​I liked the original Just Cause but felt like it had a lot of room for improvement. Apparently the team at Avalanche Studios felt the same way, because Just Cause 2 is bigger, badder and more over-the-top in just about every way you can imagine. Thanks to a series of videos demonstrating the title's completely chaotic gameplay, Just Cause 2 has become one of my most anticipated games of the first half of the year. With the game releasing tomorrow, it was the perfect time to talk to lead designer Peter Johansson and get a few answers about what gamers should expect. Can you please give our readers a quick overview on Just Cause 2?

Just Cause 2 is a sandbox action game in which you take the role of Rico Rodriguez on a critical mission in the South East Asian dictatorship of Panau. Just Cause 2 offers unparalleled freedom, over the top stunts, intense combat and action and a huge varied game world built as a playground for you to explore and play around in. Your method is to destabilize the island nation by causing chaos in any way possible; for example by collaborating with local criminal factions, sabotaging military property and by assassinating military colonels.


Just Cause 2 seems much more over the top than the original game (which wasn't exactly a restrained game either). What brought about the increased focus on crazy stunts?

We think it's very important for each game in the sandbox genre to find its own identity and flavor. The insane stunts and versatility of the main character really gives Just Cause 2 a unique style and flow. Our goal has been to inject a good dose of fun and playfulness to the whole genre.

What are some of the technological advances the new version of the Avalanche engine are allowing you to do in the game?

The new version of the Avalanche Engine used in Just Cause 2 is heavily enhanced from the version used in the prequel. In fact, while it's based on the same ideas of a procedurally generated game world in which you have full freedom of movement without any interruption for loading, pretty much everything has been redone or heavily updated.
The world is now much more varied and detailed; different climate zones, gradual transition between climate zones, different architecture in each climate zone etc. It's much more detailed, dynamic and destructible. And there's a new animation system which allows for much more fluid and realistic movement.
 
But I think the most important update is what we've done with this technology. We've worked hard on filling the world with much more content and have ended up redoing all content from scratch; nothing has been reused.

With such a chaotic game, how are you keeping the main plot from getting lost in the shuffle?

Your method for progression is to cause chaos, so that functions as a "currency" that drives the story forward. When you cause chaos you gain influence over the island which in turn unlocks new missions and other activities, which gives you even more opportunities to cause chaos and so on. When you cause chaos, you provoke certain reactions that are necessary to unlock the Agency Missions that directly advance the plot and that progression is reflected in drip feeding of radio dialogue and news broadcasts so you can always feel how you get closer and closer to your goal.

When you explore or play around in Panau, you will discover many different ways to cause chaos and it's completely up to you as a player to decide what you want to do. There are thousands of opportunities spread out all over the game world and everything can contribute towards advancing the plot so that always stays in the back of your mind.

One of features that I wished was more fleshed out in the original game was the way the player destabilized regions of the game world. Is this feature returning for the sequel?

We've chosen a somewhat different approach for Just Cause 2 since we wanted everything to be related to the chaos system. After you've gotten in contact with a criminal faction, you can help them to assault government strongholds and that gives you a little bit of influence around the stronghold. The area of influence grows larger the more chaos you cause and faction missions and other activities are unlocked within that area.
You are also completely free to explore Panau and find locations and settlements where you can do many non-mission activities that cause chaos. Each settlement has a completions counter that keeps track of the activities you've done there. So it all revolves around the chaos system, the goal is to cause enough chaos to unlock the next Agency Mission but how you do that is completely up to you.

Did you ever expect that you'd be making a massive open-world action game for Square Enix, of all publishers?

The Square Enix and Eidos merger happened pretty late in the development but they have been very supportive of what we've been doing and immediately understood and enjoyed what Just Cause 2 was about. I hope they also find it interesting and exciting to have a game in their portfolio that is really different from what they have traditionally developed in-house.

Stupid Question: Main character Rico's face looks significantly different than it did in the original game. Did he have some affordable South American plastic surgery?

We wanted that Rico's whole appearance to reflect his actions and style a bit more than in the original Just Cause. In the first game, he had more of a secret agent appearance but for the sequel we wanted him to have a more rugged look. My guess is that Rico has spent most of his time between the first and second game drinking tequila somewhere in Mexico so that has probably also contributed to this look somewhat.