Far Cry 3 will not have mod tools - 5 reasons why it should

Far Cry 3 is easily one of our most anticipated games - it's got shooting, it's got leopards, it's got sharks and it's got (at least) one extremely crazy guy in it. One thing it won't have though, GameArena can reveal, is mod tools. The word from our contact at Ubisoft is that the game won't have mod tools "as the map editor is so detailed and provides so many options already".

There's no question that Far Cry 2's map editor was phenomenal - especially in the way it let console gamers get in on the creative aspect of gaming. Still, map editors and mod tools are fairly different things - ask the guys who married Far Cry 3 and Minecraft.


That rope probably took more effort to make than killing those guys did.

I'm under no illusions that this well thought out article will suddenly change any minds at Ubisoft Montreal - still, here are five reasons why Far Cry 3 should get real mod tools.

5 - Far Cry 2 needed them.
I loved Far Cry 2 as much as the next guy more than most. It was a sandbox game with a clear set of rules, and it stuck to them no matter what. Still, it wasn't perfect. It could have done some things a little differently - namely, it could have really benefited from some tweaking of the checkpoints.

Other additions like more animals and tweaks to the weapon degradation system would have really allowed players to refine what is one of my favourite games of this generation. If Far Cry 2 could have benefited from mods, isn't this evidence enough that Far Cry 3 could too? I'm not saying FC3 will have issues that need fixing - just that options in general are always nice.


You can kill them, but they'll be alive again in five minutes.

4 - All games should have mod tools.
Look, I get it. Publishers don't want people creating mods for their games with content that they might someday want to sell as DLC. It also costs money to create, release and support mod tools - especially if your tools aren't exactly 'user friendly'. Who wants to go around making bloody FAQs and answering inane questions from people when they don't have to? I don't. I didn't even want to answer that question I just posed (because it was rhetorical).

On the other hand, people will do their best to mod games that don't have mod tools anyway. Nobody complains that the GTA series doesn't get comprehensive FAQs for potential modders - people just freaking get it done. Support isn't really an issue - modders are resourceful as hell.

Monetarily speaking, mods keep people playing your games, and if you're creative about your DRM you can use them to stuff around pirates. Max Payne 1 & 2, for example, wouldn't let people who pirated the first two games in the series play any mods - and believe me, there were some great mods for MP 1 and 2.


You can't spell Kung Fu without F and U

Mods also unlock the hidden potential in all games. They let us play Deus Ex with high resolution textures. Planescape Torment in widescreen. Mods are the reason Desert Combat came out - and Desert Combat can be pointed to as the genesis of the modern shooter genre of FPSeses. Which I guess brings us to the next point...

3 - Mods are f***ing awesome.
Counter-Strike, DayZ, DOTA and Team Fortress are all brands that began their life as mods, and mods like Black Mesa Source, Project Reality and Urban Terror have all done great things for the games they exist alongside - and the people who made them. And as anyone will tell you - this barely scratches the surface when it comes to the mind-blowing mods available.

Open world games like Just Cause 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV (and SA) were boosted immensely by the addition of mods - the Superman Mod and the Back to the Future Mod are two of my favourites from each game.


Bad boys bad boys, what you gonna do?

2 - Far Cry 3: Jurassic Park: The Book: The Game: The Mod.
If Far Cry 3, set on a beautiful island somewhere in Malaysia, had mod tools, do you know how long it would be before the game had a Jurassic Park mod? Exactly as long as it took to download the mod tools and then create one. It would be glorious. Dinosaurs are awesome, and being on a island with dinosaurs is also awesome.

Ideally it'd focus on all the things that really matter - our Velociraptors wouldn't have feathers, there'd be dinosaurs freaking everywhere... that's it. That's all the mod would need. Also it would resemble-but-be-legally-distinct from the original IP, because you know Universal would sue our pants off.


Do you see? Do you see? DO YOU SEE? Clever Girl.

2a - Far Cry 3: Predator: The Movie: The Game: The Mod.
As AusGamers Editor Steve Farrelly pointed out to me, a Predator mod for Far Cry 3 would be the tits. There are two ways this could go down - the first sees you play as the Predator, hunting down the game's Human AI. Ideally the mod would build into a situation where you need to hunt an increasingly intelligent AI to earn your 'bones'.

The other way would introduce a Predator into the Jungle's delicate ecosystem as an AI construct. Does it hunt you? Does it hunt other people? I don't know, I'm not making the mod, get off my back!

1 - It. Just. Makes. Sense.
From what we've seen in Far Cry 3, the game is about giving players the tools to make their own fun. There's also a really tight story in there - a method to give players the direction they might need to cavort about the tropical island of the Rakyat - but what stood out for me was the freedom.


So that's what happened to Tale Spin.

Doesn't it just make sense for the game to have mod tools then? Doesn't it make sense that a game about giving the player the tools they want to make their own fun should have... the tools they want to make their own fun?

Bonus Reason
This mod for Skyrim.