: the Aegis is an elite infantry unit armed with a big rifle and armor that lets them take far more of a beating than Medici's finest; the Ghost is a nimble bastard, capable of evading Rico's gunfire while returning in kind with twin SMGs; and the Titan wears heavy armor and requires several headshots to take down, if you can get through the withering barrage of lead from their minigun. The Black Hand as a whole speak in heavily filtered Australian/South African accents, have glowing red visors and have been loaned Medici Military equipment.
  • EMP: The focus of the second act are EMP devices that can counteract Bavarium shields, and the Rebellion's attempts to acquire one. Notably, the game inverts the Acceptable Break from Reality of making the EMP temporary in effect: vehicles hit with the EMP blasts actually catch fire and explode.
  • Empty Room Psych: Boom Island for PC players (On consoles it's where you can spend time while the game is installing). A crescent shaped island at the bottom left corner of the map that you can fast travel to, but with seemingly nothing to do and no apparent reason why it's there. There's also a lot of small islands in general that have nothing on them.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: Medici army has both male and female soldiers, the latter encountered fairly frequently rather than a token one or two times. Black-skinned soldiers are also present.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Want to get an idea how bad Di Ravello is? In his first scene, he punishes an officer for the loss of Vis Electra by forcing him to commit suicide, all while making a speech without flinching at his death and then ordering a village to be burned to the ground as retaliation.
  • Every Car Is a Pinto: As usual in the series. Once again, vehicles become even more explosive once you bail out of them.
  • Evil Chancellor: Di Ravello was this to President Dante.
  • Expy: Annika Svensson is one for Maria Kane from previous installments, being a blonde Action Girl that provides assistance to Rico. Their semblance is so uncanny that fans initially thought she was going to be Kane.
  • Fake Defector: One mission early in the game requires Rico to rescue Zeno Antithikara, a researcher working for Di Ravello, who is planning to defect to the resistance. It turns out Zeno pretended to defect in order to spy on the resistance for Di Ravello.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Di Ravello. His Establishing Character Moment is a cutscene where he speaks in a cheery and nonchalant fashion while having one of his commanders commit suicide for his failure and ordering a town full of innocents to be burned to the ground.
  • Fictional Holiday: The game begins in the middle of something called “Di Ravello Week”, described by a news reporter at the start of the game as “annual festivities” across Medici in honour of Di Rivello.
  • Final Speech: Di Ravello gives one last speech while Rico is holding him at gunpoint after the final battle. The game actually opts you to let him finish OR shoot him while he's in the middle of it - if he's allowed to finish, he kills himself.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • Nobody knows what FOW stands for. It is a collection of Bavarium-powered superweapons.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Despite the fact you can find all of the Di Ravello's tapes before you play any of the main missions, none of the things contained in them, such as The Agency helping Di Ravello gain power, Zeno's loyalty to Di Ravello and his involvement in framing Rose for Di Ravello's rise to power, and Di Ravello's involvement in killing Rico's family are ever addressed in-game.
    • Collecting all of the tapes also allows you to drop Di Ravello's one-of-a-kind personal helicopter that serves as the final boss of the game. How and why the tapes allow this is never explained.
    • Story missions don't take into account which bases you've liberated. Ordinarily, this isn't a problem, but one mission has you defending a convoy. Your allies freak out when you're forced to pass by a military base, even if the base is under your control. For bonus points, a scripted event makes a helicopter launch from the base, which may immediately get shot down by your SAMs. Another mission requires you to obtain a Bavarium tank for study, but if you've liberated the right base, you're able to drop one at any time, which ought to render the mission pointless.
    • The mech and sea heist DLCs, which are about the Black Hand organisation, unlocks before the base game missions where the Black Hand start showing up, making a conversation Rico has about who they are peculiar since he'd dealt with them twice already before.
      • Also regarding the DLCs, canonically the timeline of them are the airship, the mech land assault, and finally the Bavarium sea heist. You can do them in any order, but the finale of the mech DLC has a teaser where the Black Hand heads to the location of the sea heist, which seems odd if you've cleared out that place and done that story already. The mech DLC also has a bit where Rico recognizes Eden's voice, which makes no sense if you haven't finished the airship first.
