E3 2018 Impressions — Just Cause 4

While at E3, I was able to see Just Cause 4 in a more intimate setting than just a trailer. Here is my take on Just Cause 4.

One of the other many titles that could not be kept under wraps for E3 this year was Just Cause 4. Just before the main event kicked off, it was leaked out there that the game was coming but little of anything else. I am sure that Avalanche Studios was thankful for that as it allowed them to still cause a big splash during the show and get fans of the franchise all hyped up for the December 4^th release date for the game on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It also made it easy for Square Enix to slide Just Cause 4 into all of its things out there as well as show a bit more to those of us who were able to go behind some closed doors out at E3.

Right from the start, it was obvious that Just Cause 4 was given all of the lessons learned from before and then pushed further when it came to the game’s world. The demo I saw started Rico on a ledge ready to jump but still showing off a breath-taking view of the landscape we were in. Everything looked much crisper and lush as Rico took a jump off the mountain ledge and began his flight around the area with the wingsuit and parachute he is known for. It really would not be a Just Cause game at this point without it. But time was taken to show us all how the team has improved the visual aspect of the game to give us a better feel for the fictional lands they have created.

From there, we dove right into the new gameplay features and mechanics coming to Just Cause 4 in the way of the grappling hook. It looked like all of the core mechanics we have used in the past are still there and present, but a few new things have been added in. The number of remote tethers had been increased as the demo driver showed off multiple daisy-chained storage containers as they would retract to repulse from each other. There is also a new “booster” attachment that will allow Rico to place rockets on things in Just Cause 4 as well as air balloons to lift things further up. All of which could be combined into some fun with physics to cause all kinds of mass damage in the lands.

After all of that fun, it was time to head off and explore a bit more of the world for Just Cause 4 as well as see some of the environmental mechanics that Avalanche Studios has put together. This took us into the usual base and outpost gameplay we have known from the past titles having Rico move around and take out enemies in all kinds of manners. It looked like most of this was about the same as before, so do not fret too much unless you did not like this style of gameplay from the last Just Cause game. A lot of running, shooting, flying, and killing for “reasons” as the title alludes to.

This all led to the end of the demo where the true destructive force of Just Cause 4 was able to be shown off in terms of the weather and dangers it can impose. In this case, it was the large tornado that can be seen in all of the trailers for the game thus far. These are randomly occurring in the game and can be just as destructive for Rico as the can for the enemies. Given that, the base we were trying to bring down had “wind cannons” that could repel the tornado and we needed to take them out to let the danger in. As this happened, the tornado came in and caused all of the havoc one would think would come and looked to stay close to how it would appear in the real world. It was quite impressive, even if the explanation on how it would work in the final version of Just Cause 4 was left to mystery.

It does look like the team took a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to Just Cause 4 here based on the last title. There have been some great visual updates that I was able to see and then a few to the gameplay mechanics, but for the most part, the rest seemed about the same. Given that many of the players of Just Cause I know are all about that, this will fit right in with what they are looking for in the game. It does not truly push much forward in general, but if there are other large weather systems to play with as we saw for the tornado, color me insanely interested. That alone sold me on the game so far and there is still so much more to see and learn for it.