Exploring Far Cry MasterCD builds - part 1 feature - Beta Restoration Project mod for Far Cry

Hello, dear readers

Due to certain events, I've taken an extended break from making these articles. Frankly, I've lost most of my former inspiration. However, I did have a number of things I needed to cover, so I come back to clear myself of this debt.

But anyway...

THE MASTERCD BUILDS

Last year, an archive called "MasterCDs.zip" surfaced online. It contains two VERY interesting folders:

• Mastercd_my
• Mastercd_my1

(a reupload)

So, let's cover these builds in order

This article turned out to be enormous, so this will be just one part of several.

MasterCD_my build (2003)

Overview and getting it to work

This folder contains an incomplete work-in-progress build of Far Cry from 2003.

To be more specific, it can be dated back to late 2003. All of the files in this folder (with the exception of several from 2005 – someone revisiting this old build?) are from 15.08.2003 and older. And if you try to run FarCry.exe, it says it’s a build from 14^th of August, 2003.

As for the contents of this folder themselves – they are incomplete. This build is missing a lot of stuff – namely folders with Objects, Sounds, Music. Quite regrettably, they haven’t been found to this day. They could have provided us with a wealth of info. However, this build does still have textures, levels and scripts (and more) intact. And as you will see, that is by itself an absolute treasure of interesting stuff about Far Cry’s development.

In its “native”, untouched state, this build is completely unplayable. It crashes with an error message, with the added bonus of screwing up your screen’s gamma. Oh noes, there’s no way to run this thing, right?

Wrong! There absolutely is a way, and it’s actually quite simple.

Pay attention to the error message from before:

So, this game needs at the very least a default object (these magic grey balls you see when the game can’t find a model) to just open properly. And if you want it to be somewhat playable, you need other objects too. And sounds and music, ideally.

Since we don’t have the original ones for this build, let’s just use the release ones. They shouldn’t be too different from what was supposed to be there, and they’ll allow us to actually see how the levels look like.

Several other quality-of-life tweaks:

To get rid of the annoying gamma reset, take a look at systemcfgoverride.lua, find “r_gamma = 1.6” and set it to “r_gamma = 1”

If you want the sounds to work, change “s_SoundEnable = "0"” to “s_SoundEnable = "1"”. When you launch the game, crank the sound volume up.

Also, the game tries to load a certain level immediately upon launching (and fails). Comment “g_StartLevel = "tdm8vlad" out.

In older versions of Far Cry (including this pre-release build) there was a well-known bug involving Direct3D render and fog. It makes the fog cover everything, rendering the game almost unplayable. I advise you to add “e_fog = 0” in systemcfgoverride.lua for an easy fix.

Finally, weapons don’t seem to render in first person mode, unless we set “p_model” to “p_model = hero” in systemcfg.lua.

Voila, the game is now (mostly) playable. You can also put the cut stuff (Mutant Screwed, etc) and other missing resources (like textures) where the game expects them to be, if necessary.

(But even though it’s technically playable, this build, being a temporary work-in-progress one from 20 years ago with missing assets, is riddled with bugs, performance can be atrociously bad at times and it also crashes if you look at it wrong)

This build may or may not require old Nvidia Geforce GPUs to run properly, like the E3 2002. This hasn’t been tested.

If you’ve done all of the following, you should see something like this upon launching the game

The mouse is “jittery” for some reason – it doesn’t move smoothly in the menu, it seems to move on a grid. Not the case with the game itself.

By the way, with a little bit of editing, it can be quite easily made to look like the old style “Load last checkpoint” menu

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the levels present in the game

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Levels overview

This is the list of levels we can see in the level select menu when starting a new game:

As we can tell from that, the levels and their order was getting closer and closer to what we’ve got in the final game. It’s worth noting this:

-by that time in development, Training, Carrier and Fort were already supposed to be separate levels (if they weren’t from the beginning);
-the mysterious cut “Ruins” level was still present;
-Catacombs, River and Ruins are grouped together with a prefix “Temple_”;
-Factory was still called “Compound” at that point;
-the cut level called “Mutant” was supposed to come after Compound, but before Dam;
-Volcano was still called “Lab”.

That’s what is in the “LEVELS” folder, however:

-Boat
-Bunker
-Carrier
-Dam
-Fort
-Lab
-M03
-M03_OPT
-M03_opt_new
-Mutant
-Regulator
-Research
-Steam
-STest1
-Swamp
-tdm4vlad
-tdm8vlad
-temp (empty)
-Temple
-Testbed
-Training
-x_box

Some of the mentioned levels seem to be missing. Some that aren’t mentioned, are, however, present.