    • The Bavarium Sea Heist DLC unlocks its first mission as soon as Annika enters the plot, which is in the same mission in which Mario is severely wounded in a gunfight. The next mission is supposed to be getting better medicine before your comrade dies from his wounds, but you can complete the entire DLC and come back to the main story like no time has passed.
  • Gas Leak Cover Up: Whenever Rico takes over a base, the radio announcer (a celebrity held against his will in Medici) will go on radio to declare that the base was intentionally blown up by the D.R.M. for any number of bullshit reasons.
  • Gaslighting: In a case of Evil Is Petty, The Di Ravello Audio Diary entry, “Mischief,” shows he had an Agency agent (most likely Sheldon) pull pranks on disgraced former General De Luca with things like burning toast in his house, moving his favorite fishing dock by a few feet, and prank calling him by saying nothing.
  • Gatling Good: There are handheld miniguns in the game, featured prominently in the trailers, as well as miniguns on patrol and heavy-assault helicopters.
  • The Generalissimo: Di Ravello, and how. He looks like Stalin, dresses like Gaddafi, speaks in a dramatic and threatening manner, rose from an army private to a military dictator, statues, posters, and billboards bearing his likeness dot every town in Medici, and he plans to Take Over the World with a newly-discovered resource that only he has.
  • Genius Bruiser: Teo, notably so. He's a muscular, assault rifle-toting black guy who has medical skills, a love of statistics, and enough expertise in Bavarium to actively work on reverse-engineering the Bavarium shields.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority:
    • There's a golden variant of the Urga Mstitel helicopter available through Rebel Drop after you get all of the Di Ravello tapes, and the golden one comes equipped with a Bavarium shield.
    • The Little General revolvers are a golden version of the CS44 Peacebringers, and they do more damage too.
  • Gone Horribly Right: General Di Ravello gave a young Rico Rodriguez to the Agency as a peace offering for going against their will and taking over the country. He views Rico as little more than a proper test for his army, not knowing just who he's messing with!
  • Gotta Catch Them All: The game's Rebel Drop system introduces a collection element: you can have any vehicle in the game air-dropped to you — but only after you steal it and bring it to a collection point. This gives the player an incentive besides 100% Completion to explore the world and find all the vehicles.
  • Graffiti of the Resistance: A notable part of the game's aesthetic, the graffiti appears both in the liberated areas and on the rebel vehicles, and are used in many places of the game's interface. The bright, decorative colors contrast against the more dull ones used on Di Ravello's side of the table.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The Black Hand is mentioned in the Mech Land Assault DLC to have been around since Rico was operating in San Esperito in JC1.
  • Green Rocks: Bavarium can do a lot of things, so long as those things are some variation of "make things explode spectacularly".
  • Grievous Harm with a Body: With the new multi-tethers, Rico can easily fling enemy soldiers - or civilians - at his targets, possibly after sticking a bomb to them.
  • Guns Akimbo: This is Rico's default way to wield one-handed weapons such as revolvers and SMGs.
  • Hellish Copter:
    • Like in the previous two JC games, the liberal usage of helicopters by your enemies, the ease of hijacking them, their susceptibility to physics-based mayhem, and Rico's hands-off attitude towards landing the ones he flies mean that 90% of helicopters in the game are guaranteed to go down in flames.
    • Di Ravello, the final boss, fights Rico in a his Golden Urga Mstitel. This can be obtained for your own use by finding all of Di Ravello's tapes.
  • Here We Go Again!: Rico leaves the Agency and returns to his homeland, only to find it under the oppressive rule of yet another dictator. Rico ends up doing the exact same thing he left The Agency to get away from in order to free his homeland.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Dimah stays behind in the final base to make sure that all knowledge of Bavarium technology is destroyed, which includes herself. This is later shown to be a Senseless Sacrifice because eDEN and Black Hand still have access to their archives.
  • Hero Stole My Bike: Lampshaded. Civilians may react to Rico hijacking their car with lines like "Be careful switching, it sticks in second!" or "Anything for the Revolution!"
  • High-Speed Hijack: Like in the previous two games, this is part and parcel for Rico, along with Hood Hopping and Outside Ride. Unlike in Just Cause 2, he doesn't even need to do a QTE for the hijack.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Compared to it's predecessor, where Improbable Aiming Skills were the norm for the Panau military, Medici's military comes up far shorter. It often take at least 3-5 seconds of continuous fire to hit Rico. This includes enemies in helicopters, who will often fire their miniguns well short of him, then sweep them upwards to where he's standing.
