Tips For Playing Far Cry 4
By Alex Chen | January 01, 0001
Newcomers to Far Cry 4: greetings! I hope you’re enjoying your time in Kyrat so far. It’s a pretty dangerous place though, isn’t it? Here are some of the things I’ve discovered that help me stay alive. https://kotaku.com/far-cry-4-the-kotaku-review-1661407622 Before I get into the nitty gritty details (and there are a lot of those in a game like this), I should make something clear: I’m currently focusing on beginner-level tips for players who are just starting out their journey. Since Far Cry 4 is a gigantic, open-ended, and multifaceted game, there’s a ton of stuff that I’m not going to go into too much detail about yet. Part of the reason I don’t want to do that is because Far Cry has always been one of those games that becomes more and more interesting as adventurous and inventive players figure out new ways to do stuff and share those techniques with one another. If you are one of those Far Cry 4 players, I’d love to hear how you’ve been messing with the game. But first, let’s make sure we’ve all got the basics covered. Cool? Cool. Let’s do this. Before Anything Else, Capture The Radio Towers Kyrat is in the Himalayas, which makes Far Cry 4’s open world an incredibly hilly one. In turn, this makes it tricky to navigate—especially at the beginning of the game, when most of the world map is covered in a thick layer of fog. You can clear the fog from a portion of the map by finding a radio tower, climbing to the top, and flipping the switch that you find there. Doing so doesn’t just increase the overall level of visibility on the world map, it also fills in the region with essential details—landmarks, where loot is located, where particular animals like to hang out, etc. Start capturing the radio towers the moment you complete Far Cry 4’s prologue missions—it shouldn’t even wait until the end of Act 1. You can’t capture all of the radio towers at the very beginning of the game—a small chunk of them are sealed off in the northern section of Kyrat, which is effectively the second “world” in Far Cry 4. But the real point here is that basically any time that you can capture new radio towers, you should stop whatever it is you’re killing and do so. It’s like turning the lights on before you walk into a room. Use The Awesome Tiny Helicopters To Get Around Kyrat Faster Like Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4 has a couple nifty gliding devices such as the wingsuit, parachute, and hang glider. A major addition to the new game is a device that actually lets you fly. The super teeny tiny one-person helicopter is an incredibly useful tool for exploring Kyrat simply because it’s the one thing in the game that lifts you high enough up in the air that your path isn’t constantly blocked by cliffs. I recommend finding one at the start of the game and taking it around Southern Kyrat to take all the radio towers—this combo is an effective way to clear out the whole first map in as little as 15-30 minutes. Also: don’t freak out if you’re flying in the helicopter and it starts making scary beeping noises and shaking. This has happened to me a bunch of times, but the thing has never actually stalled or crashed. The vehicle only goes on the fritz if and when you’re flying too high. If you descend a little bit, you should be fine. …Or To Attack Outposts The buzzer is also an effective, albeit not very subtle, way to capture outposts in the game. Here’s a handy video showing how to use the ‘copter to go on the offensive. Yes, Two People Can Ride The Buzzer At The Same Time Whether you’re just aiming for the top of radio towers or executing an all-out assault, don’t let the helicopter’s diminutive size fool you: it’s fully compatible with co-op like any other vehicle in the game. After The Radio Towers, Go Hunting Coming in at a close second on the list of Things You Need To Do Before Far Cry 4 Becomes A Fun Game To Play is: craft better gear for Ajay. The only way to do this is by hunting animals and harvesting their skin. Creepy, I know—you’re basically a serial killer in this game, but one that has a particularly strong appetite for honey badgers. One of the reasons why it’s useful to seize radio towers first and then hunt is because any given animal’s stomping grounds are highlighted on the map with illustrations of the critter in question. Just zoom in to the icon you’re looking for and set a waypoint. But don’t expect a macaque monkey to just be sitting there at the exact location you’ve