Exploring Far Cry MasterCD builds - part 2 feature - Beta Restoration Project mod for Far Cry

Hello again, dear readers

Part two of the article about the two MasterCD builds of Far Cry, as I promised

Part one here

Without further interruption...

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Temple

The megalevel consisted of three sub-levels: Catacombs, River and Ruins. It was last edited on 26.06.2003.

Its loading screen looked like this:

Looks about as you’d expect it to.

Now, Catacombs and River did make it into the final game. Ruins didn’t, but a multitude of references to it in assorted game data survived. Well, we’ll see what it was like a bit later. The old Catacombs and River do have something up their sleeve as well.

Catacombs

We start on an unassuming forest pathway, mostly similar to the final game

Almost immediately after that, there was supposed to be a fight breaking out between mercenaries and MUTANT SCREWED! An actual ingame entity! The problem is, it couldn’t spawn because of some archetype library issues.

A bit farther down the path, we’ll see the Catacombs entrance. This area is several times smaller than in the final game.

We meet some resistance

But wait. Doesn’t it remind you of something?
Remember these screenshots?

And screenshots of the level I made, for comparison

This is the specific place where they were made. Mystery solved.

By the way. this place still partly survives in the final game. It’s to the left when going on a path from spawn. But moving on…

This is how the catacombs entrance looks like

Just like the final game, we need to make the entrance blockage go boom-boom

The catacombs themselves are recognizable, if different and shorter

A missing wall brush lmao

A bunch of dead bodies

Some loot

Just like the final game, our job in this godforsaken place is to get someone’s PDA for Doyle. Well, if you go up the stairs in this hall with the giant statue, you’ll end up in a small room.

There lies our PDA (at this time a keycard is used as a placeholder. In addition, we can get some explosives here. By the way, Doyle’s assistant was called Murphy

You can go either left or right. Both paths are blocked with poisonous gas tanks. The right one seems unfinished

Left corridor:

Right corridor:

You stumble on this room:

If you go left, you eventually end up in a large hall

You get your final battle in this sub-level here. Also, you finally meet some Mutant Stealths – they seem to be more plentiful in the final version.

Another missing wall part. Sloppily done, tsk-tsk

Just like the release version, we blow up the crumbled exit and end up in what would become a new level.

River

We find ourselves facing a familiar outpost with two mercs and one MG

Really, it’s all quite similar to the release version, but a bit simpler.

Another zodiac boat on this turn

Naturally, since this is one giant level, the River part shares its skybox with the Catacombs part. And from what we know, it was a somewhat cloudy evening sky with a bright sunset. Our restoration, which was all foggy and cloudy and rainy and full of waterplants, was based not on this (it wasn’t discovered at the time), but on a one-off concept art that may or may not have been implemented in-game.

You are still attacked both on water and from land.

Mercs can be seen driving Zodiacs! Nothing really prevents them in the final game – it’s just not implemented anywhere (in vanilla). But here, it is.

You can go via land, if you want to

Or not

Some of you might have noticed that out of bounds, above the similar waterfall there’s an out of place unusable machinegun entity. It might be a vestige of a full fledged boat (with a crew)! Or not. Regardless, it’s a very strange place to place a boat in.

This would probably later turn into that hut that you can bombastically destroy by driving your boat full-speed on the trampoline – just like the trailers!

Things really start diverging near the end of this section. You end up in a lake-like area with waterfalls. On the right are some ruins, on the left – a camp. Both places are expectably infested with mercenaries.

Farther away, there’s a passage into a swamp with some ruins and more enemies.

That’s not all! There you can see an entrance to another catacombs section! I assume, this is where the next section starts.

Ruins

We go through a small corridor and into a hall with a pool

We are greeted with some mercs

This area may or may not be recycled into a similar one near the end of release Catacombs.

After we beat it, we actually exit again.

After we pass this arch, we end up in a huge open area of the temple, where a fight between mercs and mutants is supposed to occur.
I personally think it looks amazing. Not sure why it was deleted.

After we beat this, we need to climb the stairs all the way up

We go on a path by a lake

And then we end up on another set of grandiose, impressive looking ruins

Inside them, mercs and mutants are fighting again

That’s cool and all, but we’re not here to gaze at ancient architecture.

