Developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix, Just Cause 4 released on the 4th of December 2018 and is the fourth entry in the Just Cause series. This entry takes place in the fictional South American country of Solis and follows the adventures of Rico (and now you know why I got this review) (ed - Haha!) Rodriguez as he scours and upsets the home of the Black Hand in search of answers about his father.

At its very core, Just Cause 4 is an open-world action adventure game in which the objective is to realize Rico’s search for answers by violently dismantling the regime of one Oscar Espinosa, Solis’ favourite dictator figure (SURPRISE!). To compliment this unarguably groundbreaking and completely relevant narrative, Avalanche have implemented what I feel is a rather satisfying progression system.



You progress in Just Cause 4 by creating chaos through the wanton destruction of property (driving, shooting, stunting, exploding, grappling, the list goes on) and the more you destroy, the more squads you earn. These squads are, in turn, used to capture regions in the game world which are required both for story missions as well as rewards such as guns and vehicles you can have airdropped to you. In addition to doing this, new airdroppable rewards can be acquired through various side missions, such as stunt missions and missions wherein you train and assist your Army of Chaos. These rewards will simply help you continue doing more of the same in somewhat heightened style.

...the action sometimes feels fast paced and chaotic which is awesome because you feel like an action hero.

The gameplay that drives you through Rico’s latest story and the above is admittedly pretty fun, albeit at the cost of consistency. Sometimes the very things that make the game fun and entertaining coalesce in ways that make certain situations exercises in frustration. When you’re in a Black Hand base, minding your own business and shooting up the joint, the action sometimes feels fast paced and chaotic which is awesome because you feel like an action hero. There are other times, however, where you would do the same thing and the base just feels like a giant, tedious shooting gallery. I attribute this primarily to the individual objectives of certain bases (of which there are a sizable amount), but this inconsistency robbed me of a lot of enjoyment in my journey through Solis.



Another factor that contributed to the shooting gallery syndrome was that sometimes the enemy AI was straight-up stupid. I’d be standing at an objective and, through my own ineptitude, they’d land up next to me and then… do nothing for a few seconds. This was disappointing because it really broke that sense of immersion when there was a lot of action, and I found this weird because the developers specifically indicated that the AI for the game had been improved.

...random stuff was exploding during gunfights and objects gained sentience, swiftly deciding they no longer needed to pay any mind to the laws of physics.

The game’s physics engine is, for the most part, kind to it. It’s buggy, but more often than not it made the action-packed portions of my Solis holiday even wackier and more fun – random stuff was exploding during gunfights and objects gained sentience, swiftly deciding they no longer needed to pay any mind to the laws of physics. It was fantastic. On the other side of the coin, however, this same engine made things immensely frustrating sometimes. Vehicles that needed to be somewhere on a timer would glitch out and get stuck for a bit – or simply explode for example. This happened far less frequently than the ‘cool’ bugginess – but the inconsistency was there enough to be noticed.

When you’re not causing anarchy through pure gunfire, Just Cause 4 offers a customizable grappling hook system for you to get creative with. You get three loadouts and can decide what you want your hooks to do when they register certain inputs for each loadout. This is a pretty neat system, but the issue with it is that nothing really encourages you to make use of it. You can strap 10 rocket hooks (as well as a cow) to a car and enjoy watching the physics engine have a stroke, which is fun, but when it comes to taking bases, you really only use your normal hooks for ripping armor off of stuff and flipping switches.



The grappling hooks are also one of your primary traversal tools. When used in conjunction with Rico’s trusty parachute and wingsuit, it makes for a system of movement that becomes intuitive and effective – but this system does nothing we haven’t seen in the series before. For longer distance travel, you can fast travel to certain parts of the map or use a vehicle. The driving (and flying) itself is weightless for the most part, and not particularly satisfying – but it is preferable to using a wingsuit as that gets tedious for longer journeys.

Seeing a tornado ravaging the landscape by ripping stuff up and tossing it about, or watching a lightning storm go Super Saiyan when it’s unleashed is an absolute treat.

For all it does right and wrong, Just Cause 4’s biggest crime lies in the sense of samey-ness dug into the experience pretty much the whole way through. It feels like the developers tried to break new ground and differentiate this title from its predecessors with all these ideas, but failed to execute them. The most jarring example of this being the extreme weather gimmick the game was sold on. For a game that revolves around you trying to overthrow a dictator that has access to a weather machine, a distinct lack of extreme weather makes itself known early on and this is a pity. Seeing a tornado ravaging the landscape by ripping stuff up and tossing it about, or watching a lightning storm go Super Saiyan when it’s unleashed is an absolute treat – easily my favourite parts of the game. The problem is that these moments just feel like they’re in the background as opposed to feeling like active and dynamic parts of the game.

Visually, Just Cause 4 does what it needs to – but once again with a little inconsistency. Sometimes the game looked super pretty (especially when I was gliding and taking in the view), but at other times I noticed some super ugly textures or lighting issues where the hair on characters would shine in very synthetic ways or at times, it really shouldn’t have. It’s by no means a deal breaker – you’re going to be on the move a lot and the textures were definitely designed to look good from afar, so most of the time the game looks passable. The explosions, enemy models and vehicles all look properly fleshed out as well.



From an audio point of view, Just Cause 4 does alright for itself. The voice acting can feel a little forced sometimes given the accents people are using, but it grows on you as you progress in the game. Sound effects for guns, explosions, gunfire and vehicles all do what they need to do well and I never really had a problem with any effects not registering. I‘d like to compliment the music of the game though, especially the track that plays when you’re using your wing suit to travel. The OST did well in complimenting the situations Rico was in and there was never really a disconnection between the two.

Overall, Just Cause 4 is a fun game. I’ve enjoyed my time with it, but I can’t justify it at full price given that it displays a lot of noticeable inconsistency and that it feels like it’s toyed with new ideas, but ultimately failed to carve its own identity out of the franchise. If you like Just Cause and are looking for more of the same action, then this is for you. If you were looking for something entirely new, then I’d suggest you just pause (and they said I'd never amount to anything) and wait for a sale before picking this one up.