Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 is a third-person action-adventure game in which players control Rico Rodriguez, field operative of the Agency, in an effort to overthrow the island dictatorship of Panau: an open world for players to explore. The game has three types of missions. Agency missions advance the story and are the game's main campaign; faction missions task players to assist the game's three factions, and stronghold missions task players to infiltrate government bases and liberate them for the factions. To advance through the campaign missions a player must earn chaos points, a progression system introduced in the game.

Players earn chaos points for completing missions and destroying designated government property. As the number of chaos points increases, the factions gain influence and the government begins to collapse. In addition to typical missions, Just Cause 2 has race challenges which give players cash.

Four years after Just Cause, Rico Rodriguez is dropped into Panau to find his former handler Tom Sheldon, who is suspected of going rogue and aligning himself with the country's dictator Pandak "Baby" Panay. With the aid of intelligence asset Karl Blaine and a weapons dealer only known as the Sloth Demon, Rico allies with the island's three dominant criminal gangs and factions: the Roaches, an organized crime syndicate; the Reapers, an insurgent socialist militia; and the Ular Boys, an ultranationalist rebel group which espouses traditionalism and opposes foreign influence.

Rico gathers enough information to track down Sheldon, who reveals that he has been the Sloth Demon while he was investigating a greater conspiracy behind Panay's rise to power. Rico determines that Sheldon has not gone rogue, and Sheldon tells him to continue causing chaos on Panau while he explains the situation to the Agency.

Just Cause 2 was developed by the Swedish Avalanche Studios, with Square Enix London Studios providing additional support. The game's predecessor, Just Cause, was a moderate commercial success and received mixed reviews from critics. The team thought that although it had potential, it was an opportunity missed and described Just Cause 2 as a "sequel waiting to be made". Shortly after the start of development, the team begin analyzing the first game's strengths and weaknesses with the intention of improving it.

They wanted to use the large open world to create rewarding quests and missions, dropping the first game's side missions in favor of faction missions, stronghold takeovers and race challenges to increase gameplay density (keeping players occupied, even when simply exploring the world). This density increased the connectivity between the faction and Agency missions. Another goal was to improve the game's combat and artificial intelligence, so action stunts would be easier to perform and the game's tactical element would increase. The team overhauled the artificial intelligence, improving enemy characters' reaction to player action and their environment.

Just Cause 2 received generally positive reviews upon release, with critics praising its gameplay, graphics and open world; the game was widely regarded as a significant improvement to its predecessor. It was nominated for Best Action Game at the 28th Golden Joystick Awards, losing to Assassin’s Creed II.

com praised the game's texture, draw distance, depth of field and variety, writing that such details made the game feel more alive. The explosions were praised for their visual effects. According to Neigher, the varied landscape and the grappling hook made Just Cause 2's game world superior to those of Grand Theft Auto and Infamous. Eurogamer's Simon Parkin commended Avalanche Studios for developing a "picture-postcard amalgam of Pacific landscapes" without significant technical difficulties, such as framework instability.

Purchasers of Just Cause 2 and another Square Enix game, Sleeping Dogs, received an exclusive Rico Rodriguez outfit and the ability to perform "stunt-style takeovers" while hijacking vehicles as Officer Shen. After the game's release, the Swedish team developed Mad Max. A studio based in New York City was established to develop a new game, set in the Just Cause universe. Just Cause 3 was Game Informer's November 2014 cover game, and it was released on 1 December 2015 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Purchasers of Just Cause 3 for the Xbox One would also receive Just Cause 2 via backward compatibility.