So, let’s not beat around the bush and see the levels for ourselves. We’ll start with the “outliers”, and after that we’ll cover the campaign levels in order.

REMEMBER NOT TO PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE OBJECTS BY THEMSELVES – WE USE THE RELEASE GAME’S AS A PLACEHOLDER. SOME OF THESE WERE DIFFERENT IN BETA, BUT THEY RELIABLY APPROXIMATE WHAT LEVELS WERE SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE

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M03

Oh, what could hide behind this rather non-descriptive name?

As a matter of fact, this is the legendary Carrier/Fort level! To be more precise, it is a very early, primitive version of it – it lacks some stuff even the oldest attested screenshots show. And the dates on the files really show – it’s from 28.03.2003! Quite early indeed.

Surprisingly, this particular version doesn’t even end on Fort – it’s actually Carrier/Fort/Pier!
It was always clear that Fort and Pier happen on one island, since they share the terrain, but seeing all three of these levels together in a single megalevel is… quite the experience. So, well, let’s experience it for ourselves.

The loading screen for the level is a photo of an island that looks… surprisingly familiar! Did we just see the prototype for the Fort/Pier island, by chance?! Where is it, exactly? Can I go there?..

(As a matter of fact – it is real. This is a photo of Bora Bora island in French Polynesia.)

Oops, getting sidetracked…

After the level has loaded, we spawn in a room inside the derelict carrier.

Actually, we spawned not far away from the exit, and we can quickly leave and see the outside. The insides, however, are quite detailed despite that.

Also, it’s really dark here most of the time. Screenshots don’t do it justice

It’s all kind of similar to the final game, but not quite.

And here we can see volumetric fog achieved via FogVolume. A rather underutilized feature of CryEngine – I don’t remember seeing it in the release game.

And this area looks like some of the screenshots:

A beta screenshot in question:

But enough with digging in this wreck. We don’t even have to probably.

This is how the outdoors look like (I fixed the shipwreck model. Also I changed the skybox to the one that’s more time-appropriate – the sun’s position didn’t match, and the dates didn’t match too)

(Never mind the buggy water, that’s just how it is in this build)

As you can see, the general layout is recognizable, but there’s way less detail

There are fishing/civilian boats here and there. Maybe one of these belongs to Jack?

This is how the first beach looks like:

The hut:

By the way, even the small pier wasn’t yet present. Just a boat (by the way, it uses an unused Boat entity):

A bunch of BasicEntities for a cutscene:

That was it for the first beach. And the other beach is completely empty at this point!

So let’s go on a path and rise up the mountain as we normally do. Again, it slightly resembles the final version, but not really.

And it’s not as detailed. One of the reasons is that some of the models are missing anyway.

By the way, this map looks quite similar to what was shown in the “Vast landscapes” section of the old CryEngine tech video.

We’re getting closer to the fort!

As we enter the fort, we activate the trigger that sends a helicopter to attack us

This is how it looks in its entirety.

This is where this screenshot was probably made later:

But wait! Where’s the underground section – the destination of this level? It’s just nowhere to be found – the fort just ends with the stairs – and we see a path

Would you look at that! This is probably the exact area from the so-called “concept-arts” that were just lazy rewrites of screenshots! That’s where one was taken:

Also, there’s a radio tower in the distance. I suppose it was later moved closer to the fort and the underground complex was added.

Some things change, but one doesn’t – we have to blow this up. So let’s go

Further down the road is a forested area with enemies awaiting us

Bang-bang-bang – we’re done, and we come closer to the tower. Another “concept” was made here:

By the tower we can see an unused guard booth model:

But we’re not done yet! As you can see, there’s a merc camp from Pier is down there, so we must go on.

Also, this is where another “concept” was made

So let’s do just that. Instead of hang gliders and treacherous forest paths, there’s a flying fox to go there!

Two of them, to be precise.

And we’ve arrived to the camp.

That’s how it looks like (though the instant shelter models likely had no camo at this point):

The camp is not empty, if not very detailed:

A neat looking cooking stove flame:

These mercs shoot their own for training, boohoo!
Probably, these are some technical shenanigans before a dedicated AIAnchor was made

The objects cast real-time shadows, by the way

But let’s focus on the important stuff. In what appears to be the HQ of this camp, we pick up the explosives

And just like the final game, we use it to blow up the warehouse. Well, the model is missing (likely due to a bug – it was supposed to be there), but you get the idea.