Mertz is supposed to get dropped via a helicopter on this cliff.

Thematicaly, Ruins seems to be analogous to the end of River in release game.

Our goal is to upload some data on the PDA (or a laptop?) through the uplink installed on a truck.
There it is

Our exit seems to be blocked by a HEMTT truck

A-and that’s it!
This section wasn’t long. Perhaps, Ruins weren’t a thing because Crytek couldn’t turn it into a separate level?

Swamp

This level was last edited also on 26.06.2003. And it actually uses that iconic Factory/Compound concept as a loading screen:

You'll see just why a bit later.

Unlike the final game, we pretty much immediately start with a vehicle section, accompanying Val.

There was this screenshots of Val made at around this time and probably on this level, where she looked like she had blonde hair. Well, it’s probably due to a bug

The scenery is mostly like the release Swamp, lacking features from the unnamed 2003 swamp level. Still no clue if these two were connected or not

But remember this image that I hypothesized was made on a river crossing on Pier?

It was likely made on this version of Swamp. Well, the lighting and the atmosphere on the screenshot hinted at it too.

That’s how the place looks like here

Our ride is generally less eventful than the final game

We eventually arrive at the swamp base, in a more straightforward way than the final game.

The actual layout of the base is different from the final game, yet the individual buildings are somewhat recognizable as their release counterparts.

Notably, the interiors are often much darker

The other one, a garage:

We go further into the base

This structure with all its machinery was later replaced by the satellite dishes in the final game.

We unlock the next part of the base

The barracks are largely empty and unfinished on the inside

The canteen area looks much better, but still, it has actual grass inside in the kitchen area, which isn’t very polished and refined

Next, we go to the armoury

After getting some explosives, we head to the Compound (aka Factory in release). Only now the entrance area is placed right on the Swamp level.

The dome’s shaders seem to be broken. Here’s how it probably looked like (it’s probably a placeholder):

The entrance area itself is full of enemies and quite detailed

The indoor parts — less so

And the level ends

Compound itself as a level seems to be missing from this build

Mutant

Ahh, another elusive ghost level! Like Ruins, it was referenced in the game’s files in numerous ways. Audio files were mostly recycled for the first part of the release Dam level. Text hints mention a lot of strange events:

-“Escape from the mutant training area”
-“Extinguish the fire in the control room”
-“Find the pump house and turn on the water supply”
-“Water pressure supplied to the sprinkler system”
-“The electric fence has been deactivated”

Hard to pinpoint these to any particular place in the final game.

This level even has a dedicated skybox (12_MUTANT), which isn’t really used in the game.

Well, now we can see what this level was like.

But first, the loading screen:

It’s obviously a placeholder, a screenshot taken from the editor. It depicts a village and mercs.

The level dates back to 05.07.2003

Now, let’s see what the actual level is like

We spawn inside a beaten up cargo container. We see a crashed V22 nearby. Prior to this level was supposed to be Compound. In the unreachable area on the final game’s level there’s an airport. It was also referenced in unused audio files. It seems that after exploding the Compound/Factory, Val was supposed to fly us away on an aircraft (a V22, perhaps). Then it might have crashed, and this is how we ended up like this.

After we come outside, we are surrounded by dead bodies, fire and mutants.

(There are supposed to be Chimps here – they’re missing due to Archetype library bugs)

If we get to the crashed V22, we can get some ammo for our shotgun and some health. Inside is a dead body of a Merc Rear for some reason. Maybe he was the actual pilot while Jack and Val “convinced” him to fly them away?..

Near the V22, sounds of rain falling on metal are playing on loop, which indicates that this level was supposed to have rain on it – the first confirmed one so far. The particle effects and sounds in other places are missing though.

The V22 has a surprisingly detailed cockpit – more so than the stationary V22 in river

It’s the crashed version of 2002 build V22. By the way, it’s not resting on anything – just floating there menacingly. Obviously, the map isn’t finished

Do not return a second time – if you do, the helicopter will fall into the chasm behind.

If you manage to survive, you face a path into the burning forest. Your way is blocked by what seems to be the very first Mutant Slug in this build!

