Nov 05, 2018  This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue. Watch Queue Queue. The Black Market Chaos pack is a DLC obtained by purchasing the limited edition of Just Cause 2. All these items are by now free, or seperate DLCs. In the PSN store the whole pack is available to download free.

Publisher:
Square Enix

Developer:
Avalanche Studios

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Platforms:
PS4, Xbox One, PC

Genre:Action Adventure

Release Date:December 4, 2018

Just Cause 4 is the fourth entry in Avalanche Studios’ bombastic open world action adventure series. It takes place in the fictional, tropical South American country of Solis. Just like its predecessors, it will put players in the middle of an interactive, sandbox environment. With tools such as your wingsuit, your grappling hook, and any other weapons you may come across, you’ll be left to wreak havoc upon the world, while this time also having to contend with dynamic weather patterns.

Development

Just Cause 4 was announced by Square Enix at E3 2018, with a release date of December 4 of the same year on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. However, the game was leaked several times before its official confirmation. For starters, an advertisement for pre-purchases of the game were spotted on Steam prior to its announcement, while concept art and screenshots for the game also surfaced online not long afterward. Just Cause 4 was also part of a major leak by Walmart Canada, where they posted listings for a large number of games that had yet to be announced. Among these games was Just Cause 4, and like almost all other games that were part of the leak, it was announced officially shortly afterward.

Avalanche Studios had grand ambitions for Just Cause 4 when they started working on the game, and nowhere is it as apparent as it is in the game’s very core itself- that being the engine it is built on. While the development team had been tweaking, modifying, and updating their own proprietary engine for years and putting it to use in Just Cause games, when time came to do the same for Just Cause 4, they decided to go down a completely different route. They threw the Avalanche Engine out the window, and decided instead to use the Apex Engine, which is what they used for the development of 2015’s Mad Max as well.

The new technology allows Just Cause 4 to add major new gameplay mechanics, such as diverse weather patterns (which we’ll get to in a bit), a new animation system, increased draw distances, and better physics-based rendering. During development, Avalanche Studios have also made attempts to improve the game’s artificial intelligence, to make enemies more adaptable, allow them to use better tactics, and all-around just make the combat more challenging.

Story

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Not much is known about the plot of Just Cause 4 at this point. We know, as we’ve already mentioned, that Just Cause 4 will take place in the fictional South American nation called Solis. We also know, obviously, that Rico Rodriguez, who’s been the protagonist in ever Just Cause game, will be returning once again as the main playable character in the upcoming sequel.

Beyond that, we only have the most cursory of details. Just Cause 4 will take place after the events of its direct predecessor, Just Cause 3, and will see Rico going up, once again, against paramilitary group known as the Black Hand, which is led by a woman named Gabriela. We also have been able to put together from the footage we’ve seen of the game that the Black Hand have somehow managed to acquire advanced technology and equipment used by the eDEN Corporation, a name you would recognize if you’ve played the Sky Fortress, Mech Land Assault, and Bavarium Sea Heist DLCs of Just Cause 3. Considering that the Black Hand has considerably more powerful technology at their disposal, they should logically pose more of a threat than ever before.

Gameplay

Just Cause 4 is going to feature the same brand of over-the-top chaotic open world gameplay that fans of Just Cause have come to expect, but it looks like Avalanche Studios are looking to turn things up a notch (or two). For starters, let’s talk about things that will be returning from previous instalments. The parachute, wingsuit, and grappler will also be returning, which is to be expected- they’ve become a core part of what we associate both Rico and Just Cause with. Mechanics such as being able to stand and freely move on vehicles – both moving, and stationary – will also be making a return.

Rico’s grappler is going to feature a number of enhancements in the game. For starters, players will be able to tether a larger number of objects together. The rocket boosters from Just Cause 3, will also be in the game, but this time they will be featured as a mod for the grappler. One of the most notable upgrades made to the grappler this time around, though, is the fact that it is going to be fully customizable. What sort of customizations these will be and to what extent they can be modified is something that we do not yet know, though we do know about one particular mod for the grappler known as the Pulse mod, which adds an electrically charged explosion to your grapple.

