Just Cause 4 will seemingly change the old, explosive formula. While the first three Just Cause games were focusing on a bombastic, not-stop action in colorful, foreign settings, the fourth installment is heading into a much darker direction. Avalanche promises that we will uncover the truth of Rico’s father life on Solís and the extreme weather conditions as we spearhead the rebellion to defeat the Black Hand, a hi-tech military organization that's responsible for the South American troubles.
Avalanche is working on not only Just Cause 4, but is also co-developing Rage 2 and a new self-published IP Generation Zero. The studio is not only busy, but also incredibly ambitious. In a recent interview with Gamereactor, Game director Francesco Antolini said that Avalanche wants to "make the best open-world sandbox ever. We want to be the sandbox that gives the biggest possibility for expression in an open world. We wanted to push our physics to the boundary, and we wanted to get back to a feeling of variety and discovery that I feel we lost a little bit with Just Cause 3."
"There's these things that I read somewhere, but players say if you think you can do it in Just Cause, there's a very good chance you can and also it would probably look better than you think, so we're trying to go towards these players. At the same time we know that not all gamers want to fiddle with the sandbox just for the sake of it, and so the truth is if you want to you can completely disregard this aspect of the game and just play it as you would play the previous games," Antolini said.
"I can't say you can play it the same as you would another third-person action-adventure shooter, because we're not really that, and also because this time around we stepped up the challenge [...] the enemies, the enemies themselves, the AI - it's much more advanced. You cannot play the game just standing on the ground; you need to be vertical," Antolini concluded expressing the studio goals.
Hopefully, Avalanche's experiences gained during the development of Mad Max and Just Cause 3 will pay off in a major way. While both games were technically imperfect and too repetitive, they both featured some impressive ideas. Thanks to the Apex engine, Just Cause 4 is capable of creating huge landscapes and extreme weather simulations, not to mention enhanced physics and it looks like the sandbox will be a perfect palate cleanser after Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
Welcome to Solis, a huge South American world home of conflict, oppression and extreme weather conditions. Just Cause 4 sees rogue hero Rico Rodriguez land in Solis to hunt down the truth about his past, at any costs. Strap into your wingsuit, equip your fully customizable grappling hook, and get ready to bring the thunder!
Just Cause 4 will be available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on December 4, 2018.