We drive off using a hijacked vehicle, and mercs soon start chasing us

There are car patrols here and there:

The river crossing. The HEMTT to the right is not driveable, by the way.

The river itself is much much longer:

Let’s drive on

The seagulls and other boids were added by this point, by the way

Soon, we’ll see the Pier in question

It’s much more modest though. And we are met not by a gunboat, but by a patrolboat.

That’s where the level ends. There’s still a bit to cover though.

Near the level exit there’s a zodiac boat and two basicentity mercs for a cutscene (this level features a number of cutscenes that seem to be featured in official Far Cry trailers)

There’s a whole alternate route starting at the fort that circumvents the camp entirely. It’s not detailed at all though, and it would probably make the other route obsolete (I found it by going backwards actually)

The passage is covered by the _very_ realistic trees

It’s not really reachable normally

Somewhere in the forest area unseen (and unheard) by the player there’s a rough draft for a scene of some kind:

Finally, there’s a bunch of Patrolboats and a Humvee outside the playable area

Well, that’s it for this level.

One could easily see why it was cut. Even in it’s rather rough, undetailed state it’s kinda straining my not really high-end, but modern computer. If this level was perfected to the release-tier level of detail, the average 2004 computer would probably explode immediately upon loading it!

But still, seeing levels through Carrier to Pier as a single continuous megalevel is… quite the experience!
I liked it. But I like my levels ever so slightly more detailed even more.

Let’s go on

M03_OPT

Judging by the file name, it’s a newer, updated version of M03. This level dates back to 09.05.2003 – much closer to other depictions of this level we’ve seen so far.

The loading screen is a generic one that is featured on many other levels in this build:

Let’s see what the level itself is like.

As It turns out, it’s probably the exact version that we’ve seen in the PC Action review!

It starts with the now sorta legendary cutscene of Jack tied up in the chair somewhere in the shipwrecked carrier, listening to Doyle’s instructions (the models are missing though):

And then things go in roughly the same way as in the footages (or our remake). We pass by someone repairing something, get a weapon and try to find a way out, murdering any merc that tries to stop us.

And finally, we’re out of this stinking ruin. Notably, we see two helicopters flying by towards the Fort and beyond.

By the way, that’s how the whole area looks lik

Next, we’re going off the shipwreck – either through a familiar hole in its hull and underwater, or we descend from a conveniently placed sand slide to the right.

There is this warbling effect underwater, by the way

Not far away there’s a small hut on water – a merc outpost. Be warned that they can and will call for reinforcements

The first beach is much much closer to what we’ve got in the release version

It has this small pier now at least. No monkey cages yet though.

Conveniently placed explosive barrels

The hut

The second beach is a bit different however. Most importantly, it’s not empty anymore. Instead of the final game’s wrecked tank, there’s a wrecked plane. Also, there is no boat that’s being repaired.

The more hidden third beach is also present

The way up and the jungle are mostly the same as the final game.

By the way, butterflies were supposed to be flying around here. We’ve seen them in footages, and the BFly entities confirm that. However, not too long after that they were removed, and in this build they don’t work anymore.

Grasshoppers do work though

The rest of the way up is also similar to the final game. The only major difference is that the alternated underground passage through a bunker was not in place yet.

A nice view on the whole area and the carrier

Soon enough, we finally reach the Fort.

And it’s much closer to the final game, with the obvious difference of having a radio tower instead of a giant satellite dish.

There we get a cutscene of mercs emerging on carrier’s upper deck to attack us (and they do just that ingame)

Also, we get a V22 with reinforcements
(V22 were probably without camo at that point)

We face the door that leads us underground – oops, there is no door! So, this means that we don’t get that tedious section like in the final game.

When we go down this corridor, we can see that there is no room with monitors and stuff and the commander with a keycard. No – we just go straight to the place where we’re supposed to place the explosives.

We do just that, and we get that cutscene (“Let’s see, 15 minutes… Oh shi-“). We gotta escape!

We make our bombastic escape (and the terrain editing is rather sloppy here)

Just like the PC Action review, the landscape we see on the other side is nothing like Pier. It’s much more open, there’s islands and stuff.

Actually, not far away is an inflatable boat conveniently waiting for us

And that’s it for this mission! As you can see, in a couple of months, this mission was greatly refurbished and turned into what we’re used to seeing on screenshots and footages. Pretty close to the release Fort too. Great work!

