Ubisoft Montreal gave its first public showing of the pre-alpha build for its first-person-shooter Far Cry 2, currently in development for PC only, at PAX 07. Taking over development of the series from the Crytek, creator of the original Far Cry on PC, Ubisoft Montreal will now have to compete with the German developer when Crytek's Crysis launches in November. That's a massively daunting shadow to be working under, but based on the looks of this early build, Ubisoft Montreal is taking the challenge on full-bore.

"My job today is to take your preconceptions of what Far Cry 2 was supposed to be, and pretty much burn those to cinders," said Far Cry 2 creative director Clint Hocking at the event. Hocking, whose past roles include creative director for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and lead designer for the original Splinter Cell, made it clear what would return in the sequel: exotic locales, open-endedness, realism, and immersive gameplay. Unlike in Ubisoft's own Far Cry Instincts reimaginings, there won't be mutant powers or anything else that couldn't roughly realistically happen. And rather than placing gamers in the lush island environment of the original Far Cry (and now Crysis), Far Cry 2 will take players to a 50-square-kilometer African landscape.

This doesn't mean there won't be jungles, but the jungles will be joined by savannas and deserts, with wildlife and weather patterns appropriate to the area. Using a proprietary engine, environmental elements like trees and clouds will be generated procedurally, ensuring distinct looks for these objects in-game. All areas will load dynamically, and everything in the world is destructible down to the pixel, according to Hocking. He demonstrated by using a sniper rifle to shoot off the branches of a distant tree, one by one.

Complementing this expansive, interactive environment will be what Hocking described as open-world gameplay--exploring the harsh habitats of Africa at your leisure while building relationships with other characters and taking on sidequests. You begin the game in a central African hospital dying of malaria. Where you go from there depends on your choices, Hocking said. I've heard developers make this promise before, so we'll see if it's as dynamic as he claims.

Hocking placed a lot of emphasis on the game's atmospheric effects, saying the in-game weather will have realistic effects on the environment. The game will also manipulate these weather effects based on in-game actions, though he swore it wouldn't be as cheesy as a sudden rainstorm breaking as you approach your best friend, bleeding out his life on the African savanna.

As far as combat goes, I saw plenty of shanty-smashing with a stolen jeep, grassland-torching with a flamethrower, and ammo pile detonations with a rocket launcher. Hocking demonstrated the enemy AI with an unscripted car chase after stealing a vehicle and driving off. Nearby enemies hopped in their jeep to pursue, only to be run off the road by our demonstrator. Later, Hocking showed that the level of damage to the jeep not only affects its appearance, but its performance as well, with a shot-up junker slowly dragging along a dirt path.

I caught up with Hocking after the event for a private demo session with the game at much higher resolution than was shown during the public demo. Seeing Far Cry 2 in this setting, its gorgeous environments were easily comparable to those of Crysis. God-rays through trees, motion blur during quick turns, incredible water effects, and crumpled grass behind a vehicle's path were all impressive. I followed this session up with an interview, bleeding the creative director dry of his Far Cry 2 knowledge.

Shack: Give me a sense of how much more open-ended the game is in reference to the first Far Cry, and the specific gameplay elements that contribute to this.

Clint Hocking: Like in the original Far Cry, and like in a lot of modern shooters if you want, it's really important that we have a high level of freedom of gameplay. Like freedom to attack a camp the way you want. Freedom to say, "I want to attack these guys with a mortar and a knife," or "I want to ram in with my vehicle," or "I want to snipe them one at a time." That's one kind of freedom in gameplay that was definitely in the first Far Cry and, for the most part, very well done. And that was really important for us to keep that, and that's why we did.

In addition to that, or more as an expansion to that, we really wanted to have freedom to explore, or freedom to not just take each area in a line in the way you want but to take all the areas, and even all the missions, and even all the story, and even explore the whole world in the way that you want.

So we've enabled that as well in the sense that it's not just like, "Okay, now you can go anywhere you want." We've created a story that procedurally assembles itself in front of the player, so the kind of missions you get sent on are being chosen out of a library of possible missions for their dramatic intensity, for their variety--all for different reasons.

The way I get involved with different characters-- the buddies and the warlords and their captains and lieutenants--it's not predetermined by the writers or by myself except in terms of the domain of rules that covers it. For us, if we just open up the world, then suddenly it's meaningless unless we find a way to make the consequences carry forward, so that's what we had to do to make an open world.

Shack: Following Crytek's Far Cry, Ubisoft Montreal handled Far Cry: Instincts and its followups on consoles. You weren't on that team, but what feedback did you get from that team in its involvement with the franchise that shaped the development of Far Cry 2?

Clint Hocking: Me and the core team on this project--there was about eight of us when we first started, and Far Cry: Instincts was just starting production. Obviously we know those guys. They're all friends of ours. We talked to them. We know what worked and didn't work. In a sense we had a mandate to reinvent the brand and do what we felt needed to be done.

It was really up to us whether we wanted to consider the console games as part of that or not. We decided not to, not because we didn't want to--like I said, none of them had even shipped yet. We didn't know if they were good. We didn't necessarily know what was going to happen. So it was like, okay, if you want us to reinvent it, we'll go Far Cry PC, Far Cry 2 PC, and the console games are the console games.

Go on to page 2 for the scoop on Far Cry 2's new game engine, details on the non-linear campaign, and info on building relationships with NPCs, or skip to page 3 to see what Hocking has to say about Far Cry 2 mod support, Crysis, and BioShock.