A leaner, hungrier Far Cry from a bygone age that falls slightly short of achieving its potential.
Spotlight
Digital FoundryFace-Off: Far Cry Primal
A superb console rendition - but what does PC add to the equation?
Gotta skin 'em all.
Key events
15th March 2016
4th March 2016
25th February 2016
23rd February 2016
22nd February 2016
16th February 2016
6th October 2015
Remember Uwe Boll? Someone's made a documentary about him
"I don't have a lot of respect to other people."
Provocative German movie-maker Uwe Boll, infamous for trashy big-screen adaptations of video game franchises, is the subject of a new documentary titled Fuck You all: The Uwe Boll Story.
Just over a year ago, I published a video presenting my theory on how all the Far Cry games might be connected.
The Division has 9.5M registered users, exceeding Ubisoft's expectations
UPDATE: Ubisoft will reveal a new AAA IP at E3.
UPDATE 13/05/206 12.01am: Ubisoft confirmed in its latest financial call that it's planning to reveal its mysterious new AAA IP at E3. Beyond that, the publisher wouldn't comment on what genre it is.
Far Cry Primal is getting a free Survivor Mode
Adds permadeath, removes the mini-map, and neuters beast-taming.
Far Cry Primal is getting an all new super difficult Survival Mode upon its next update on 12th April.
Far Cry Primal's latest patch lets you disable the HUD
Role-play as a nature photographer.
Far Cry Primal's latest patch lets you take prettier screenshots of its prehistoric jungle by allowing players to disable the game's obtrusive HUD.
Outside of that, there are plenty of minor tweaks, fixing numerous bugs, performance issues, and even adjusting the game's difficulty in some small way.
Weighing in at 577MB on PS4 and 570MB on Xbox One, the latest patch notes are as follows (via the Ubisoft forum):
Far Cry: Primal tops the US retail charts for February
Street Fighter 5 places seventh.
Far Cry: Primal was February's top-selling game in US retail shops, according to chart-tracking group NPD.
Digital FoundryFace-Off: Far Cry Primal
A superb console rendition - but what does PC add to the equation?
Ubisoft's second Far Cry title on current-gen consoles adds plenty of visual extras over Far Cry 4; Primal is a better-looking game for its use of volumetric lighting, but also impressively upholds a sturdy 30 frames per second. Equally, there's a sense Ubisoft's comfort with the hardware is only growing at this stage, and the entire package is drawing much closer to a maxed-out PC experience. Even so, those running on higher-end GPUs reap a few enticing rewards here - and not just in the frame-rate stakes.
Clearly, the theme for Ubisoft's latest series instalment is refinement over revolution, and as such we see this Dunia-engine-powered title share many similarities with Far Cry 4. PS4 once again hands in a native 1080p image, while Xbox One's native resolution comes in at around 1440x1080, as before. The lack of straight geometric edges in this prehistoric world makes pixel-counting a challenge, but overall image quality is comparable to the previous game, and we see many of the same visual characteristics on each of the two consoles. Ubisoft's chosen anti-aliasing method once again appears to match HRAA, with a higher-precision implementation on the PS4 giving it a more pristine image.
Impressively, it's rare that Xbox One's lower resolution has a visible impact in play. Trees and foliage appear a little rougher, but elsewhere environmental details and the game's vibrant range of wildlife hold up well. Like its predecessor, Far Cry Primal adopts a soft-focus image where edges and texture details are smoothed over to a point, and here the extra per-pixel sharpness provided by a native 1080p resolution on PS4 doesn't hold as much of an advantage compared to other titles. The gain in clarity is perceptible with like-for-like shots, but thanks to Ubisoft's applied anti-aliasing, the gap is narrowed to a surprising degree in motion.
Far Cry Primal uses Far Cry 4's map layout
A mammoth surprise.
Far Cry Primal's map is largely based on that of 2014's Far Cry 4, down to the same road and river layouts.
Far Cry Primal beats Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 in UK chart
3DS exclusive Bravely Second lands just outside the top 10.
Far Cry Primal has leapt to the top of the UK all-format charts in its debut week of release.
The good news is that from a technical perspective, Far Cry Primal retains everything that impressed us so much about its predecessor: expansive environments, beautifully long draw distances, a solid lighting model and a rock-solid level of performance. The bad news is that in terms of both graphics and gameplay, perhaps not quite enough has changed - any enhancements are a subtle evolution, as opposed to the visual overhaul you'd expect from a second generation title for the latest wave of consoles.
That said, there's still much to enjoy here. The post-processing pipeline sees greater use of volumetric lighting and effects, while performance is actually even more stable than Far Cry 4 - in itself, an impressive achievement. However, the overriding feeling is one of commonality - there's the same full 1080p framebuffer on PS4, along with a sub-native presentation on its Xbox One equivalent. Owing to the advanced AA in use (plus the lack of hard edges for analysis), getting a precise lock on resolution here is difficult - but the smart money is on the same 1440x1080 set-up seen in Far Cry 4.
Once again, the overall presentation is extremely clean - and it looks as though the same HRAA technology used in its predecessor is in effect here. This combines a smart post-process anti-aliasing technique with temporal super-sampling (effectively using data from previous frames to smooth off the current one). Again, there are minor differences here between Xbox One and PS4 - the Sony platform could well be using the same four-frame temporal sample as Far Cry 4, and again, we wouldn't be surprised to see a two-frame equivalent on Xbox One in line with the last game.