M03_opt_new

Surprisingly, a later, updated version of M03_opt is actually the one that can’t be properly viewed. The level does load, but it immediately crashes for some weird reason.

Quite sad.

At least, we can see when it dates back to – and it dates back to 25.05.2003. It’s probably not that different from M03_OPT, but who knows.

STest1

A rather boring and empty test level. Not much to talk about.

tdm4vlad

This is easily the oldest level in the bunch. It dates back to 04.12.2001.

Unfortunately, this means that it’s incompatible with this build, and we can’t open the level. Even attempting to open this in E3 2002 demo is totally fruitless, as it crashes – that’s how old this level is. It was likely made early during the X-Isle days.

However, we can still see the general layout of the terrain via the map preview:

tdm8vlad

Even though it was probably originally made at around the same time as tdm4vlad, this one was definitely revisited later by the devs, and converted for a later version of the Cryengine – for testing purposes, most likely. Most of the files date back to 2002 and 2003. The latest changes happened on 13.08.2003 – the day before this build was compiled!

So let’s waste no time and see how it looks like.

Near the spawn, there’s a lake.cgf basicentity with a broken waters shader. That’s all objects.

The vegetation models are missing, sadly.

So, what can we say about this level?

Not much, since it’s largely empty. However, the terrain heightmap of this level. like most levels from X-Isle era, is markedly more realistic and detailed in comparison to the final game’s.

testbed

Judging by the name, it’s the Testbed/Sandbox level from X-Isle era – the one showing various features of the upcoming game. We’ve seen a version of this map in the 2002 build, but it lacked most of the objects and entities. Let’s see what this one is about.

It dates back to 24.01.2002, so it was made during a very early stage of development. Let’s try opening it in the 2002 build.

It does load successfully, but it’s totally empty.

If you open the .cry file in a text editor, it shows that this level was at least supposed to have terrain and vegetation, if not any objects.

The map preview shows that the general outline was similar, but the ground textures were different from the 2002 build’s “sandbox” map

x_box

From an early point in its development, Far Cry was supposed to also be playable on Xbox. This level is probably a demo of some kind made for this exact purpose – to show how CryEngine would look on this platform. Or something like that.

So far, we’ve seen the “outliers”. They were a mixed bag. Some levels were detailed and interesting, some were not.

Now let’s see what the campaign has in store for us.

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Training

The iconic first level. What was it like in beta? Let’s see.

It dates back to 23.06.2003 – several months before this build’s date. It has a generic skybox.

This level was supposed to start with a cutscene very similar to what we’ve seen in the beginning of M03_opt. In fact, the exact same voicelines of Doyle were used. Probably as a placeholder, since we wake up not in a shipwreck, but in a hut!

As you can see, it’s not pretty. There’s blood all around. Jack was probably tortured before. The windows are boarded up, but light shines through.

From the beginning, we can pick up a Machete and a flashlight. We get an objective to find Valerie in a nearby merc camp. We exit the hut, and see the outdoors. The door opens with an uncharacteristically techy sound, likely due to an oversight. There’s a dead mercenary to the right with binoculars lying nearby. We can pick them up and survey our surroundings. Don’t mind the t-pose – that’s how ragdoll dead bodies placed on a level beforehand work in this build.

The skybox is the 01_Training skybox unused in the final game.

The hut’s material was bugged, so I switched to a default one.

There are gunboats patrolling the area. A helicopter is flying by.

In the distance, we can see Jack’s boat, totally wrecked

On the other side is a mercenary camp where we should go to try and find Valerie.

Oh no! Our way towards the other coast is closed by a shark!

Ah, it’s just a static object, a BasicEntity. It’s totally harmless. Not sure if this was to last - it was probably a placeholder before properly implmenting a shark here.

That’s how the merc camp looks like. Not really like the release game. Also, no trace of the WW2-era bunker where we start in the final game.

A broken boat we’ve seen on a screenshot

The huts and their interiors are different too.

The other hut was burned down.

When we enter, we see exactly why.

But we don’t really have time to get sad. We make our way to a familiar hut on a hill. From this position we survey our surroundings and observe the larger mercenary camp on the other shore.

In the distance there’s a static patrolboat.

A gunboat is patrolling nearby

And that’s how the camp looks like:

As you can see, the camp looks different – both from the final game and from that screenshots that we saw.

In contrast, the pier and the surrounding area are quite similar.

