78/100
Players554 ratings: 88/100
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2004 · Ubisoft Reflections · First-person shooter · Shooter

Far Cry

A tropical paradise seethes with hidden evil in Far Cry, a cunningly detailed action shooter that pushed the boundaries of combat to shocking new levels.Freelance mariner Jack Carver is cursing the day he ever came to this island. A week ago, a brash female reporter named Valerie had offered him an incredible sum of cash to take her to this unspoiled paradise. Shortly after docking, however, Jack's boat was greeted by artillery fire from a mysterious militia group swarming about the island.

Released: 23 March 2004
Platforms: Arcade PlayStation 3 Wii Windows Xbox 360 Xbox Series X/S
Genres: First-person shooter Shooter
Developers: Ubisoft Reflections Ubisoft Shanghai Red Storm Entertainment Ubisoft Toronto Ubisoft Kyiv
Publishers: Buka Entertainment Softclub
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Science fiction
Engine: Dunia, Dunia 2
Copies sold: 60 million as of 2025

About

Far Cry is an anthology franchise of first-person shooter games published by Ubisoft. The first game, Far Cry, was developed by Crytek to premiere their CryEngine software, and released in March 2004. Subsequently, Ubisoft obtained the rights to the franchise and the bulk of the development is handled by Ubisoft Montreal with assistance from other Ubisoft satellite studios. The following games in the series have used a Ubisoft-modified version of the CryEngine, the Dunia Engine, allowing for open world gameplay. As of 2025, the franchise consists of six mainline games, a standalone expansion, and several spin-offs; additionally, the first game, initially developed for Microsoft Windows, saw a number of ports to video game consoles, which changed several elements and are therefore considered standalone releases.

The Far Cry games, due to the history of their development, do not have any significant shared narrative elements, but instead share a theme of placing the player in a wilderness environment where they must fight against one or more despots that control the region as well as survive against wild animals that roam the open spaces. The Far Cry games feature a single-player campaign with later titles also offering co-operative campaign support. The games also offer competitive multiplayer options and the ability for users to edit the games' maps for these matches. The Far Cry games have generally been well received, with praise for their open world gameplay and antagonists, but criticism for their lack of innovation, and are considered commercial successes.

›Story

Freelance mariner Jack Carver is cursing the day he ever came to this island. A week ago, a brash female reporter named Valerie had offered him an incredible sum of cash to take her to this unspoiled paradise. Shortly after docking, however, Jack's boat was greeted by artillery fire from a mysterious militia group swarming about the island.

With his boat destroyed, his money gone, and the gorgeous Valerie suddenly missing, Jack now finds himself facing an army of mercenaries amidst the wilds of the island, with nothing but a gun and his wits to survive. But the further he pushes into the lush jungle canopy, the stranger things become.

Jack encounters an insider within the militia group who reveals the horrific details of the mercenaries' true intentions. He presents Jack with an unsettling choice: battle the deadliest mercenaries, or condemn the human race to a maniac's insidious agenda.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Story

The main Far Cry games are first-person shooters (FPS) with action-adventure elements. Whereas the first Far Cry and its spin-offs/remakes were typical FPS with discrete levels, Far Cry 2 and the subsequent games have adapted an open world-style of gameplay, with main story and side missions and optional quests to complete.

There are minimal narrative elements or chronology between the games. Instead, the Far Cry games have generally shared the theme of taking the player to "a lawless frontier" where "values and laws of today are non-functional", along with elements of having to survive in the wilderness including hunting and crafting. The player often needs to work with freedom fighters attempting to regain control of a region from a ruling party, and may have to pit different sides of a conflict against each other through their actions. Some of the series' games have been more rooted in realistic conflicts, while others have involved elements of the supernatural or science fiction. Ubisoft Montreal, the principal developers of the series, do consider that all games share the same common fictional universe, and have reused some minor characters to maintain that, but otherwise anticipate each game can be enjoyed as a standalone title without knowledge of the other games.

Development

The first Far Cry game was developed by the German studio Crytek, and premiered their CryEngine software. One of Crytek's goals with the CryEngine was to be able to render realistic outdoor spaces with large viewing distances, which was a unique feature compared with other game engines at the time of its release. The CryEngine was originally demonstrated as a tech demo at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 1999 under the name X-Isle: Dinosaur Island specifically aimed at Nvidia graphics processors. The demo allowed the user to explore a virtual tropical island populated with dinosaurs, showcasing the size of the virtual world that the CryEngine could handle.

Following E3 1999, they secured a deal with Nvidia to distribute X-Isle alongside all Nvidia cards as benchmarking software, as at the time the CryEngine was the most demanding game engine on the market. Ubisoft made a deal with Crytek to build out X-Isle into a full AAA title and obtained publishing rights for this title.

Reception

Ubisoft reports that through 2014, lifetime sales of the Far Cry franchise have exceeded 20 million units. By September 2019, the series had accumulated a combined 50 million units in sales.