It’s not very intimidating

After that, we continue our way. Down the path, there’s a small river crossing our way and a rock lying like a bridge above it.

This area is patrolled by Mutant Bigs

If we go a bit further, we are faced with a whole bunch of mutants! It would be a formidable force in the release game, but in this build, mutants consistently have much smaller hp pools and are thus considerably easier to defeat

The path turns back to the stream, but now we use a fallen tree as a bridge and go towards some cave

A view back

In front of this cave, there is a gruesome display: two mercs impaled and burning. Spooky! Was this done by mutants? They don’t display such a behaviour in the final game. Who knows?
To more definitively scare us away, there is also a very much living and hostile Mutant Big guarding the cave
Also, there’s a medkit

We didn’t get scared by a bunch of dead dudes and a flimsy Fatboy, so we go into the cave. It is illuminated by torches. Inside, there are more mutants to fight

These claustrophobic passages are crawling with all sorts of mutants. Fasts, Bigs, Stealths and Morphers (these two are actually two distinct types of mutants in this build unlike the final game, but more on that later)

(There’s a visarea bug here)

Down the tunnels we go

There are Aberrations waiting to ambush us

This cave is absolutely full of mutants

And this is the place near the exit

We finally escape this cave.

We hear sounds of combat. There is a crashed helicopter, near which mercs hold their last stand against waves of mutants.

We move away from this, regardless of who wins

There are two paths to choose from. One is to the left and goes around a mountain. Here we can finally see the skybox. It looks like the Archive skybox, not the 12_MUTANT from the final game. It was probably changed during development, but who knows.

There’s also the other path, where we cross a ravine via a bridge-like rock

Whichever path we choose, we eventually come across a village – the one depicted on the loading screen. Once again, mercs are holding agains mutants.

Mercenaries can call a reinforcement that will arrive on a V22

Electricity can be disabled, if you destroy the generators

Grass clipping through the floors and a radio. Looks extremely unfinished!

Surprisingly, there is a rope entity. Strange, since it’s normally a purely technical one, used so that mercs could descend from V22s. More on that mysterious rope later.

Other huts have goodies inside too

The third path leads us away from the village

We come across a big waterfall

We meet some resistance

After we beat everyone, we come across a flying fox station, which is supposed to have no rope on it initially – game hints us to find some rope nearby.
That’s where the mysterious rope from the village would come in handy.

Well, sort of. There’s nothing on the other side anyway. This level is definitely not finished. There was definitely something supposed to be placed on the other side – an underground complex, it seems.

So we prematurely end this level.

Now this was interesting! A totally missing level from the final game. It is very far from being finished – it is not built to the end, even roughly. It’s also very unpolished. But it also has a number of interesting features and ideas. It’s a first confirmed official level with rain (in any form).

From the looks of it, it played probably like the beginning of Dam, which is hinted by repurposed audio files. Nothing can be compared to the text hints, however. This level reminds me of the creepy mutant-filled jungle from the intro cinematic.

Dam

This level’s exported-to-engine version and .cry file are different – and .cry file has more stuff in it and is more polished. So we’ll use the .cry file version to review the level.

By the way, files for this level date back from 24.06.2003 to 12.08.2003, so this level was right in process of being built by the devs, which explains this version disparity.

The loading screen is the iconic Dam concept - this one:

We start near the entrance to an underground lab complex of some kind. Nearby lies a hang-glider. Perhaps, we were supposed to end Mutant by grabbing a hang-glider and flying away, and Dam is where we landed.

We are then supposed to fight a pack of Mutant Slugs blocking our way

After that, the corridor twists a little and we come across a fork on our road

To the right is a passage to a room behind broken blast doors

If you go towards it, you activate a scripted explosion

This is how the room itself looks like:

This elevator shaft to the right might lead us to one of the possible paths to complete this level. Or not. We’ll cover it in more detail later.

The whole building seems to be in bad shape – explosions, debris everywhere. And here is a hole in the ceiling:

Now let’s head back.

