Exploring development of Far Cry 1: part 8.5 feature - Beta Restoration Project mod for Far Cry

Hello, dear readers! This time we don’t have a ton of stuff to show you. Just one video, in fact. However, it provides us with quite a lot of info. It’s also worth noting that it’s probably the longest (and the most high-quality) video about pre-release Far Cry that we’ve found so far.

Before reading this, I advise you to look at some of the older parts of our article with finds from the 2002 era of development:

• Moddb.com
• Moddb.com
• Moddb.com

Anyway, let me tell you more about the video.

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A YouTube user by the name of Ivan Beram has uploaded a video called “Far Cry E3 2002 Video” on April 22, 2013. It’s 12 minutes and 53 seconds long and is in 480p quality. Doesn’t seem too high, but it’s much better than what we had before. And there are no commentaries to obscure the game’s sounds!

That’s the video’s description:

“The very first Far Cry gameplay demo that was prepared for showing at E3 2002. Far Cry was nominated and runner's up in multiple "Best of" categories. Interesting bit of gaming history considering that Crytek went on to become a multi-studio developer and middleware provider, and Far Cry, spawned a number of sequels developed by publisher Ubisoft.”

Here, take a look at the video itself:

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What info can we gather from this video?

The sunset level we all know and love was actually intended to be shown at E3 2002.

Unlike all the previous videos from 2002, this one seems to be a beginning-to-end walkthrough. And that helps a lot, because now we know how the places we’ve seen before were actually arranged.

But were there any alternate paths? Or was this level linear?

Anyway, let me tell you about the progression of this level and analyze the stuff in the video.

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We start the level standing by the patrolboat:

This exact patrolboat from the screenshots:

Interestingly, the boat seems to be bouncing on the water a little. And is the sound that we hear coming from its engine?..

The first enemy the player encounters is a clueless mercenary. He probably mistakes us for a fellow merc and says: “Hey, I’m glad to see you, man!”. The player the game shoots him shortly after:

The sound we earlier assumed to be coming from the patrolboat’s engine is actually more likely to be coming from the V22, it was just muffled due to distance. And now it has come closer:

After killing the first enemy, the player changes his weapon to P90 and proceeds into a forest growing near the beach. Another V22 flies by:

As the player goes forward, he encounters a small outpost with 3 mercenaries and is met with gunshots. He runs for cover and hides behind a rock. A firefight ensues:

As expected, the player is victorious. And we can see some familiar spots:

• A fallen tree, that was used as cover by a merc with shotgun:

This same fallen tree on a familiar screenshot:

• An outpost with sandbags we have seen in the PC Action’s video:

This outpost in the PC Action video:

This outpost also has this stuff lying around: a med kit, a radio playing static, some unknown object (seriously, what is it?) and a crate with pickable frag grenades:

The crosshair does get larger (around two times larger) if you pick something up:

The player uses his binoculars and zooms on some familiar head statues:

And on a sniper in the distance:

This sniper in a PC Action video:

The player then goes up the hill on a forest path. As expected, he soon gets under sniper’s fire. To defeat him, the player runs to the bottom of the hill where the sniper’s position is located and throws a grenade (that detonates immediately upon contact):

This kills the sniper. However, the player soon meets more mercs on the forest path nearby:

It’s worth noting that a grenade explosion destroys one rock (it disappears):

After this fight is ended, the player goes on the path to pick up the sniper rifle and goes to a meadow with stone heads.

(oops, the fight with the forest path mercs didn't actually end):

Through the sniper rifle scope the player sees a patrol of mercs familiar to us:

This very patrol in the 2002 Gamestar preview:

After one is killed, the commander throws a purple smoke grenade to call for reinforcements, as we expected:

A V22 arrives:

After dealing with the reinforcement, the player follows the path mercs used when retreating and gets into a firefight.
In the distance, he sees an entrance to something inside the mouth of a large stone head (an architectural leitmotif of this level, huh):

There is a familiar outpost beside it:

Ditto, on a familiar screenshot:

This outpost features a radio too. Interestingly, this time it does work and transmits these messages:

“The next load of cargo is airborne and on way to the compound. Maintain your posts until further notice.”

“Get the next load up to the helipad and be careful of things! Science boys say if one of those things gets broken, there will be hell to pay!”

Interestingly, it’s the same voice from the “Everybody stay sharp…” line

Inside the mouth of the stone head there is a cave:

Doesn’t it look familiar?

Yep, the cave from the concept we’ve shown you in part 6, complete with carvings on the walls and an entrance to an elevator. No crate, however:

The player then uses the elevator:

And gets to the familiar section with a lava storage (?):

Then the player tests the night vision goggles out (so they existed at least since then):

Shortly after, we can properly hear the “Everybody stay sharp” line:

“Everybody stay sharp! One of the cargo cases has been damaged, and the subject has escaped!”

Now this is interesting. What is this “subject” he was talking about? An alien specimen? Or was it a trigen already? Anyway, by this point the game has already played with the trope of some shady non-human enemies in the underground complexes somewhere in the tropics.

Anyway, the player then goes into a corridor with acid pools by the walls that we know from the Gamestar preview. A merc rolls out from a corner and attacks us:

After this corridor we can see a section we have seen on a screenshot:

This room in the screenshot:

Besides more enemies, this large room actually has some unexpected cool stuff – some hi-tech (alien, maybe?) equipment that is stored in large crates and emits strange sounds:

After the large room comes another section – what seems like leftovers of a temple made by the natives of this island. And this indoor complex was built in its place. Doesn’t it sound similar to the final game?

Interestingly, this section looks like a screenshot from a magazine page we've shown you in part 3.

And here it is, in the bottom of the page:

Soon the player sees the exit from this tunnel and runs into the great outdoors. A familiar voice speaks from the radio again:

“Gentlemen. It looks like we have an unwelcome visitor on the island. Locate him and take him out!”

One more firefight ahead. We can see the familiar orange-ish bunkers:

After dealing with the mercs, the player picks up a rocket launcher and takes down the V22. And you can clearly see that the rockets are in fact homing, after we “lock” on the target:

The player then goes to the helipad:

On the helipad, he takes out his sniper rifle and aims in the direction of our patrolboat: two mercs have spawned here:

A screenshot for comparison:

After the mercs are taken down, a burning plane flies overhead and crashes nearby..

resulting in a massive fireball:

The level is complete.

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So, that was the E3 2002 level. That’s how the familiar places connect to each other. However, some of the screenshots from that era show places that aren’t seen in this video. For example, these:

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Now, some bonus stuff.

I’d like to show you an observation I made.

Remember these screenshots?

They actually look quite similar to the E3 2002 level, judging by the terrain and the vegetation. However, each of them have a different skybox. So, maybe they were made when Crytek didn’t settle on the skybox we are accustomed to.

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So, that’s it for now. Do stay tuned for a new part! Quite soon we’ll release an article that will be... truly jaw-dropping.