Now let’s see the camp in greater detail.

Near the pier there’s a short guard tower (with no guard).

There’s a whole excavator to the right. And it’s actually working – the game plays a cutscene of it moving (if rather rough – the entire excavator moves). Also, it’s manned (there’s a merc inside)

video:

The training area is to the left (in the beta screens we found before, it’s to the right)

In the instant shelter, there’s a briefing room and a commander’s office.

(nice particle effect of a cigarette burning)

Nearby there’s a higher guard tower and a fuel tank

This is the place where one of the screenshots was taken

Also, there we can see that the guard tower slightly away from the camp (like in the final version) is nowhere to be found. Instead, it’s a broken radio tower turned into an improvised guard tower.

Next to the tower from before, there’s a smaller tent for sleeping.

And finally, there is a buggy under the camonets. Like the final game, we need to hijack it and drive away.

The road out of this camp is generally similar to the release game.

We get chased by mercs on other vehicles sometimes

Then we reach a certain beach where we’re ambushed by a patrolboat (instead of a gunboat). We are under mortar fire!
(the boat isn’t burning – mortar fire is actually realized as a cutscene in a very weird hacky way)

On board there are 3 mercs. One is standing near the mortar, but he isn’t actually using it. The others are armed with rocket launchers – and oh boy, they’re going to absolutely obliterate you and your car if you aren’t quick.

The rest of our ride is smooth sailing

Soon enough we get to see the Carrier.

Behind it there’s a patrolboat with mercs (patrolboats are much more prevalent in the beta, aren’t they?)

And then we get on the Carrier not unlike the final game.

Carrier

This level dates back to 05.07.2003. It has a generic loading screen.

It’s very close to the release one. The differences are mostly cosmetic.

Fort

This level dates back to 23.06.2003. It uses a generic loading screen.

Like Carrier, it’s very close to its state in the final game. The differences are, again, mostly cosmetic. However, they’re more visible than on Carrier.

Firstly, the starting area is much less detailed. No houses or anything on the first island. Also, we can already see that there’s still a radio tower rather than a satellite dish.

Still no monkey cages on the small pier:

There is, however, an underground passage

When we reach the fort, we can see that the underground section is now at least behind a door.

And now the control room was added:

The underground section goes kablooey

And when we exit, we can see Pier terrain again.

You’d think this would be the end, but no! If you look around, you’ll see it’s way too detailed for that.

It turns out that this level is Fort and Pier combined! Now that was unexpected.

And well, it works mostly like release Pier, with mostly cosmetic differences.

This kitchen area has vodka.cgf objects (they just refuse to render in release Far Cry for some reason)

Mercs aren’t used as targets anymore

We get explosives in the commander’s room and blow up the warehouse (now it works properly for me)

Then we drive away on a much more detailed road

The river crossing. This HEMTT is still not a driveable one (although they were present)

Finally, the pier area! It’s much more detailed and closer to the final version now

For some reason, this warehouse has a giant glass window for a door. I bet it was a placeholder of some kind to be spectacularly wrecked by our vehicle

Speaking of glass windows – there’s a stray one in the woods nearby… for some weird reason. Probably just an oversight

The pier itself became much more detailed.

And we still get picked up by a patrolboat – now with Doyle on it!

Aaand that’s it.

Research

This one is quite interesting.

Take a look at its loadscreen.

Yes, this is in fact early 2003 HUD. And yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, this does in fact look more like Treehouse! This is no mistake – this level is basically Research and Treehouse combined into one!

You could even call it… Treesearch!

Sorry

Let’s find out how these two combine.

By the way, most files date back to 10.07.2003, but .cry dates back to 18.07.2003. Some changes must have been made.

The skybox used is not the unusual evening one we’ve seen on the screenshots, but the final game’s Treehouse/Research skybox.

Differences only start kicking in when you enter the cave

The iconic cutscene introducing trigens wasn’t made yet. What’s more interesting, however, is that an actual trigen appears as an entity – which means that we have to fight it even earlier. It appears from the other side too

By the way, the trigen in question seems to appear from this puddle.

The rest of the cave section is largely the same, with a few differences in design and entity placement.

The last room of final game’s Research is totally different here. Also, no trigens running into a vent.

And what do we see on the other side of the final door?

Yes, that’s the beginning of Treehouse!

The first room where in release game merc was pulled into the vent and ripped apart is different. Here merc is just lying dead, and there’s supposed to be not one, not two, but three trigens waiting for the player.

