Matter Of Perspective: Far Cry 3

The world we live in can be an incredibly beautiful place with nice sunsets and clear blue oceans, but it can also hides many horrors such as kidnappings, murder and slavery. Far Cry 3 took both of these elements of our world and presented a tale that covered relationships, revenge and the lust for power, mainly waged between siblings Vaas and Citra.

The Rook Islands are the setting of a war between Vaas’ pirates, who are funded by criminal kingpin Hoyt, and Citra’s Rakyat tribe, the original inhabitants of the islands. Thrown in the middle is Jason Brody, who becomes a fierce warrior while fighting the pirates and Vaas, after escaping from them. However, despite the fact he appears to majorly affect events, he is but another pawn in the true power struggle.

Vaas is a disturbed but very intelligent man. While he has power over the pirates he is still answerable to Hoyt, who runs the human trafficking and drug businesses of the islands. There have been plenty of opportunities where Vaas had the chance to kill Hoyt off but he never takes that action.

This isn’t necessarily because he hadn’t thought about it, but because in doing so would bring more chaos than he wanted. Hoyt has to take care of the majority of the business decisions, leaving Vaas to have the ‘fun’ as it were in kidnapping and killing people. Vaas also knows that doing so would end the alliance with Hoyt’s paramilitary who would more than likely be able to wipe out the pirates.

Then there is Citra who believes it is the Rakyat duty to get rid of the pirates and take control of the island. Citra is similar to her brother in every way apart from goals, where she wants to be in charge and rule, then passing on the rule to her child. Citra wants to be a queen with her war against Vaas & Hoyt being the quickest way to achieving the goal.

Neither of them care what really happens to the island inhabitants who are not part of this war, and in fact give them very little thought. If you’re not a pirate, private military or member of the Rakyat then your life is considered unimportant by the main factions of Rook Island.

Then there is Hoyt, the main man who pulls Vaas’ strings and exerts control over Rook Islands. For him, though it may seem absurd, war is actually good for business. He has a hand in most businesses on the islands, and I’d be surprised if weaponry isn’t one of them. War is also good because it keeps Vaas and Citra occupied while his elite team can watch the other two factions tear each other apart, weakening each other.

This war may also be a good thing for the islands in general, as it brings a sort of balance to proceedings. No faction goes to all out attack against the other, with the war being played out with moves and counter moves to maintain a somewhat more peaceful existence than running into each others headquarters and causing death on a major scale.

This balance is upset by the arrival of Jason Brody and his group, leading to the one of two paths for the future of the islands and its people depending on the ending you choose. One ending has Brody and co leaving the island following the deaths of all three big players without a care for what happens next.

Imagine the scenario you’re left with as an inhabitant of Rook Island. The pirates, the private military and the Rakyat are now leaderless and they’re armed. It’s likely the private military may leave, after all no one is paying them to be there and jobs are probably plentiful elsewhere, but that still leaves two other powerful factions.

Without anyone to hold either group back both pirates and Rakyat will fight, first with each other and then amongst themselves as others start vying for control of their respective people. Now you don’t just have one war, but possibly three as the Rakyat split and fight each other, the pirates do the same, and they still have the ongoing conflict between each other. This is a much more unstable situation than what Jason stumbled into first.

The other ending ends up with Jason dying, leaving Citra in charge of the islands. Citra has got her wish to be queen but we have seen she is a ruthless as can be, and will show no mercy to anyone. Without Hoyt and Vaas in the picture you once again have a scenario where more blood will be spilled, but this time the Rakyat still have their charismatic ruler to follow which gives them the edge in war.

Citra’s Succession War (my name for the Rakyat victory in this scenario), would be the best solution however as it would generally unite the islands and get rid of the  need for bloodshed after the Rakyat initially wipe Vaas’ pirates out. However the best option would have been if Jason had never appeared on the island in the first place.

After all there was a balance instead of all out violence before him.

4 Comments

  1. I got that game on the 360 after hearing some really good things about it… I just couldn’t get into it, really didn’t enjoy it :s

  2. Great game and nice article, its a good take on the civil war idea! I thought a lot more could’ve been done to lengthen the post-story experience but I don’t know exactly what. There’s no feeling of satisfaction or futility after finishing the story and getting the platinum, just a moderate amount of ‘meh’. Up to that point though, bloody excellent :)

  3. I’m still gutted I didn’t platinum this (only had the co-op stories to complete) the voice chat was atrocious, totally unusable.

  4. I found the co-op a nightmare to get the trophies when playing with strangers. If I remember correctly when playing through the co-op story if someone left in the middle of it, you were taking back to the start for another match making. Took me a few weeks to achieve all co-op trophies, it was worth it for the platinum though!

    Great article as always Aran.

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