Another interesting new item that is being added in Just Cause 4 is the Airlifter, which works a lot like Fulton from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Players will be able to attach balloons to anything they see – vehicles, objects, even people – which will then lift whatever the balloon is attached to up into the air. On top of that, weapons will now also have something called a Secondary Fire mode, which will change the way each weapon handles and fires. More specific details on this aren’t known at this point in time.

The most notable new addition being made to Just Cause 4, however, is dynamic weather. Just Cause 4 will feature a dynamic weather system that will include weather patterns such as sandstorms, blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and more. Players will encounter these in the open world in non-scripted moments, and notably, these will all be governed by the game’s comprehensive physics engine. Winds, for instance, will have actual speed and physical force. Which means that in a tornado, for example, everything in the vicinity will get sucked into the vortex the way it should.

This promises to be an interesting system since it looks like it will further bolster the destruction mechanics that Just Cause is usually centred on. Further, every vehicle will also have its own unique aerodynamic properties, meaning that some vehicles might be more prone to damage to certain weather patterns than others. In fact, one particular vehicle, known as the Stormchaser – which is essentially an armoured truck – is immune to the destructive powers of tornadoes.

We do know a few other things about Just Cause 4 at this point. For instance, we know that the game world will be divided into four different regions, and that each of these regions will represent a different kind of biome. Each will have its own unique physical and geographical properties, and each will be characterized by different weather patterns. While we haven’t seen much outside of a tropical setting so far, when you consider the fact that there are going to be things like sandstorms and blizzards in the game, you can get a fair idea of what some of the other biomes will be like.

Vehicles are also obviously a major part of any Just Cause experience, and we also know about some of the vehicles that will be featured in the game. Just Cause 4 is going to include land vehicles ranging from the civilian type to the military, armoured kind; sea vehicles will also be making a return; there will also be aerial vehicles like choppers and jets. Hoverboards are also going to be included in the game, while Rico will also have a jetpack as an alternate means of traversal.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

“But I don’t even have a mortgage,” says the computer-controlled character to some unseen character on the phone. Her two friends stand beside her, eerily swaying in frame-perfect synchronization. “That looks fun,” says the lady to the left, before abruptly turning to continuously walk into her friend’s face for a few moments. Nearby gunmen have seemingly given up on me. The truck I’m escorting stopped moving, the driver apparently asleep at the wheel. Having no choice, I affixed a bunch of balloons to the truck, causing it to float. The game reacted to the trucks movement and came back to life, urging me to protect it for the duration of a two-minute timer. I’m about three quarters through this escort mission and have yet to use a single bullet. This is Just Cause 4, and it’s ridiculous.

Fans of the Just Cause series will probably arrive in Just Cause 4 expecting ridiculous moments, though. The franchise’s best times are submerged in chaos, and this is a feature that has become more true with each subsequent iteration. Just Cause 4 embraces that concept with additions like extreme weather, but the feeling of traversing through its lifeless world gives a sense that wide open, sandbox games are a tricky proposition and tiresome when they aren't executed perfectly. Just Cause 4 is far from perfect execution.

The lifeless feeling is a shame, too, because the writers for Just Cause 4 have the talent to create something compelling. Instead, they were tasked with creating an excuse for players to run around sewing discord. Players once again take control of Rico Rodriguez and, once again, rail against an oppressive regime called the Black Hand as part of a revolution. While Rico is sometimes cheesy, he is ultimately lovable. The dialogue between him and all of the other characters if both believable and unique. His companion, Mira, and her relationship with a particularly contemptible villain are a notable high point of the story. There were times where I certainly wanted to engage more thoroughly with everyone and everything. Unfortunately, the story often takes a backseat. Progressing too quickly through an environment, which will happen a lot due to the range of movement options, will cut well-acted dialogue short.

