May 30, 2003

Crytek's Far Cry Targets FPS Genre with Killer Graphics
by Steven Hopper

GameZone interviews Christopher Natsuume, producer of the groundbreaking new FPS title Far Cry.

Evil doctors.  Mercenaries.  Micronesia.  Wait a minute…Micronesia?  While it may sound a little weird, all of these elements (including the Micronesia part) occur in Far Cry, a new FPS title in development at Crytek (and to be published by Ubi Soft) for release this fall.  The game is set to combine awesome AI and killer graphics to provide a truly unique gameplay experience that no FPS fan should miss.

Far Cry utilizes Crytek’s CryEngine, which allows for unprecedented realism in terms of graphics.  Far Cry also makes use of unscripted AI, which makes the AI react dynamically to the player’s actions, and hence is unscripted.  This ensures that the game will never react the exact same way twice.

GameZone recently got a chance to sit down and chat for a minute with Christopher Natsuume, producer of Far Cry.

What can you tell us about the plot and storyline of the game?
 

Christopher Natsuume: “We are not releasing all of the details of the plot right now, but what we can tell you is this:

Jack Carver, the hero, has left his mysterious and bitter past behind and dropped out of society to run a charter boat business in the South Pacific. He is hired by a beautiful journalist to take her secretly to an uncharted island in Micronesia. The game begins as mercenaries destroy Jack’s boat and he is stranded on the island. He must find the journalist, help her foil the plans of the evil Dr. Krieger and his evil minions, and get off the island alive.”

I’ve heard that Far Cry started out as a tech demo initially.  What triggered the decision to turn it into a full-fledged game?

CN: “That’s a little misleading. Crytek has always planned to develop games, but the Yerlis (the three brothers that own and run the company) have always understood that to compete meaningfully in the industry they would have to start with the best possible tools. The Dinosaur Island demo was simply a sort of milestone in a long-term plan that has always been in place to make great games. Far Cry is the next step in their plan for the company to grow and develop into a truly world-class developer.”

Even in the preview build, the graphics look pretty amazing.  What kinds of graphical techniques are you guys employing in the game?
 

CN: “A few of the more groundbreaking technologies include:

Polybump: Allows us to create a very high-poly model (our characters are modeled at 250,000 polys, for example) and then store that high-poly mesh out as a normal-map “skin” that we then wrap around a lower-poly model (for our characters, about 1,500) to create an extremely detailed model that we can render very quickly.

Dot3 Lighting: Because our Polybump technology depends on dynamic lighting to work properly, we have always known that we would need a better lighting model. Dot3 allows us to put as many dynamic lights as we want in an environment, which then dynamically work with normal maps to create both per-pixel lighting and lightmaps that work together to allow us to create extremely detailed lighting for all of our levels.

PhysicOnDemand: This is a sort of physics-streaming system that allows us to dynamically determine which objects need to be “physicalized” and which do not at any given time. This way we can “physicalize” just about anything in the world without meaningfully cutting into the framerate. This allows us to have some of the best ragdoll physics in the industry, as well as real fluid physics for our boats and dynamically adjustable terrain that works real-time with “physicalized” objects. The overall effect is a detailed and believable environment that responds to the player as he moves through it and interacts with it.

The CryEngine Material/Shader System: We have something like 50 different shaders available, with just about anything you can imagine supported. Reflection, refraction, radial blur, specularity, glare, the list goes on and on. And all of it is tied into a complete material system that allows us to systemize not only the textures and shaders used on materials, but the particles thrown off when shot, the sounds made when physicalized objects hit it, and the sounds the player makes when he walks on it.

To put it all in perspective, the combined technologies above allows the player to see a light moving above a pond, projecting real-time shadows through a grating on a fog particle system. Moreover, we can also reflect that effect on the surface of water, and use refraction to break it up as the water moves. More than that, in the same water we can float a dead body with incredibly detailed modeling, moving with real physics and buoyancy, and when we shoot it, show per-poly hit location decals based on the material of the dead body. We are not currently aware of anyone who has demonstrated this level of technology hands-on to the general public, as we did at E3.”

Far Cry takes place on a tropical island.  What was the motivation behind setting the game in such an unusual place?
 