The left turn would have led us to this door:

Behind the door is this area:

There we are supposed to be promptly ambushed by another pack of Mutant Slugs hungry for some human meat

(it’s so cramped in here…)

The way to the right is blocked by fire:

To the left is an armoury with some supplies for us to grab:

If we go straight, we eventually come across two machinegun-wielding Mutant Bigs:

This glass room is a surgery of some sort

By the way, this is the place is where certain mysterious screenshots were made:

The passage to the left of this operating room is blocked:

This is what lies behind those rocks. This passage is that bridge above a burning area from before. It eventually meets a dead end.

Let’s head back to where we beat the Fatboys and follow the main road.

To the left is another, larger armoury with much better loot, where we must get some explosives.

You can use physics to your advantage and climb crates to get some extra ammo, like other games of that era (Half-Life 2, etc.)

And – what would you expect – another Mutant Slug ambush! This place is absolutely infested with these critters.

After the armoury another Mutant Big awaits us.

After that we are probably supposed to finally end up outdoors. The skybox is, surprisingly, like the release game’s Volcano. We end up in a training area of some sort

Here several Mutant Fasts attack us:

We can go up these platforms that don’t really lead anywhere

But there is a usable minigun here:

This windows to the left on the screenshot above? One of them is broken. If you get inside, however, there is just a bunch of blatantly unfinished indoor areas

This is not where we are supposed to go. What we need to do is actually to blow up the base of a guard tower that would fall and crash the fence.

And this is where it’s supposed to fall. It’s marked by a placeholder duck model

We end up in a lake

Near it is a mercenary outpost

We need to go behind it, and walk the jungle path. Our way Is blocked by a group of Mutant Morphers.

Obviously, they won’t just leave us be. However, as I said, their behaviour is actually quite different from release Mutant Stealths. Instead of going invisible, they “morph” into various unassuming objects (trees, bushes, rocks,…) in the area to then ambush the player (kind of like Mirage tanks from Red Alert 2 or something)

This area was just better for showcasing their abilities.

After we deal with these enemies, we come across a small building, a pier with a raft, and a geyser/hot spring

This is how the building looks on the inside. You can pick up some supplies here

We then have to go to the pier and on the raft. We then should mount the minigun. To start moving, we need to destroy placeholder shelves around the raft

After we do this, the raft starts moving. We don’t control it – it’s being carried by the river’s flow. The flow is faster than you’d expect, and the raft tends to turn around sometimes. But it’s a fun experience. You get to enjoy the scenery and the merc/mutant shooting gallery.

Alternatively, we can access this river by going through an underwater cave that starts in a lake from before. Be careful not to drown – it’s longer than it seems!

To replenish some oxygen, you get a small waterless section in the middle. You wouldn’t get much of a breather though – there is a Mutant Stealth here ready to spoil everything (and this is specifically Stealth, not Morpher)

And then you have to swim for some more

You emerge in the river, slightly ahead of the rafthouse

Now let’s get back to our little river trip. One important landmark on our path is a village full of mercs and empty houses.

They would probably fight the mutants on the opposing bank of the river

Even if you haven’t been stranded before, your way is eventually blocked by barbed wire fence across the river.

Where do we even need to go, by the way? Our end goal is the volcano complex, like the final game.

However, the path towards it is markedly different

And before we reach it, we come across a certain area that gives the name to this level.

Yes, you heard that right. Unlike the release game, this pre-release version of Dam has AN ACTUAL PHYSICAL DAM! And you can visit it!

Quite unexpected, right?

Be careful, however. The game warns us: “Watch out, there will be a lot of enemy activity here.”
And there really is

But anyway, back to where we left off…

Near the blockage is a building almost identical to the one at the start of this little journey

There are some extra supplies nearby as well

The path we took seems to involve driving through volcanic terrain and hordes of mutants – kind of like the final game. Lava visual effects seem to not be working or not placed, but trust me – there are damaging areas all around. Also, there are earthquake effects placed at different spots on this level – like when we start this section.

Also, we get a hostile blackhawk sent our way.

Eventually, you end up on this crossroads near the dam

But you know what? This might not be the only way to get through this level. Remember the elevator shaft from way before? This shaft (and another one) are connected with a small corridor below.

Inside this corridor is a humvee and two mercs – and a door that connects to the opposite bank of the river crossed by the dam.