  • Implacable Man: Rico, to nonsensical levels. Pretty much the only thing guaranteed to down him is about 15 seconds of continuous machine gun fire from multiple sources. Hit by a passing car? Thrown off a cliff? Caught in an explosion? He walks these off.
  • Impressive Pyrotechnics: This trope is really brought to the fore in JC3 as compared to two previous games; in JC2 the explosions were generic for the most part, but here most of them are glorious plumes of fire and huge fireballs.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills:
    • Enemies on the standard patrol/gunboats will be able to snipe Rico with their machineguns at long range, even while he's wingsuiting, which is rather surprising given how most enemies in the game have worse accuracy compared to the previous installment.
    • Enemy Shotgunners can also hit Rico at long range, and rather interestingly, this is reflected if Rico used the same Kladivo pump-action, which has a longer effective range than most of the game's rifles.
  • Infinite Supplies:
    • The game gives you infinite remote bombs, though the amount of them you can set at a time are limited to 3 without upgrades.
    • You can also steal any vehicle and bring it to the rebels — and after that, you'll be able to call it in as many times as you like. It's Hand Waved as Rebel engineers taking the vehicle apart, learning how to make all the pieces, and then putting all the pieces together and sending the reconstructed vehicle to Rico.
  • Ink-Suit Actor: The game's Rebel Leader, Mario, looks somewhat like JC3's game director, Roland Lesterlin.
  • Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Heavy enemies are immune to being tethered, and will rip it off if you try.
  • La Résistance: With Rico leaving The Agency, he has to rely on rebels to support him in his journey.
  • Last Lousy Point: Several of the vehicles you need to find for Mario's garages can count.
    • The Squalo X7. The fastest boat which only spawns in two bodies of landlocked water. The boat itself is also so heavy that even while using all 6 tethers with the maximum strength and the most powerful helicopter it can easily snap all of them if you aren't very careful with your piloting.
    • The Verdeleon 3. This car doesn't even spawn on roads; it can only be found in a certain warehouse in the mountains near the top of the map, extremely far from any of Mario's garages. Good luck getting it to a garage without crashing.
    • The Nashorn 6100. A giant mining truck that while not exactly hard to find, spawns really far from any garage, moves extremely slowly and is so large it takes up the entire road. This makes it almost impossible to not run over some soldier along the way and cause them to start attacking you. And while the truck can easily plow through anything they can throw at it vehicle wise, there is a limit to how much damage it can take and bringing it to a garage in one piece requires a lot of luck.
    • The Weimaraner Z80. The civilian version of the 4*4 that you constantly blow up only spawns on two remote small islands that you have absolutely no business being on. Finding them is a borderline Guide Dang It!.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Like other games in the series, a physics exploit allows the player to use the grapple towards the ground while falling and avoid fall damage. One of the loading screen texts lampshades this:
    As Isaac Newton once said, "There's no better way to break a fall than by grappling to the ground and reeling in to it."
  • Leave Behind a Pistol: Di Ravello's indirect You Have Failed Me execution at the start of "A Terrible Reaction".
  • Lighter and Softer: Compared to Just Cause 2 before it: The rebels are unambiguously good, the villain is unambiguously evil, and you only destroy the government's military facilities and propaganda, rather than the people's facilities.
  • Lightning Gun: As of Bavarium Sea Heist, the eDEN Spark. In the sense that it literally calls down a bolt of lightning from the sky.
  • Living Legend: By the time of Just Cause 3, Rico Rodriguez is world-renowned as a man who can go toe-to-toe with evil regimes run by brutal dictators, and both the rebels and the civilians frequently cheer him on in the streets, count on him for help, and express gratitude for coming in to depose Di Ravello.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: The game seems to have a serious problem when it comes to loading after death, some claiming upwards to 5 minutes or more. Most state that playing in Offline Mode greatly shortens it. One of the patches also seems to have fixed this problem.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: The Di Ravello Log, "Gruesome", shows that in the riot that killed President Dante, the Medici Army had to recover his body piece by piece.
  • Macross Missile Massacre:
    • The Hydra is a burst-fire rocket launcher with five tubes, the Fire Leech is a launcher firing one missile that splits into eight guided ones, one of the jet fighters has two fully-automatic, guided missile launchers on it, and the trains have cars equipped with lots and lots of SAM launchers.
