

Just Cause 3 throws a number of deceptively "simple" systems at you and then delights as they collide with each other, both literally and figuratively. Rarely has the act of blowing up a gas station been rendered with such love or care it's as though the entire game were informed by the best parts of Michael Bay's considerable talents at capturing mayhem. The memories that stick out aren't story or characters, but small moments where everything came together to show me something that felt like an event, even when nothing in particular was going on outside of my decision to remove an object from the countryside.

The island is full of cool things to do, but none of it feels like bullet points on the back of a box. The world of Medici is the same size as the map of Just Cause 2, 400 square miles, but I never felt lost or overwhelmed. It feels like everything that wasn't proven fun in playtesting was stripped from the Just Cause 3, and the game is better for it. Outside of the cutscenes, you are the only character that matters in the game. What's most impressive about Just Cause 3, outside of the improved locomotion, is how little it suffers from the bloat that can make open-world games feel so unwieldy. At one point, Rico tells another character, with a straight face: "Having ridden a missile, I can tell you that it's pretty cool." That's just the kind of guy he is, and that's really all you need to know about the game's plot and setup. Medici is his home, you see, and he wants to liberate it from its dictator. Just Cause 3 stars Rico Rodriguez, an action hero who operates as sort of a one-person wrecking crew / revolution machine. At one point, Rico tells another character, with a straight face: 'Having ridden a missile, I can tell you that it's pretty cool.' Just Cause 3 is a pure sandbox, aware of its own ridiculousness even as its ambivalence toward the lives of the people you're trying to save can often feel uncomfortable. That grassroots enthusiasm is borne of an appreciation for the series' priorities: creativity and chaos over realism.ĭeveloper Avalanche Studios hasn't just cut the sort of rote drudgery that comes from hunting five bears to make a wallet it actively encourages creativity on the part of the player. Just Cause 2 didn't break any records when it first launched, but over time the game has had a successful life in mods and Steam sales, finding millions of players. It knows exactly what it wants to be, and executes on that vision with a dedication to purpose that can often feel rare in games of this scope. Just Cause 3 is a different kind of open-world game.