pinpointed, waiting for you to show up—they’re usually somewhere in the general area. Here’s A List Of All The (Normal) Animals You Need To Kill To fully upgrade Ajay’s equipment, you need to hunt down a bunch of different animals and harvest their skins. In no particular order, here are all the normal animals and the specific number of skins you need from each: 6 Tibetan Wolf Skins 7 Malayan Tapir Skins 3 Honey Badger Skins 7 Bengal Tiger Skins 4 Bharal Skins 3 Assam Macaque (Monkey) Skins 6 Asian Rhino Skins 8 Sambar Skins 3 Pig Skins (actual pigs, not footballs) 4 Demon Fish Skins 4 Wild Boar Skins 5 Dhole Skins 8 Bear Skins 5 Yak Skins 7 Clouded Leopard Skins 7 Snow Leopard Skins This walkthrough recommends you hunt Kyrat’s animals in a specific order. I’m not sure that’s necessary since you don’t need to max everything out to properly enjoy Far Cry 4. The one problem I did run into when crafting was that snow leopards are pretty tricky to find early in the game. The best way to get these skins is to wait until you unlock the northern chunk of the map. You can also find the critters during the story missions that send you all the way up into the Himalayas. To Max Out Your Gear, Do ‘Kyrat Fashion Week’ Quests To fully upgrade almost all of your gear, you need to go a step further than collecting all of the animal skins I just listed. With the exception of the weapon holster (see below), the final upgrade for each piece of equipment requires you to kill and skin a special animal. You can find these rare beasts by doing side-missions known as “Kyrat Fashion Week,” which are labelled on the map with a little blue sticker with an elephant logo. Game Frontand Video Games Bloggerboth have handy guides that spell out how to complete these. Use The Bow And Syringes When You’re Hunting As I noted in my review, the animals in Kyrat are some of the toughest ones I’ve ever met in a Far Cry game. Since there are so many different animals with unique characteristics, they all pose different challenges. But there are two general things to keep in mind across the board. First, if you’re hunting with a particular goal in mind (say, getting animal skins to craft a certain item), you should use the bow. Killing animals with arrows awards a “clean kill,” which gives you twice as many skins, so it makes the process much more efficient than attacking them with an uzi or assault rifle—fun as that may be. Second, if you’re having trouble just finding the animals you’re trying to hunt in the first place, use some hunting syringes. Doing so temporarily highlights animal tracks in your vision, making them easier to find. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to stock up on these since they’re not even available to purchase at weapon vendors. Instead, you have to craft them by collecting and then combining red and blue-leaved plants. Alternatively, Even The Hunting Odds With Some Heavy Firepower The bow and arrow is useful for killing many of Kyrat’s dangerous critters. But not all of them. You should think of the rhinos and elephants in the game as tanks, for example. Imagine what would happen if you tried to take out a tank with a bow and arrow. You’re better off giving beasts like these everything you’ve got. Other animals like tigers and dogs are more vulnerable to arrows. But they’re also so aggressive, and they move so quickly, that you put yourself at a serious risk of being eaten if you miss a shot. So if you’re not a pro with the bow yet, fear not. Assault rifles and shotguns take care of deadly predators in a pinch. Don’t Blow Animals Up (If You Need Skins) If a rhino or tiger is giving you serious trouble, it’s tempting to take a bazooka to the beast. And that’s totally fine—unless you need to craft anything afterwards. Blowing up an animal ruins their skin, so only use your heaviest firepower as a last resort. Do Blow Eagles Up No Matter What It’s ok to feel sorry for the animals in Far Cry 4. Except for the devil birds known as eagles. Never feel sorry for they eagles. Those fuckers deserve whatever they have coming to them. Take some sound advice from YouTuber Cosmic Contrarian and give the feathery monsters a taste of their own medicine. With an RPG, of course: Or, try a slightly more tactful approach, like YouTuber Attomsk, and snipe at them from afar: Be Very, Very Careful When Pissing Off Bees I don’t know what it is, but there’s something in Kyrat that has turned its bees into terrifying, bloodthirsty monsters. If you’re anywhere near a