Far Cry 3 takes “huge inspiration” from The Elder Scrolls

Shooters traditionally espouse linearity in their design, favoring tightly controlled sequences of lulls and action as players progress to the next room/ruined room/room-like battle. Open world shooters such as Far Cry 3 dispense direction for player freedom, but skirting boredom or uber-tough enemies still presents a challenge. At the Eurogamer Expo, Far Cry 3 lead designer Jamie Keen said his team took “huge inspiration” from open world successes such as the Elder Scrolls series for keeping interest levels high.
“We’ve had to take a little bit of a different approach to most shooters,” Keen said. “In order to keep a player engaged over a period of time, there are certain other genres we have to look into to keep that engagement. So we’ve been looking at things like MMOs and other open world titles. The Elder Scrolls series is a huge inspiration for us along with games like Red Dead [Redemption] and other Rockstar games.”
Keen also revealed over 250 “encounter types” exist in Far Cry 3 as players explore. Encounters won’t constantly recycle either, as Keen said the game tracks your experiences and attempts to throw some new island madness your way whenever possible.
“We don’t want you to feel like, ‘Oh, it’s this encounter again. I’ve seen this one’,” Keen added. “You know, ‘Arrow to the knee,’ for example. While it’s actually quite cool, we don’t necessarily want that. You end up with this real feeling of diversity of things going on. And you will see the same encounter again, but hopefully there’s enough of them that you won’t remember it, probably.”