    • In the Bavarium Sea Heist DLC, the Loochador is a boat capable of pulling this off.
  • Made of Explodium: Damn near everything in the game, from electric transformers to radar arrays to civlian and military cars to any gadgets of which Bavarium is a part.
  • Mad Scientist: Dimah, Rico's scientific adviser and the maker of his grapple gauntlet, is some variety of this. She warns him that if his grapple malfunctions it could explode or rip his arm off, and once asks him to help her out with something "definitely not related to clones."
  • Make It Look Like an Accident: Rico can pull this off on di Ravello collaborators as part of the random encounters. If the player decides to do such a thing, they must hijack a limousine en route to pick up the collaborator and, without being detected, collect their victim, crash the car (while bailing out just beforehand) and kill them.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: Some D.R.M. members wear ski masks.
  • MegaCorp: In the Sky Fortress DLC, Eden Inc. is this with a private army to match the Medici army.
  • Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: In the Bavarium Sea Heist finale, when Rico acquires the eDEN Spark, we get this quote:
    Rico: Black Hand, meet Sparky.
  • "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Sheldon's middle name is allegedly "Freedom".
  • The Mole: In the second hub of the game, Insula Dracon, it's believed that Sheldon is the mole playing both sides. It turns out to be Zeno.
  • More Dakka: There are tons and tons of powerful weapons in the game, and while not limitless, the ammunition for them is never scarce. For instance, it's now far easier to find rocket and grenade launcher ammo compared to Just Cause 1 and 2.
    • Borderline exaggerated with the Vdova machinegun and the DLC Bavarium splitter. Both are full auto monsters with terrible accuracy but unmatched DPS, encouraging Rico to get right into the think of things and fire wildly.
    • The only notable exceptions would be sniper rifle and shotgun ammo. Shotguns only hold 24 spare rounds in reserve and can only be reloaded off uncommon enemies and in random weapon cabinets. While sniper rifles hold more ammo and enemy snipers are more common, the only way to reload those besides scavenging is via Rebel Drop.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Vehicles you drive instantly gain more mass so you can plow through traffic and other obstacles more easily.
  • New Media Are Evil: The General blasts social media in his propaganda speakers, like how real-life despots do, because of its democratic and disruptive nature.
  • Nitro Boost: With upgrades, you can have it in any vehicle you drive, should you so desire.
  • No Escape but Down: With the parachute, the wingsuit, and an abundance of dizzying heights, players can expect to regularly invoke this trope. Then it can be promptly inverted by grappling to something, flying or reeling back up, and raining Death from Above on the enemies.
  • No Hero to His Valet: Zig-zagged; the rebel figureheads are much more familiar with Rico from their childhood friendship with him than his allies in Panau and not afraid to question him, but his reputation precedes him and they know his skills are what they need.
  • No Man Should Have This Power: Towards the end of the game, Rosa and Dimah both start expressing a desire to destroy all of Di Ravello's research into Bavarium, feeling it's too destructive to let out. Dimah goes so far as to ensure her own death, as she is the only human alive with a working knowledge of how Bavarium works, and she wants to eliminate all knowledge of it.
  • Noodle Incident: The Burning of the North. The entire northern half of Insula Striate is walled off and abandoned, with only guard posts and military bases breaking up vast stretches of empty countryside full of ruined towns. When this happened - and more importantly, why - is never explained.
  • Not Quite Flight: The game's new ensemble of grapple, parachute, and wingsuit makes the game's movement butt against the confines of this trope. The parachute is now a combat platform from which you can accurately pepper enemies with bullets, rockets, and grenades, and the wingsuit is the soar-across-vast-distances mobility option, with Rico's grapple capable of giving either a speed boost to achieve practically indefinite flight. There is even a leaderboard for how far you can fly in a wingsuit without touching the ground.
  • Not With the Safety On, You Won't: In the mission "Bavarium On A Plane", just after Rico, Dimah and Sheldon get onto the plane, they're confronted by a guard. Sheldon tells the guard "Safety's on" to distract him before punching him out.
  • No Social Skills: Dimah is usually more focused on the problem at hand to bother with being polite or even people in general.
  • One-Man Army: Rico, as always. He sees no problem with and no difficulty in killing hundreds of soldiers, wrecking tanks and helicopters, and destroying entire military installations all on his own.