The rest is generally similar. Slight design differences, but there also seems to be more trigens (and they’re mostly chimps rather than aberrations). On the flipside, trigens are generally much less dangerous, having less health than their release game’s counterparts. Also, they don’t appear in editor for some reason.

This buggy here is active. It’s gonna be quite useful if you manage to open the garage door.

To get into the control room from the garage, you have to do some vent crawling

And when you leave the first building, you see the exact area that we used to see on screenshots and stuff

Vivarium is slightly different

In the garage below there’s a HEMTT truck – and lo and behold, it’s actually driveable!

The following area is close to the final game

In the area with two fortresses in the valley there is now a river, flowing from a rather spectacular looking waterfall

At the bottom of this waterfall there’s also a crate for some weird reason

Other than that, it’s pretty close to the final game

Bunker

The loading screen looks like this:

Files for this level date back to 05.07.2003

Another level that is pretty close to its release counterpart. It’s familiar in general, but some details are different

Instead of some ammo and health, we have to fight a merc almost immediately

We finally reach the iconic Mutant Screwed room

More mercs, more mutants

The unused passage we can see in this area in the final game is not even present in this build. Perhaps, it was added later, but then hidden again over the course of development.

The bridge section

Trigens don’t eat their deceased brethren yet:

It’s worth noting that the skybox here is like the final game. The unused 7_BUNKER skybox isn’t used in this build either. Whether it actually was at some point – no idea.

Like the final game, you can unleash trigens from their cages and cause mayhem!

Moving to the final section

No trigens breaking boards and jumping from these pipes:

You fly away on a V22 in this build

Steam

Do you remember those screenshots and concept art of a Steam-like level? Well, it wasn’t Steam – at least in this build. Steam here is generally quite similar to the release version.

This level’s loading screen looks like this:

The files for this level date back to 05.07.2003 to 18.07.2003

Like the release version, we start off on a beach

The warning about mines on the beach does NOT lie, by the way

boom. debris fall around

We go into the jungle where we fight mercs and mutants

You would soon come across the familiar village

Boats patrol the sea – be careful

Not far away you can find a vehicle to travel by:

Vroom-vroom into the night

Or you can walk on alternate paths, if you want to

There is this campfire with mercenaries around. Instead of a particle effect or the normal sprite flame, it uses a tiki torch texture. It looks kind of goofy:

You reach this area with a waterfall and a river

You will be blasted with rockets

Enemy Humvees are also present

Enemy patrols

This road is thoroughly blocked

Soon enough, you get to the steam generator.

As expected, it looks different from the release version, with all those chain-link fences:

There are frogs leaping around. They actually still do in the final game

More shots of steam generator:

That’s the entrance to the Regulator. Notice the unused HEMMT with canvas cover

As you can see, nothing wildly different to the release version. Nothing instantly recognizable from that Steam-looking level.

Fun fact: there’s an island with gigantic glowbugs far away from where we’re supposed to be. It’s probably an easter egg or something

Regulator

Regulator is considerably smaller and less detailed than what we’ve got in the release version. It was likely right in the process of being made at the time.

You do get a V22 in the end

Control, Rebellion, Archive and Cooler are entirely missing from this build.

Boat

Remember when we said that Boat used to originally have the sunny-day Fort skybox?

Well, it really did. Here’s how the loading screen looks like:

It was last changed on 05.07.2003. So how does the level look like?

Apart from the skybox, the level is really similar to the release Boat in its layout, although it’s way less detailed. Also, there’s a small twist

Though there are differences as well. Again, an excavator and signs of ongoing construction. A recurring theme in this version – remember Training

Otherwise, the starting island is quite similar

The meeting party on the second island is entirely armed with shotguns

The mercs are in general not very “polished”. Not a lot of variety

The first radio tower

The base nearby:

The third island (or rather an archipelago)

The second tower

An inconspicuous duck placed indoors

The other side of this “mountain”

A-and there’s no final island.

A bunch of helicopters far away. Crowe (or, rather, Mertz) is not there yet

The freighter. It’s much better guarded in the beta. Lots of Mk. 19 emplacements and mercs armed with RLs:

There was probably supposed to be a cutscene with Val in the end of this level

And that's the end of this part of my article. The rest is basically ready, so it'll probably be released back to back quite soon.

What can I say about what I saw? Well, by August of 2003 Far Cry was already quite similar to what we've got in the end. However, some aspects turned out to be quite different.

Well, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!