GDC 08: Patrick Redding on the Far Cry 2 health system

It’s practically standard issue for a shooter to have some sort of health system. In Ubisoft Montreal‘s Far Cry 2, however, the health system appears to be a exactly that: a “far cry” from what players have normally been accustomed to. Turn to the full article after the jump for an explanation of what we mean.

It may be a strange topic to bring up during a 2008 Game Developers Conference lecture on narrative design, but because it’s crucial to the gameplay of Ubisoft Montreal‘s Far Cry 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360), Patrick Redding did it, anyway: the main protagonist in this particular shooter has been stricken with malaria.

According to Redding, our Far Cry 2 protagonist will have to rely on medicine (or health packs) to keep himself alive. The catch is that Ubisoft Montreal didn’t scatter these medicines in crates across the game’s levels; players will be forced to interact with civilians as the the health packs may only be obtained from them.

Despite being “the ultimate mechanical drawback,” as Redding put it, players can still make the best of a bad situation. They may, for example, opt to exchange travel papers for a few doses of medicine. And therein lies Ubisoft Montreal’s point: NPCs in the game are transformed from being mere “stores” into “micronarrative” elements who bring life to the world of Far Cry 2. How players deal with these elements is entirely up to the players themselves.

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