Clint Hocking says Far Cry 2's villain was Far Cry 1's hero

Far Cry 2's antagonist, the Jackal, flamethrower in hand.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Right Cry 2 is one of those games that, straight thirteen years later, stiff a touchstone for a certain kind of FPS intent. Ubisoft would go on to sand-murder the rough edges, for healthful or giddy, and build a big-budget template that persists through to Far Cry 6 but, for some, information technology never got better than Far Cry 2's dangerous, conflicted, and persistently inconvenient world.

The Jackal is one of the elements Far Shout 2 emphasised that would go connected to become even more important in the further sequels: a lasting presence, a long-term goal for the player that seems untouchable at the game's start, a character who pops up now and then to remind you he's watching. The Jackal is an arms dealer of legendary report, feared away all, and the player fictitious character's commission is to assassinate him.

A fan theory that's been knocking around for days is that the Canis aureus is in fact the supporter of the original gritty and Far Shout: Instincts, Jack Carver. Well, thanks to Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking, it's no longer a hypothesis.

"The Jackal is actually supposed to atomic number 4 Jack Statue maker from the original Far Shout," Hocking told IGN in an interview. "Cos Jack Carver in the original Far Cry was this gentle of unsteady, like smuggler, gun runner kind of crook who ends up on this island with this Island of Dr Moreau craziness going on," Hocking explained. "The idea was this is righteous him, same 10 old age advanced or something, after he's seen whatever atomic number 2 saw on this island [...] present he's kinda levelled-up his smuggling game and he's gotten embroiled in this infringe, just he's also been through a lot more and seen a lot of messed-finished stuff."

Moody protagonist walks through a field in far Cry 2. — (Image mention: Ubisoft)

Speaking to the character's role in the stake, and how this archetype would go on to represent used in the series, Hocking explains "he's really kinda the MacGuffin, soft of there to give the player a highschool level target and a high-pull dow goal [...] He's not really a gameplay function, he's hardly a motivation. We could've in retrospect gone a lot further bringing that communicatory into the world, some of that characterisation into the world. It was hardly entirely precise young. We were trying our best only we didn't have the other benchmarks we needed to get to where He would have felt much present, more ubiquitous in the world."

The game itself doesn't provide any hard evidence that the Canis aureus is Jack Carver, though dataminers have noted that texture files relating to the type model are labelled 'jackcarver'.

This is a slight bodge to my favourite lover theory nearly the Jackal, which is that he's the Far Cry 2 player character and no-matchless other can realize him, but conceptually one has to admit it's a great idea in a game that was stentorian of them. It's often remarked-upon that we take chippy protagonists direct the equivalent of a modest genocide and they rarely seem to show the effects of it: what the events of Far Cry did to its 'Hero of Alexandria' is a great hook to hang an antagonist on even if, in the final production, it's only ever hinted at.

I wear't mind the Far Cry games but 2 stiff the hold out ingress where it matt-up like a game with unweathered ideas, probably because of stuff like this. And I'm not sure just building your world close to Gus Fring is what bequeath tempt me back.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' feel for, beginning his career on Edge powder magazine before working for a wide swan of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor in chief of Kotaku UK, the UK weapon of Kotaku, for three years before connexion Personal computer Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Television Games, a full history of the medium, which the Middle west Book Refresh delineate as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."