After the incredible success of Far Cry 3, Ubisoft had a lot of ground to cover if they wanted to hope of surpassing it. Does Far Cry 4 reach the top with its location and characters, or did it plummet to the valley below?

The land of Kyrat is a strange and wonderful place, amongst the scenic vistas of the mountains lies a people rich with history and traditions that date back centuries. So while the land tells its tale, you experience a more personal one as Ajay.

Ajay has returned to his birthplace of Kyrat, at the request of his dying mother to scatter her ashes. When civil war erupted across the country, Ajay was only two and was taken to the United States and raised there, so you know nothing of the struggles of the people of Kyrat. Soon after your arrival into the country, you are stopped at a Royal Guard checkpoint and chaos ensures, with no sense of survival, Ajay merely stumbles around until you meet Pagan Min. Pagan is the ruler of this land, he has a will of iron and people that support him, in general a very nasty looking man, even if he does not look purely evil. As you explore, you soon realise that things are not as they seem and when you attempt to leave, you encounter the Golden Path.

This is where the story really kicks in, the Golden Path have spent years fighting against Pagan and his rule, in fact the very organisation was started by your father, Mohan Ghale, so people are very excited to learn that Ajay Ghale has returned to Kyrat. Here you are given a few small tasks, to help you get your bearings and then the world is open to you. While Kyrat may seem peaceful, random fights between Golden Path soldiers and the Royal Army will push that notion from your mind. In fact you will see many things happen, that would make you think twice about visiting here for a holiday, even without the war.

As you move around the world, doing whatever takes your fancy, citizens of the country will go about their lives, some will til their fields, others their washing by the river, but all are at the mercy of the animals that live in the area. It is not uncommon to hear people screaming, only for them to be attacked by an Eagle as it swoops down, even you are not immune for that dangerous bird. But Eagles are not all you need to worry about, Tigers, Bears, Rhino’s and even Honey Badgers are all threats you must deal with if you are to survive the wilds of Kyrat. While it is true the wilds are dangerous, they are not as dangerous as the Royal Army, soldiers clad in red, they will hunt you down should you cross their path and you will cross it.

Throughout the world are various outposts, filled with soldiers and supplies, each ripe for the taking; In fact taking them will help you, so you need to do it, but it is not as easy as you might think. Each outpost will have a varying number of guards, but they all have alarms, which you should always take out first, because if you don’t then you will need to fight more of the army when the reinforcements arrive. Once you have secured an outpost, Golden Path soldiers move in and you will see a decreased presence of Royal Army soldiers in that area, which is always good, but it also unlocks more missions and events for you to do. But in order to fully experience the world of Kyrat, you need to hack the radio towers, to stop the broadcasts of Pagan but also to remove the fog from the map.

If any of this is sounding familiar to you, then you are not crazy, most of the elements in play here were the same in Far Cry 3 and believe me that is not a bad thing. The outposts, fortresses, soldiers and animals were all present in the previous game and they work as well here as they did there, the animals perhaps a little more so. Being able to throw a hunk of meat to lure a tiger into a space, which usually results in the bad guys being taken down is very rewarding, being on the receiving end of the tiger, not so much. The world is full of those kinds of dangers, as you explore a new area, hearing the growl of a bear will make you stop and search for it, so fighting for your life against nature is also going to happen a lot.

I was on the hunt for some demon fish, used to craft upgrades and while I was exploring a small lake, I noticed a treasure at the bottom, so I jumped in and swam down to collect it. A simple little swim down, but as I neared the treasure chest, I was hit by something, I turned around as fast as I could and saw nothing and I wondered what had hit me. I looted the chest and swam as fast as I could back to shore, again injured on the way, but I did not stop, I swam and climbed out of the water. I turned around, gun drawn and saw nothing, so being the cautious fellow, I stepped into the water to see if I could find what was attacking me, only for a crocodile to jump out of the water and bite me around the middle. In the end I was able to take it down, but I learnt the lesson that no matter where you are in Kyrat, you can never think you are safe.

It is that sense of exploration and danger that Far Cry 4 does incredibly well, the temptation of loot out in the world means that you will always need to balance the risk/reward equation before you do things. The balance here is almost perfect, but sadly it is not true of the main story missions, as you progress through the campaign you are allowed to take missions from one of the two people leading the Golden Path, doing so will lock out the other mission option and result if that person being mad at you. The first time it happened, I was scolded by one of them and I could not help thinking, I am not a one man army, in fact getting lectured by the leader of an army felt stupid and while I could move passed that, it kept happening. Each time you take one mission from one side, you get chastised by the other, something that makes no sense to me.

But for all those problems there is a greater once present in the game, stealth. Like most players will do, I myself do it, taking down bad guys is much more satisfying by blowing them up, or shooting them with machine guns, using stealth in combat is not helpful, at least once the bullets start to fly. Do not misunderstand me, stealth is crucial for taking down animals, you can’t hunt a tiger by bashing through the bush on an ATV. But there are missions where you can no alert anyone, which is weird as the game does nothing at all to enforce the point that stealth maybe needed. You are given missions and then told, don’t let them know you are around, which means unless you have played the entire game in stealth mode up until this first mission where it is needed, you are at a serious disadvantage.

The problem here, like in other games that do that, is that you can’t force a play style onto a player, when the entire game has been about free choice to play as you want. It makes no sense in any context and here it just baffles me. It is about the only bad thing in the entire game, but it is such a jarring experience it just stands out. Visually though the game is stunning, while there are slight pop up issues with mountains and trees when you are flying, when on the ground there are very little things to notice that cause issues. Yes, there are only so many looks to the people of Kyrat, but that is true of every open world game, but you can ignore that when you stand on a cliff edge and leap off and hear the wind rush passed your ears, the sunlight streaming through the mountains and trees clipping your feet below. That feeling is just amazing, I found myself climbing up high, simply to do that, regardless of where I was or what I was doing.

The world feels alive, thanks to the sounds around you as well, each of the animals is easy to pick out, some easier than others and the citizens of the country have something to say on almost everything that happens around them. Guns and cars sound as you would expect them to, the radio stations offer up traditional music inspired by the real world regions and depending on your tolerance level, Rabi Ray Rana will either delight you or cause you much pain. My reaction was to turn the radio off in each car I got into, but that was me.

Far Cry 4 offers up so much more than I could possibly explain here, it has an almost perfect balance of things to do and places to explore. The characters are interesting enough and while the story leads to some strange mission choices, Kyrat is a world that demands your time and I for one can’t wait to return.