I am a huge fan of the Just Cause franchise so trust me when I tell you how much it pains me to inform you that Just Cause 4 is one of the biggest disappointments of 2018. Nearly everything about this game smacks of a “cash grab” with minimal creative effort. I mean, you would at least expect the game to be no worse than the last, and Just Cause 3 was pretty good, but somehow Avalanche has managed to take everything you loved about the last game and either dial it back or remove it completely.
Just Cause 4 continues to tell the legendary exploits of Rico Rodriguez; the proud owner of a self-packing parachute and an arm grapple gun who is set loose in South America to restore freedom to his oppressed people. As with past games, Just Cause 4 is an open world game with no driving narrative, so the ability to grapple, fly and float greatly aids in your exploration of this 1024 km2 playground. (Enjoy the metric system by the way because I found no way to convert in options) This massive world is one of the games main features, yet the story only uses about 25% of the map leaving the rest of the world open to mindless one-off missions and repetitive challenges.
Another new feature for Just Cause 4 are the new grapple upgrades, which are admittedly great fun but a monumental pain in the ass to use. You still have the standard ability that lets you attach two objects (including people) together then recoil them together. This is also Rico’s core traversal tool to zip him across the landscape or launch him into the air. New for this game is the ability to attach balloons and jet boosters to objects for added fun and chaos. These new upgrades greatly add to the randomness of gameplay and how you approach any given situation but working through the complex UI to effectively utilize them saps all the joy from experimenting. Switching between the three variants is as easy as a tap of the D-pad, but tweaking each of the grapple loadouts is this lengthy process of going through several menus to add or modify mods. It’s so complicated Just Cause 4 is still in tutorial mode 6-8 hours into the game to remind you how things work.
The other big selling point for Just Cause 4 is extreme weather, but outside of the scripted story moments that featured a tornado, some lightning, and a blizzard I never encountered any other extreme weather in my random travels. After some digging it looks like you can manually turn on storms, which will trigger them almost immediately then turn the option back off once they’re gone. Twisters weren’t nearly as fun as all those trailers made them out to be, and once you realize nothing is random, they lose all their mystery and become another activity.
One thing Just Cause 4 does get right is the driving, both ground and air vehicles. GTA could actually take some lessons here when it comes to controlling vehicles and driving combat. Combat while on foot is also fantastic with an instant momentary target lock the moment you squeeze the left trigger but wait too long and you’ll have to readjust. What I did not like was that ammo is now much more limited, forcing you to run around the battlefield collecting more ammo or switching out weapons from fallen foes. Perhaps this was the goal to keep you moving, but it did take away any chances of hunkering down.
The story for Just Cause 4 is poorly constructed and poorly written; told through cutscenes that are visually flawed and overacted. Rico has lost his charm and humor and just seems depressed to be doing this all over again. Once past the tutorial the overall presentation of the content basically just dumps you in this huge map with various icons and red-lined borders indicating sections of the map you need to conquer in order to unlock more activity icons. Some icons are mission-critical, and these will advance the story, but a majority of the game is pure filler, which is fine if you are in this for mindless sandbox action.
Technically, the game is a mess. I’m playing on a high-end i7 with 16GB and a GTX1080ti card and this game that looks no better than an Xbox 360 game manages 47fps at 4K. Backing the resolution down to 1080 I was able to manage a 60fps locked v-sync which eliminated screen tearing but still had these random hitches in framerate during the in-game cutscenes. The game received a patch during my review time which subsequently forced the game into a 23 Hz mode no matter what resolution I now pick. Framerate issues aside, Just Cause 4 has numerous video issues like poor LOD which creates lots of pop-up, poorly scaled textures, and weird light and shadow glitches. I experimented with HDR on my PC settings even though the game doesn’t offer an HDR toggle in the menu, and that only made things worse.
There are crazy distracting glitches in the game like this movie director character that is supposed to have frizzy hair, but it comes off as sparkling video static totally distracting in her cutscenes. Some items like large rocks will actually morph as you walk by with shifting textures that pulsate like a lump of mud. Even when the game is playing and looking normal it’s just not pleasing to look at. Contrast is extreme and colors are cartoonishly vibrant. There have been so many open-world games released this year alone that look current while maintaining their epic scale, but Just Cause 4 seems to have taken several steps back in quality since the last game. I’ve been considering upgrading to a RTX2080 video card, but it won’t be for a game that looks like it was made five years ago.
I don’t know if there will ever be a Just Cause 5, but if there is Avalanche better create a new next-gen engine from the ground up because what we are seeing in Just Cause 4 is totally unacceptable by today’s standards; and this was on a high-end PC. I can only imagine what console gamers are enduring. And it’s not all about the graphics. Just Cause 4 mysteriously sucks all the joy and adventure from the previous games by adding in complex systems and a clunky interface that breaks the flow of carnage and a lame story that provides minimal incentive for even playing the game let alone completing it. Without serious patching, Just Cause 4 is a tough recommendation, even when it goes on sale. I fear Rico may never recover from his latest adventure.