But there’s a problem – the elevators seem to be broken, and there probably is no way to get down through their shafts normally. Besides, the humvee had a path for it to go on, which would be strange if we would just sneakily attack it from behind before it even started going. Regardless, there doesn’t seem to be anything that would trigger it to go, and the doors to open – we are dealing with an unfinished, WIP level after all.

Anyway, behind the blast door is a small road with merc patrols on it

This path eventually leads to the Dam, where we can cross to the other side and turn up at the same crossroads we covered before.

To the left is a road that is basically a dead end (it’s damaged, there’s a chasm you can’t cross). To the right is a lava stream or something, the road is also blocked by these concrete barriers.

The thing we’re supposed to do is go via these pipes

The volcano looms above us menacingly. We have almost reached the end

We follow the road, and then we soon come across something interesting.

The Dam’s final area from the iconic concept is A 100% REAL INGAME PLACE!

And this is how this area looks in this build

It’s remarkable how close BRP was with its reconstruction of this area!

I find it ironic that this area seemed glaringly different in the concepts, and yet it is the only thing we really can recognize that got into the release version

Note how mercs are used as placeholders for Krieger monuments

In general, things are less pretty than on the concept, but the main details are here, things are different from the release version

The yacht pier is not present, but there is a V22 nearby

And well, the level ends like the final game.

At least something familiar!

I cannot state enough how different everything looks from the final game, except the end section. While obviously unfinished, this level shows some really neat stuff not present in the final game. Also, it probably explains why rafts were even mentioned in the manual – one seems to play a key role in this level.

Lab

This is the prototype of the release game’s final level – the Volcano. Most of the files date back to July 2003. The loading screen is the generic one.

Let’s take a look at the level itself.

We start out in a lobby that is kind of like the release one, but also different. There are signs of destruction and fighting all around, dead bodies of mercs and mutants, flags burning. No enemies yet though. Well, the whole starting area (before we go into the mouth of the Volcano) is supposed to be crawling with Mutant Baboons, but they aren’t working.

If you open the door to the left, you will see a clean, brightly lit room with Doyle inside. He was supposed to betray us in the end, just like the release version, but he initially seems to be non-hostile here.

Behind the next door is an empty room with the unused “Krieger desk”.

The monitor text is a bit funny

Then there’s another room, which is even emptier and seems like a WIP bathroom

Now let us go back to the lobby and go down the central corridor

Eventually we reach a room with elevators. These Mutant Slugs are dead bodies, by the way, not active NPCs.

The elevator gets us up

There we finally meet some resistance – there are numerous mutants in the vicinity

This corridor up is where we need to go.

One room is a toilet. Not many interesting stuff

Be careful, however – Mutant Slugs here are very much alive and hostile. One hides in a toilet, the other one hides in a trash bin

The other room is where we should go. It’s a trashed lab where a scientist has barricaded himself against a Chimp trigen. This scientist drops a keycard for us – no need to rescue him.

Let’s get back to where we got into this corridor. If you jump over the fallen bridge, you should get into the opposite corridor, where there is a lounge with some ammo for you. Neat

Another room is mostly empty and looks like this.

Doesn’t all this upper level look familiar to you? It should – this location, while normally inaccessible and unused, still survives in the final version as a relic of the past.

We fight some more mutants and get a cutscene with Valerie:

After that, we need to go through the corridor in the middle

There we find an exit that finally leads us into the mouth of the volcano

And that’s what the area looks like:

So, as you can see, it’s much closer to the concept art. These structures are recognizable (we will look at them in more detail shortly)

However, instead of three bridges to the center, there are four, like the final game. They are not collapsed, in contrast.

One of the most glaring differences from the concept or the final version is that instead of lava, there appears to be water down below. Not sure if this is a placeholder, or if it is actually meant to be water in this build. I’m leaning towards the second, because there probably is actual lava below, but we’ll talk about this later.

Now let’s take a closer look at the structures in the mouth of the volcano.

This is where we emerge “on the surface”. This whole area is infested with Mutant Bigs, like the final version. The one on the screenshot, like most of them in this area, is armed with a mutant shotgun. Do not underestimate them.

Like the release version, this area is also infested with Mutant Fasts. They harass us, jumping around on the slopes.

And that’s how the central platform looks like:

This is where we’ll have to go eventually – we’ll return to it soon.