Far Cry Primal day one patch adds extra hard Expert Mode
Smarter enemies, less health, and mini-map won't show unmarked foe positions.
Far Cry Primal is out today on PS4 and Xbox One (with a PC release set for next week), and it comes with a day one patch that adds an entirely new extra challenging difficulty level Expert Mode.
As stated on the game's official blog, Expert Mode makes the following changes to Ubisoft's latest open-world opus:
Players' health has been halved compared to Hard difficulty.
Hot on the heels of our review, I'll be streaming 90 minutes of Far Cry Primal at 3:30pm.
Gotta skin 'em all.
Picture a moment in space and time. It can be anywhere and anywhen. It could be aeons ago, long before the first upwardly mobile fish ever unlocked the ability to walk on land, or it could be a few centuries into the future, during the 31st term of President Trump Al Saud. However far-flung the scenario, frame it in your mind and I'll make you a promise: Ubisoft is there. Ubisoft has always been there. Waiting for you, with a sackful of fast travel points and upgrade materials, pop-up escort missions and fluidly chaining takedowns.
Far Cry Primal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Far Cry Primal trailer shows first-person mammoth gameplay
Take them to tusk.
Ubisoft has shown off a section of gameplay from Far Cry Primal's special Legend of the Mammoth missions - where you play as a mammoth in first-person.
(First person? First mammoth?)
Regardless, these three mammoth-based missions are the only time you play as the massive woolly mammal. You'll have to help your mammoth elder by squashing some humans, fight a rhino and then... stomp some more humans.
VideoWatch: We play Far Cry Primal's first story mission
Plus more from Outside Xbox.
Join us for the first moments of Far Cry Primal's story campaign as we hunt the wily wooly mammoth, are jumped by a saber-toothed tiger, and meet a member of our tribe with a worrying penchant for collecting ears.
Digital FoundryDigital Foundry: Hands-on with Far Cry Primal
The new tech Ubisoft adds to its Dunia 2 engine, plus PS4 performance.
Ubisoft Montreal takes Far Cry Primal to the next, natural step: a foggy, Mesolithic land of raw survival, set 12,000 years in humanity's past. As delivered by the team's Dunia 2 technology, it plants us in an era of sabretooth tigers, looming mammoths, and tribal warfare - all bolstered by new animations and upgraded volumetric lighting. The pre-release PlayStation 4 code in analysis here is a step forward from Far Cry 4 in several aspects, but with so much of the template also remaining as-is from last year's entry, is it evolution enough?
VideoWatch: Base building and beast riding in Far Cry Primal
The opening 15 minutes of gameplay, too.
It's a close category every year, but Far Cry Primal looks set to be the best video game in which you can beat someone's brain out with a stone club in 2016. Ian Higton loves stone clubs so, when a recent hands-on opportunity with Far Cry Primal came up, he jumped at the chance.
Ubisoft is promoting Stone Age open world game Far Cry Primal by inviting people to sleep in a cave in the middle of winter.
Far Cry Primal PC system requirements revealed
Welcome to the jungle.
Ubisoft has released the following PC system requirements for Far Cry Primal ahead of its 1st March release on PC. (The PS4 and Xbox One versions are due 23rd February.)
VideoWatch: Far Cry Primal won't have multiplayer, but how about dinosaurs?
Ian has a bone to pick.
Our Ian's a bit of a fan of Far Cry. He's played all of the games in the series, and has even attempted to string them all together in some sort of cohesive narrative - the brave soul. Anyway, given his superior knowledge, Ian went off to get an early hands-on with Far Cry Primal last week. Though he enjoyed his time with the game, an interview with Ubisoft Toronto's creative director Max Beland left him somewhat disappointed, as Beland confirmed that there would be no multiplayer mode.
Far Cry Primal's Collector's Edition lets you play as mammoths
Extra missions, map and Wenja phrasebook also included.
Ubisoft has announced details of the Far Cry Primal Collector's Edition, which will add up to 45 minutes of extra gameplay via missions where you play as a mammoth.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to ride on the back of a fearsome saber-tooth tiger? Chances are, probably not; but nevertheless it's something you'll be able to do in Far Cry Primal and it looks super cool!
Adam Jensen voice actor portraying Far Cry Primal's lead character
He's spearheading the campaign.
Far Cry Primal's main character will be voiced by Elias Toufexis, the actor behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution's gravelly protagonist Adam Jensen.
Stone Age-set Far Cry Primal launches in February
Not a digital spin-off, more a mammoth undertaking.
Ubisoft has now confirmed the recently-teased Far Cry Primal, which will launch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One worldwide on 23rd February 2016.
A PC edition will then follow in March 2016.
Ubisoft describes the game as the "the next exciting chapter" in the Far Cry series and a "full-fledged single player experience".
Far Cry Primal is an ice age spin-off - report
The spiritual successor to Blood Dragon?
For the last few hours Ubisoft has been teasing a new project with a livestream of a cave painting, and it's now believed that it's for a spin-off entitled Far Cry Primal.