  • The Oner: Many of the cutscenes are single shot.
  • Orange/Blue Contrast: The developers have stated in interviews that they kept this trope in mind while designing Medici - the game's sunburned marquis shrublands, wheat fields, sandstone cliffs, and orange gabled roofs contrast with the blue oceans and skies. Judging by the screenshots, it's a great example of tropes not being bad. There's also the orange and blue bands in the Rebel flag.
  • Pass Through the Rings: The Wingsuit challenges are this, with the additional tasks of picking one or another path through the rings based on how well you can do, as well as flying close to terrain to maximize your score.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Tongue wedged so firmly in cheek it comes out the ear. If the player is so inclined, Rico can be a greater threat to the people of Medici than Di Ravello and his cronies. Yet they still praise him as their saviour.
    Riconote : I should probably stop doing that.
  • Pun: In the ending of the second mission of Bavarium Sea Heist, where it's Rico and his buddies against a massive Black Hand fleet, Rico will spring one after defeating each wave.
    Rico: You're not going anywhere— let that SINK in.
    Rico: You're washed out.
  • Punny Name: The Loochador.
  • Pyromaniac:
    • According to a dev interview and "Burn It!" trailer, Di Ravello is just a liiittle obsessed with fire. The cutscene setting in which he appears even features a bowl of fire, and he likes to pepper his speeches with fire-related allusions and metaphors.
    • The final battle against Di Ravello takes place inside a volcano. Go figure.
    • Heck, even the promotional materials have "fire" in them one way or another. Apart from the "Set the World on Fire" slogan and the "Burn It" title of the aforementioned trailer, the three songs used in the trailers are a cover of The Prodigy's "Firestarter" by Torre Florim, "Fire" by Kasabian and "Hipster Shakes"… by Black Pistol Fire.
  • Ramp Jump: One of the new abilities in the game is the Knight Rider-inspired rocket boost, which can let you do ramp jumps... without a ramp. It can be attached to any car or boat obtained for a race or via Rebel Drop.
  • Real Is Brown: Averted, the game's colors shine at making the environment eye-catching. This part is even more colorful than the previous games.
  • Realpolitik: Part of the game's plot is that The Agency only removes dictators when they're inconvenient for the US of A, and Di Ravello is one of the dictators they don't want removed, causing Rico to leave The Agency and work on his own.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: The D.R.M. militia members wear red and black, as do the Black Hand.
  • Red Herring: Sheldon's shady nature, history with Di Ravello and double dealing with both parties easily make it assume that he is working for Di Ravello. Then it turns out Zeno is the true mole all along.
  • Remember the New Guy?: A lot of characters, particularly Dimah, are treated as if Rico has known and worked with them for years, despite never having appeared in the series before. It's justified in that Rico at least knew most of the characters from childhood (Mario and his lines about "finishing the car" come to mind) and it's not too far off to assume that he'd earned a reputation both at home as a racer and internationally as, well, Rico.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Enforced. The developers wanted the game to be a cheesy Hollywood-style action romp, so the rebels are by necessity the good guys, and Rico's destructive antics are painted in a positive light.
  • Riding the Bomb: The last mission of Act 1, "Missile Cowboy", has Rico grapple himself onto a Bavarium missile. Since he can't defuse it and he's not in any mood to drop it in the water just so Sheldon and the Agency can get their hands on it, he redirects it back to the base it came from to blow it up.
  • Running Gag: "Frigo and Etcetera", Mario [Frigo]'s name for himself and Rico.
    • Self-Referential Humor: Rico plays along with the diss.
      Mario: You're coming with me?
      Rico: What's "Frigo and Etcetera" without Etcetera?
  • Ruritania: Medici plays this straight, being a small, poor, autocratic European country in the Mediterranean.
  • Sanity Slippage: The Propaganda Minster starts off covering up Rico's destruction of military bases, but starts to get more and more unhinged with each base Rico destroys, running out of excuses.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Due to controlling a massive supply of Bavarium, Di Ravello is one of the dictators who the Agency doesn't want deposed... so Rico leaves the Agency so that he can depose him for personal reasons. Not that this stops Sheldon from being the rebels' black market supplier.