This is the structure to the left:

By the way, our goal here is to deactivate three stabilizers. This would eventually result in this entire facility exploding.

Stabilizers look like this. Like other things in this build, you activate/deactivate it like doors in 1.0 – just approach it.

High above the left structure is this other structure and radio tower + satellite dish. This Mutant Big is armed with a MutantRL – be careful there, down below!

This is the structure to the right:

And this is the structure opposite to where we started

Unlike others, it’s not a dead end. If you enter the door above, you end up in a passage...
a-and it’s blatantly unfinished:

You will soon see it was likely meant to connect to the “main” path.

We are left with the only real option – to descend on the elevator from the central platform

This is the area we end up in – a lava chamber:

There is supposed to be a cutscene: Krieger mocks Jack, runs away and turns the power off

This area is full of Mutant Morphers

Down below seems to be the actual lava I mentioned earlier.

How are we even not cooked by convection by now, whew

Where we really need to go is this passage. It gets opened in an explosion that we witness through a cutscene

Things explode around us as we go

Otherwise it’s a fairly bland corridor – probably for maintenance. Well, two Mutant Baboons are supposed to attack us. They don't appear in editor, but the exported-to-engine version (which is slightly different) features Aberrations in their place. Hmm!..

We reach a ladder. A really, REALLY tall ladder.

It almost seems like a joke. It’s COMICALLY tall. And we have to climb all the way up...

I doubt this was a deliberate reference, however

Don’t mind the jitteriness in movement – on some ladders player seems to move faster, likely to make this whole ordeal a bit faster

If you ascend above the ladder, you can see this blocked passage. The unfinished passage from before was possibly meant to connect around here. Maybe...

We just need to stop at the top of this ladder. We end up in this corridor. Something explodes again.

All these grand stairs – what are they leading us to?

To this place.

Before that, we’re supposed to get a cutscene:

"CUTSCENE PLACEHOLDER: DOYLE kills KRIEGER."

"DOYLE releases the mega mutants. Mutants kills DOYLE."

"Megamutants attack JACK, and activate the reproducer"

Our objective now is to deactivate “the reproducer” by disabling two valves and kill the mutants.

This is the arena of our upcoming final boss fight. It is a gigantic cave with various high-tech equipment and a giant mutant tank in the center. Inside it is… the one and only, Mutant Omega!

It’s not clear what the “megamutants” are supposed to be. There is just one Mutant Omega, but no other mutant seems to be present here, save for a Mutant Baboon that doesn’t work.

It is not clear what “reproducer” would do. But valves look like this:

It’s in general a mystery what the whole fight was supposed to be like or how Omega would behave. But it all seems appropriate for a final boss fight.

This is probably where we would exit after the boss fight:

"END CUTSCENE PLACEHOLDER: Congratulations!"

"You finished FarCry :-)"

"Now go and buy Far Cry 2 - Revenge of the Mutants!"

A-and we’re done!

Oh, I forgot – there is an unused area out of bounds:

This is a proof of the fact that this level was work-in-progress, it was being changed at the time.

Oh, and one more thing that I actually forgot about. Doyle was supposed to betray us, and fly away on a helicopter with the mutagen, but not before trying to remove the two main witnesses — Jack and Val. And so there's him (although represented by a placeholder generic scientist, probably) and his helicopter behind the crater's rim.

Doyle's betrayal is referenced by text hints in this mission's script

Hud:AddMessage("DOYLE: Hahahahaha!! Thanks for the help,",9);
Hud:AddMessage("you idiot!! I will kill you now and",9);
Hud:AddMessage("and live a happy life ever after!!!!!",9);
Hud:AddMessage("MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!",9);
Hud:PushObjective({},"Kill the bastard DOYLE!!")
Hud:FlashObjective({},"Take elevator up.")

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And now this is really it for the levels!

As we’ve found out, at this point most of the game’s levels were very close to the final version – especially the first half of the game. Some, however, are completely and utterly different.

And while a lot of the levels lack in polish, they do make up for it with unusual and interesting twists and ideas.

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There is still something to be said about MasterCD_my, and MasterCD_my1 needs to be covered too. All of this wouldn't fit in this part, so... see you next time!

Hopefully, this final part would come out right after this one.