Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 drops a spoiled tourist named Jason Brody on a tropical island run by pirates and lets him gradually turn from a terrified victim into a hunter. It's a story of transformation, but mainly it's an open world that works as a sandbox: a jungle full of wildlife, enemy camps to capture, radio towers to climb that reveal the map, and plenty of ways to reach the same goal. The island is hostile and alive at the same time, so while sneaking up on a base a tiger might crash into your plan and derail an attack better than any scripted event ever could.

Character building relies on gathering experience and unlocking abilities, which show up as a growing tattoo on the forearm, and on crafting gear from the skins of hunted animals: a bigger backpack, a longer weapon holster, more ammo space. Weapons can be modified with suppressors and sights, and the game explicitly rewards a quiet approach, since taking a camp without raising the alarm is not only efficient but also more satisfying. On the Xbox 360 the game held a decent image at the cost of softer textures and lower smoothness during bigger explosions. But what stuck with people most was the pirate leader Vaas, whose scenes are among the most quoted acting performances in games of that era.

Reception was very good, and Far Cry 3 became one of Ubisoft's most commercially successful titles of this generation. Its influence on the genre is enormous, though not always for praise: the template of towers revealing the map, camps to clear, and constant rewards then appeared in dozens of open worlds, until it became a cliché. Today that structure is predictable, yet the core still works. Sneaking through the jungle, grass fires spreading up a slope, and improvising when the plan falls apart make Far Cry 3 a game that's still hard to put down even years later. The island also offers plenty of side content, from hunting rare animals to shipwrecks along the coast, and a sound design built on muted electronic undertones gives the whole thing a dreamlike, slightly intoxicating edge.