  • Self-Deprecation: There's an Easter Egg that consists of a "Landfill *** Dumping ground for anti-Medician culture". What do you find if you blow it up? Copies of Just Cause and Just Cause 2!
  • Sequel Escalation: In terms of quantity and variety of gameplay mechanics that ensure total chaos and action-movie awesomeness, Just Cause 3 is as much of a step up from the second part as the second part was from the first.
  • Series Continuity Error: When Sheldon first mentions that the Black Hand are in Medici, Rico acts like he doesn’t know who they are, and Sheldon explains. This shouldn’t have happened, as Rico previously fought against them in the first game.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: Played straight with the full-auto Automat U12, but strangely subverted with the other two shotguns. The two-handed Kladivo can hit enemies reliably at ranges farther than most rifles, while the dual-wielded Zabijaks can easily match the pistols from the same category in range despite having a large spread.
    • It's also worth noting that the Kladivo is the standard weapon of Medeici Military Shotgunners, and theirs can hit roughly the same range.
  • Shout-Out: A fair number of them, including mission and achievement/trophy names.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Mario starts out as a mild example of this; he frequently gives himself an inordinate amount of praise and responsibility for certain actions. However, it's implied he's doing this to cover up his own depression on the lack of progress in the revolution, and it starts dying down once Rico starts liberating significant amounts of land.
  • The Snack Is More Interesting: After the destruction of Vis Electra, Di Ravello takes his subordinates to task, giving one of them a pistol and then turning his undivided attention to a charcuterie platter while a gunshot is heard in the background.
  • Sniping the Cockpit: As one trailer shows, it's entirely possible (including sniping a moving vehicle from another moving vehicle). Surprisingly enough for video game bad guys, enemy snipers are also very much capable of pulling this off on Rico if his helicopter hovers in one place for too long.
  • The Sociopath: Di Ravello. The audio diaries show him to be devoid of anything remotely resembling compassion, capable of building complex plans and manipulating people, ready to throw everyone and everything else to the wind so long as he gets what he wants, and completely full of himself to boot. And unlike Rico and his murderously-destructive tendencies, Di Ravello has nothing heroic about him at all.
  • Sociopathic Hero: The first dev diary acknowledges that Rico is not really a good guy, and will go to insane, hyperbolic extents to try and do the right thing - but in the same video, developers also acknowledge that Rico can be surprisingly nice, and this is reinforced in the final game by Rico being able to help out random people all over Medici.
  • Soft Water: Falling into water at any height is perfectly safe, in fact, Rico ends Act 2 by slamming into the ocean at terminal velocity no worse for wear.
  • Spaghetti and Gondolas: The setting of the game, Medici, is stated to be based on various Mediterranean countries - mostly the Hollywood Atlas version of Italy, with a decent amount of Toros y Flamenco and other regional stereotypes thrown into the mix.
    • Justified (or lampshaded) by the use of Interlingua as the Medician "language."
  • Spider Tank: The mech suits in the Mech Land Assault DLC. They were originally designed to load heavy cargo, but the Black Hand saw the potential and turned them into weapons of destruction.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: In the previous game, there was a voice on the radio which tried to dismiss Rico's actions as something that was planned by the dictator all along. That returns here, except that voice is now David Tennant's.
  • Take Over the World: The ambition of General Di Ravello is nothing less than complete global domination. And between Bavarium-derived technologies, massive military bases, and infinite amounts of combat helicopters, he may well have the military power to back it up.
    Di Ravello: Soon the world will know the extent of my power.
  • Tanks, but No Tanks: The vehicles listed as "tanks" in the Rebel Drop menu and referred to as "tanks" by the characters are actually an armored reconnaissance vehicle (Urga Bkolos) and really cool infantry fighting vehicles (CS Odjur, Imperator Bavarium Tank).
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Played with. Sheldon's character is consistent between games, but since Rico no longer has to take orders from him, his flippant attitude and constant demands make him and the Agency look like busybody pricks. Turns out that Rico cutting ties with the agency and wrecking Di Ravello's day has landed Sheldon in a damning situation he can't get out of.
  • Toppled Statue: Like with "Baby" Panay in the previous game, statues of Di Ravello dot the landscape, just waiting to be destroyed. And you get Chaos points for it, of course.
  • Train Job: Some trains carry vehicles on flatcars, which you can steal. This includes planes.
