As exciting as Far Cry 4’s reveal has been for many gamers, there was one aspect of the game that had a few people concerned. If you played Far Cry 3 you probably remember the feature that allowed you to hunt, kill, and skin the wildlife that inhabited the island. The hunting feature is returning for Far Cry 4, but it brought to light an important question for the game. Can you kill the elephants in Far Cry 4?
On the E3 show floor today, Far Cry 4 developers confirmed that players wouldn’t be able to hunt and skin the elephants. During the interview, the developer stated that while Far Cry 4 will feature huntable animals, the elephants will not be included on that list. To the development team, the elephants you’ll encounter in the game are meant to be majestic animals, killing them just wouldn’t be right.
In addition, by analyzing the gameplay trailer, it would appear that players might not be able to murder the elephants in any intentional way. During the end combat scene, the player can be seen pointing his gun at an elephant. As the cross-hair moves over the animal, it can clearly be seen turning green. As most FPS players likely know, a cros-shair turning green usually indicates that the target is an ally and cannot be shot. We’ve embedded the trailer at the bottom of this story for you to check out the elephant in the cross-hairs moment. Skip ahead to the 6:25 mark. This very well may be related just to that mission, it could still be possible to murder elephants.
All that being said, not all of your interactions with the elephants will be nice. It’s been reported that in addition to riding them, players will also be able to taunt, kick, and bait the elephants to cause them to charge. PETA probably wouldn’t be so fond of that gameplay mechanic, but at the same time at least you can’t murder them for their ivory and craft it into a sword. You win some, you lose some.
While the ability to kill elephants in Far Cry 4 is probably pretty low on a list of concerns for most gamers, elephant poaching is a serious problem in real life that threatens to eradicate the entire species from our planet. While Ubisoft and Far Cry 4 probably won’t be trumpeting their anti-poaching viewpoint to the media, it’s refreshing to see a developer and publisher take a stance on an important environmental issue despite the risk of impacting gameplay ever so slightly. Major points for Ubisoft and the Far Cry team for doing something good even though most people won’t notice.
If you’d like to get involved in the preservation of these intelligent and important animals, visit the African Wildlife Foundation at http://www.awf.org/
If you were on the fence about purchasing Far Cry 4 and this news convinced you, you can pre-order Far Cry 4 on Amazon.com