beehive, shooting it is essentially suicide. That said, you should shoot a beehive if you see one near a group of enemies, because then the bees will kill them instead. Just make sure to keep a safe distance. Max Out Your Weapon Holster As Soon As You Can Fully upgrading the holster is the single most important thing you can do in this game gear-wise, because doing so allows you to carry four weapons at any given time. That, in turn, saves you a lot of trips back and forth to the store. Unlike Far Cry 3, getting all the upgrades for your weapon holster is very easy this time around. It’s actually the only piece of gear that only has three upgrades, as opposed to four. The Same Goes For Your Health You start Far Cry 4 with very little in the way of health. Reaching maximum possible health isn’t available at the outset of the game, but you can still get two additional health slots (for a total of four) and some upgrades to your healing abilities from the get-go. Focus on these, ability-wise, before anything else. Get The Perk To Double-Harvest Plants Ok, this is the last “must have” upgrade before you do anything else I swear. The “Harvester” ability makes it so you gather two leaves for every plant you pick up in Kyrat, as opposed to just one. Also, the game introduces a nifty new auto-crafting feature for health syringes among some other nice improvements to Far Cry’s whole plant gathering-and-syringe-making system. So once you have the “harvester” ability, you can auto-craft health syringes by simply picking plants with green leaves. Easy, right? Then, Focus On These Equipment Upgrades This is just to begin with, but these are the best items to start upgrading as soon as you can: Ammo Bag Wallet Syringe Kit Loot Bag Other pieces of gear like the explosives bag or throwables bags are handy as well, but they all focus on abilities or weapons that are a tad more specialized. I’m just talking about getting the fundamentals of Far Cry 4 in place. And since this is already the fourth chore I’ve told you to do before you should actually start, you know, playing the game, I think it’s safe to take a break and enjoy yourself before resuming the grind. Play The Campaign Up To “A Key To The North” As the name implies, this is the mission that unlocks the northern-most chunk of Kyrat’s map. Northern Kyrat also has two of the game’s four fortresses, and the two that are up there are a lot more fun than the first two since they’re the two largest and most complicated ones in the game. Also, you need to complete “Key To The North” to unlock some useful health upgrades. Do All Of Longinus’ Missions Longinus is, among other things, a weapons dealer. He’s also one of the people in the game that has a number of specific quests attached to his character. Far Cry 4 is a first-person shooter. You do the math. Ok, fine, I’ll just say it: complete the Longinus missions because they get you the best guns. I’m not going to spoil it, but you get something particularly exciting at the very end of his story arc. Finish Act One To Unlock Co-Op Co-op is one of the best parts of Far Cry 4, so you should totally give it a shot. But don’t start the game expecting to be able to dive into multiplayer immediately. You have to get through the entire first act before it becomes available. “First act” might make this sound daunting, but it really doesn’t take that long to get through—probably 30 minutes to an hour at most. It’s basically just a small series of story-driven missions that set up the premise of the game. Do At Least One Racing Mission Racing in Far Cry games has never been my cup of tea. But you pretty much need to complete at least one race successfully in order to unlock two important takedowns. Winning a race unlocks the vehicle takedown specifically. But more importantly, the heavy takedown is blocked off until you unlock and then acquire the vehicle takedown. Armored bad guys are a real chore to take out without the heavy takedown, so get this one out of the way as soon as you can. Take At Least Two Outposts Silently Again like the racing mission, you need to capture two outposts silently—without raising any alarms or being detected—to unlock the “soft landing” and “non-stop” abilities, which reduce your fall damage and let you sprint forever respectively. You Can Replay Outposts Without Resetting Them Taking outposts by stealth is a lot harder than it was in Far Cry 3, in my experience. But you also need them because the game’s map has a lot less fast-travel locations than its