  • Trapped in Villainy: As you destroy bases in Medici, the Propaganda Minister makes comments that sound like he's an international celebrity forced into the job of reporting the news.
  • Turbulent Priest: The unlockable churches you can take refuge in to clear heat and fast forward to night. The priest even sweeps you inside to hide you.
  • Unobtanium:
    • Di Ravello's plans for world domination hinge on "a miraculous ore called Bavarium", which, according to the devs, has "very explosive and weirdly magnetic" properties, and is only found in Medici. It is, at turns, shown to be an explosive, a form of energy, and also a shield generator. One promotional video even called it a form of Unobtanium.
    • The game actually does give a nod to just how much potential Bavarium has; Dimah comments early on that Bavarium's energy-storing properties would be revolutionary. However anything holding that much power is prone to being explosive, let alone an unstable ore nobody completely understands, meaning it's easily weaponized... and currently held in monopoly by a military dictator.
      Dimah: Rico... Bavarium is in the wrong hands.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A guy fishing off a dock only takes a moment's pause before continuing reeling when Rico splashes in by him at terminal speed.
  • Use Your Head: It is, in fact, entirely possible to demolish Di Ravello billboards by building momentum with a wingsuit and then slamming headfirst into them.
  • Vague Hit Points: Rico, unlike the prior two games, does not have a health bar. The screen turns black-and-white if he's close to death and regains color as his Regenerating Health comes into effect.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Throughout the game, you will randomly encounter people in need of help, from something as trivial as someone's car running out of gas 50 metres away from a gas station to something as serious as rebels about to be executed by a firing squad. You are free to help those people if you care about them... or screw it up in amusing ways.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • The grappling hook, just like the previous games, allows you to grant NPCs cruel, yet hilarious, ends.
    • You can still tether people to objects and each other. Nothing new, right? Now, though, if you press a button, the tether reels them in at high speed. Enjoy slamming people's heads into walls!
    • The Triggered Explosives of the first two games have been succeeded by the GE-64 explosives, an infinite supply of sticky bombs that can be stuck to any surface, including people and vehicles.
  • Villain in a White Suit: Di Ravello wears a white generalissimo suit covered in Bling of War.
  • Villainous Breakdown: General Di Ravello at first considers Rico more of a novelty to test his army against. It's only after Rico destroys his Bavarium bomb that he starts ranting and raving, even beating one of his own soldiers to death. After being defeated in the final fight, he goes on a Despair Speech, and provided that Rico hasn't shot him by that point will proceed to throw himself into the flames.
  • Weaponized Car: Three of them available via DLC (originally the Pre-Order Bonus content pack): the Urga Ogar V8 buggy with two machine guns, the Kerner Serpente sports car with a rocket launcher, and Pescespada SS speedboat with dual miniguns.
  • With Catlike Tread: Before a certain mission involving the two of them, Rico warns Mario to stay out of sight until they meet up. Mario assures Rico that he is a mastery of subtlety. When Rico arrives at the meeting point, however, he discovers that Mario's idea of "subtlety" involves dancing to loud music in public.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: Whenever stuff isn't blowing up, the game's Wide-Open Sandbox full of beautiful sights and cool ways to travel can easily evoke this reaction.
  • Wreaking Havok:
    • All the physics of Stuff Blowing Up are procedural now; you can use multi-tethers to pull down fuel tanks, smash through transmitter aerials with planes and through Di Ravello statues with cars, demolish bridges with rocket barrages, and generally lay waste to everything in sight.
    • There's also the capability to turn your C4 into rocket engines and strap it to anything. In particular, sticking it to the bottom of a helicopter will cause it to do dozens of end-over-end flips before exploding.
  • You Don't Look Like You: Rather than looking and sounding like a Tony Montana impersonator, Rico now has a tanner complexion, a full beard and an accent that's a mix of Spanish and Italian.
  • You Have Failed Me: After Rico destroys Vis Electra, Di Ravello not only orders the death of the base's commander, but hands him the gun to kill himself with. He's also so blasé about it that he doesn't even watch the commander go through with it, instead continuing with his speech.
  • You Have Researched Breathing: Aiming down sights is an upgrade that you have to unlock, rather than simply being default as it was in the first two games.

 
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Sebastiano Di Ravello

The military dictator of Medici. Di Ravello rules his nation with an iron fist and is Rico's main target.

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