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Far Cry 3 is widely considered by many fans of the series as well as the gaming community to be the best title in the series. While many would attribute this to the game's cover villain Vaas, many others would say that Far Cry 3 is the greatest was Ubisoft's greater focus on the protagonist, That protagonist being Jason Brody.
At a glance, it seems as if the idea behind Jason Brody's character writing is a critique on how video games, those particularly of the shooter genre, portray their protagonists. Often times games won't include any mental consequences on the characters who have killed people. Many games avoid this narrative issue by either making the player character silent, allowing the player to have their own thoughts about their actions. Another option is just to not have the character question what they have done, if that may be killing or any other morally reprehensible act. Equally as common of a cliche as the last two, is to have a character with military experience or a history of killing. This allows the character to approach murder with indifference or even satisfaction.
This is where Ubisoft Montreal (the developers of the Far Cry 3) decided to set it's protagonist and Far Cry 3 as a whole, apart. They did this by making the protagonist definitely not silent, have no experience in killing, and have a character arc throughout the game. Jason is quite literally just a normal guy from California in his early twenties who finds himself in a horrific situation: Himself, his two brothers and 5 friends (but only 4 actually matter to the plot) have been captured by pirates and are being sold on the slave market with the only option being to kill or be killed.
This was an incredibly promising prompt for an interesting plot and for the most part Far Cry 3 does a good job of adapting it. However, Jason Brody's character development is not as fine-tuned as many people across the internet may try and tell you. The problems are small and well hidden by a strong gameplay loop and an otherwise popcorn flick tier story. I will examine the story as it plays out chronologically and identify moments within that exemplify/display Jason Brody's development as a character and also critique moments that stand out as odd for Jason's current disposition at any point within the story.
Some of the biggest developments within Jason happens in the first portion of the game, involving Jason's escape from the pirate camp. Jason is entirely defenseless during this section and must rely on his older brother who himself has military experience. While the escape from the camp is fairly easy, Jason's brother is killed and he must run through the jungle in order to escape. This is where Jason makes his first kill, pretty much accidentally. We see Jason is incredibly guilty about what he's done, literally stepping back and shaking. Jason proceeds and just barely escapes, being rescued by a mysterious man before passing out.
Jason awakens before the man who rescued him earlier. This man is applying a tattoo to Jason's arm and introduces himself as Dennis and claims he "Sees the warrior inside Jason" and will teach him how to free himself. Dennis also introduces Jason to the local tribe on the island who will come into play later. The freedom process involves Jason hunting wild animals, gathering medicinal plants, and eventually and most importantly killing the pirates occupying a camp, supposedly holding one of his friends hostage there. I have to point out that Jason makes no comments about the people he killed which is odd considering how he approached his first kill. This problem gets worse as he never claims out loud to feel bad about killing again beside an optional conversation the player can have with one of Jason's friends, but Jason quite literally in the same conversation says that killing feels like winning now, which is how he views killing throughout the rest of the story with seemingly no inciting incident besides gathering plants and shooting a few pigs.
I will now interject with a story element that is technically a part of Jason's character arc, this being the Jason/Vaas symmetry. While the elements of this aspect of the story is more implied in the Far Cry 3 marketing material rather than the full game and it is built up during the first 2/3 of the game's story. Vaas on multiple occasions captures and gives us a whole dialogue about how Jason is on a terrible path that he went down himself leading to how he is now. Vaas was a member of the tribe that is helping Jason and in his eyes, they led him astray. Eventually Jason kills Vaas and then the whole symmetry thing just ends abruptly and nothing comes of it. Jason continues down the path and does not become like Vaas whatsoever.
We come to final third of the story and now Jason is just a blank slate. Jason just becomes a blank slate which wouldn't be offensive but it's a strange order when put after Jason thinking killing is fun. The story does do something interesting that I must point out. Earlier in the story, one of Jason's friends claims that Jason's younger brother has also been killed. Jason operates under this idea with his only goal to kill Hoyt. (Vaas's employer and the final antagonist of the game) However it turns out that Jason's younger brother is in fact still alive and Jason's determination for the path he is going down is shaken. Jason decides to continue with his mission to assassinate Hoyt as well as rescue his brother.
Jason succeeds in rescuing his brother, only to find out that the native warriors that have assisted him throughout the game have captured his friends and are providing him a choice: Either spare his friends and leave the island for good, or kill his friends and fully join the tribe by cutting off all connections to his past. Both endings are fine and make sense when it comes to Jason's arc. It makes sense for Jason to focus on his friends again after discovering Riley's alive, but it also makes sense for Jason to just outright ignore his familiar ties.
Beyond my criticisms, the fact that the writing team on Far Cry 3 even tried to write not only a defined character arc, but portrayed it through the eyes of just an ordinary person. Unfortunately, Ubisoft never really attempted to make a character like Jason again in Far Cry games that came afterwards. I think Ubisoft should absolutely attempt another character akin to Jason, but learn from their mistakes or apply what worked before.
My name is Gunner Farrell and I make articles about gaming news, review new or old games (if I get some money here soon) or do essays about random topics related to the industry.
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