A couple weeks ago, I headed up to Montreal, where it was colder than Hoth, to look beneath the hood of Far Cry 3. For each of the Kill Screen episodes on Creators Project, we’ve picked a specific angle for the game to hone in on. In this case, we looked at what it means to build a virtual world, specifically one that is completely predicated on openness and freedom.

What we found was a paradox inherent to much of game design. How do you maintain player’s interest in the story you’re trying to tell while still giving them the tools to explore as they like? Many open-world games struggle to pull this reality into coherence, but Far Cry 3 smartly dealt with this by making the story about player freedom. 

As our outgoing editor Joe pointed out in his review, Far Cry 3 captures the listlessness and confusion of milennials who are caught between the desire for stability and their own adolescence that taught that freedom is human right. He added:

The great Millennial fear, stoked by our crumbling economy, is that our preposterous lifestyles are not long for the world, and that we may very soon have to admit that we are like everyone else, brown, black and otherwise, which means facing the possibility that any given one of Us is worse than any given one of Them. This is why Jason’s descent into – and eventual mastery of – the world of violence and IRL problems – is very clever.

This juxtaposition was ripe for video and we hope you enjoy looking at exactly how Ubisoft created the world of Rook Island while still attempting to keep their narrative wits about them.

The Creators Project is an ongoing global arts and technology initiative created by Intel and Vice in order to support visionary artists, musicians, and filmmakers who are using technology to push the bounds of creative expression. Kill Screen has been producing a series about the intersection of videogame design and the art of creative technology.