Most of the interactions in the world will play out through what feel like side missions. In Just Cause 4, players are tasked with creating chaos in order to recruit members into an “Army of Chaos.” Why? Well, so Rico and Company can expand their presence in the region. This allows players to take more missions in new areas. In the end, though, most of these areas don’t feel satisfying to inhabit. The lifeless quality is such that a city that is meant to be panicking for their lives can feel utterly devoid of humanity. At one point, a woman was endlessly knocking on a door shouting “Por favor, let me in! Please, please, help me.” on a two second loop, which suggests that the developers don’t want the player pausing to look at anything too hard. Under scrutiny, the game falls apart.

This is especially true when you turn a critical eye towards the game’s graphics. Distant explosions look like low resolution gifs and trees are sometimes rendered with all the fidelity of amateur cross-stitch. It’s not a pretty sight, and the faster you approach objects, the worse it gets. I played on the basic Xbox One model and mileage may vary from system to system, but it’s hard to apologize for some of the visual atrocities you are likely to encounter in Just Cause 4.

Missions in Just Cause 4 will start to feel repetitive quickly and often take one of a few forms. Escort quests are common and, often the characters you are meant to babysit in these quests are capable of getting to the objective by themselves. They just sometimes need your presence to coax them through enemies with astonishingly lackadaisical approaches to dealing with revolutionaries. The AI will sometimes allow you to stand in the middle of a fight, undisturbed. If you try to leave, then they will often just let you walk away. Other quests charge players with blowing up a list of things or grappling things to other things. An early mission even tasks Rico with the slightly silly job of throwing breakers by attaching handles to ceilings with the grappling hook. Strangely, some of the most exciting thing about missions is when run-of-the-mill NPCs show up to have a picnic near the docks or ride a moped through the middle of a high speed chase.

There are tools to make missions more fun and, really, the missions might just be an excuse to use these tools in a game that revolves around a love for destruction. Air Lifters, which are essentially just balloons that players can attach to things, can be used in creative ways. Remote activated jets can be attached to most objects, including cows. Most objects, like vehicles, can be attached to each other. A healthy portion of the game’s objects are insanely explosive. Characters instantaneously succumb to ragdoll physics. Even by reading a list of these ingredients, you are probably able to come up with some recipes that you would like to try out and, honestly, that’s where the fun is: creating a violent and comically absurd spectacle. There’s a freedom to problem-solve creatively in this game, and that goes a long way.

Just Cause 4 doesn’t seem to account for its own possibilities though, and glitches are heavily present in the game at launch. I encountered multiple game-breaking bugs that forced me to reload my save. Early on, my character’s ragdolled body became permanently lodged in a gate, head first. A tragic motorcycle accident caused my controller to vibrate continuously, no matter what I did, until I reset the game. Beyond glitches, the AI’s relative stupidity showcases the conflict between player options and game difficulty; they really just can’t seem to account for your movement. Disengaging with threats is also remarkably easy and avoiding conflict altogether is largely possible, due to Rico’s grappling hook, parachute, and wingsuit.

Because of this lack of difficulty, the excitement of Just Cause 4 runs thin. Within hours, it might feel as though there isn’t anything new to do. I personally experienced a game where I was repeating the same tasks in different places. Even with my explosive toolkit, whimsical nature, and a proclivity towards destruction, I couldn’t keep myself from being bored. For an action-focused game, anything but the silliest of moments lacks excitement. Unlike some of the other action games we’ve seen this year, there aren’t any fast-paced, climactic moments, or breathtaking set pieces to put players on the edge of their seats.

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Other than laughter and the occasional satisfaction of seeing a crazy plan come together, Just Cause 4 doesn’t illicit much of an emotional response. It’s ugly, monotone, and almost feels incomplete. Even some of the character animations look lazy, as though the characters themselves are saving their energy for something. The game isn’t without its charm, certainly, but that charm doesn’t amount to much when it is marred by a plethora of other issues. Just Cause 4 approaches its potential, but doesn’t quite seize it. Considering how well the game performs at its peak, that is a real shame.

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