CN: “From the very beginning of the project we new we had to separate ourselves from our competitors as much as we could. The other games were all doing dark, evil, urban or mechanical environments. Instead of trying to out-do them at their own game, we decided to do something entirely different, and so we set ourselves in the most different environment we could think of – a beautiful tropical island.

The idea was that even if you weren’t shooting anything, the environment itself offers a great deal of opportunity. We always thought that whatever you could do on a tropical vacation you should be able to do in our game. If you went to Tahiti, for instance, you would want to go rock climbing, explore old ruined temples, hike in the jungle, snorkel in the water, and maybe even take a ride in a boat or fly a hang glider. In Far Cry you can do all of those things – and you get to play a FPS as well. It creates a totally different gameplay experience for the player, and creates a unique identity for the game itself.”

Far Cry is doing some pretty interesting things with AI.  What can you tell us about the enemies’ behavioral patterns in the game?

CN: “Actually, in a lot of ways, the setting dictated the AI development. Because we opened up the environment to the player, and removed a great deal of the linearity of other FPS titles, traditional scripted AI simply wasn’t an option for us. Scripting relies on the basic principle that we know where the player is coming from, and so we can pre-program the AI to react properly when the player enters an area from a given direction.

We have no idea what direction the player will come from. We don’t know what weapon he will have, we don’t know if he will have a vehicle or not. Because of this, we have to make the AI work well no matter where the player is coming from or how he attempts to attack the player. To do that, we created a systematic AI based on them understanding and using their environment when they are given certain stimuli, such as being seeing an intruder, hearing a noise, finding a dead body, or being shot at. The result is that no matter what the player does, the AI work in a way that seems uncannily natural.

More importantly, the AI become extremely challenging. Because they know how to dynamically find cover, flank the player, and coordinate attacks with their friends, they present a real challenge to the player that is new to the genre.  Moreover, they actually have fear, and know when to attack and when to retreat. Unlike other games with more passive AI, they will not simply hang around and wait to get shot. When they sense a threat, they will call friends to help them, advance, and attack. When the player hides or retreats, they will follow and press the attack. It creates a real feeling of threat and danger that is missing in a lot of games.”

What can you tell us about the gameplay?  Will it be mission based or non-linear?

CN: “The overall game is story-driven, so there is some linearity to it, but we try to encourage player freedom as much as possible. For instance, in one mission we have a 2-kilometer long island, and we simply tell the player that he must get to the top of it. How he gets up there is up to him – he can walk along the beach and into the jungle, or he can swim around to a more secluded beach, or he can even steal a boat and drive it all the way to the other side of the island and go up from there.

Because the AI is systematic, they will actually communicate with each other and adjust their strategies based on where they player goes. Because the AI have radios and signal flares, they can communicate with each other from kilometers away, and dynamically call reinforcements all the way from different islands, who drop from helicopters, drive up in boats, or use buggies and trucks to come to the player along dirt roads.”

What kinds of weapons and items will your character be able to use?

CN: “The game is set in the near future, so the weapons are all based on currently available weapons, or weapons that are currently in the prototype stages, and will be available in the near future, like the OICW, AG36, and P90 SMG. There are also some old favorites, like the M4 and Desert Eagle, and a big machete.”

Will your character be able to drive vehicles?

CN: “Yep! We have a buggy, a HMMV, a few boats, and even a hang glider for the player to use in the game. In addition, the player will be able to drive in 1^st and 3^rd person, and use guns while driving. In multiplayer, multiple players will be able to share some of the vehicles as well.”

What kinds of multiplayer capabilities will the game have?

CN: “The PC version will ship with an integral multiplayer section, which is separate from the single player experience. We will be creating all new mods, and some amazing arenas to set them in. Expect to see the old favorites like CTF and deathmatch, but also expect to see some new mods that are unique to Far Cry, drawing on the strengths of the single player title. We will also be supplying a complete editor and mod-building package, but the details of these are still being determined. It is our dream to be the real next-gen platform for the mod community.”

Do you have any plans for bringing the game to consoles?

CN: “Right now we are concentrating on created a great PC experience, but bringing Far Cry to Xbox or PS2 is not out of ther question.  A console version of the CryEngine is possible, and this may be something we look into next year.”

Thanks a lot for your time, Christopher.

For more information on Far Cry, check out GameZone’s E3 preview

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