At one point in the demo we tried to use the tether mechanic to move the head of a statue that was just blown apart in an earlier confrontation. Why? Because this is Just Cause 3, and we wanted to move a statue head with a helicopter. There were all sorts of items, weapons and vehicles at our disposal that worked on a cooldown system, so we figured we’d need a rather large helicopter to carry that huge statue head.
Of course, in Just Cause 3 fashion, the helicopter spawned and immediately exploded because we didn’t really account for the lack of space available for it to land. We then ordered another helicopter, a much smaller model, and tried to tether the statue head, which proved difficult and ultimately unsuccessful due to the sophisticated physics engine in the game, but it was a neat detail that furthered and teased the possibilities of awesome experimentation. Now I’m wondering if I could have tethered that enemy boat with the helicopter and the baddies still on board; the possibilities really are endless here.
I also got to steal a few cars and drive around the area during my demo. I particularly enjoyed standing on top of a moving car and grappling to another moving one only to kick the driver out and start driving away myself. It’s a non-stop adrenaline rush to see just how much damage you can cause in the quickest amount of time all while still looking cool as hell.
Having only played a tiny bit of the previous iteration, Just Cause 3 blew my expectations away (no pun intended), and went from something I’d be mildly interested in to something I’m really looking forward to playing when it launches later this year. This is how you do open-world, you put the fun first, and that’s something that Avalanche Studios obviously knows quite well.
Just Cause 3 is slated for a December 1st release on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.