Far Cry NGPlus Turns Jack Carver's Tropical Nightmare Into an RPG

Poor Jack Carver. The guy takes a job escorting a journalist through a tropical paradise, and before he knows it, he's fighting for his life against an island full of heavily armed mercenaries and genetically engineered monsters. And if you've played the original Far Cry, you probably remember just how quickly those beautiful beaches could turn into an absolute nightmare.

Now imagine having to worry about your weapons breaking down, how much equipment you're carrying, and whether you've developed the right skills to survive whatever's waiting around the next palm tree.

That's the kind of experience modder UnReiner is building with NGPlus, an ambitious overhaul that introduces RPG mechanics into the original Far Cry campaign. With this mod Jack can gain experience, level up, and develop his abilities through 22 different perks. Weapons have their own tiers, durability, and repair mechanics, meaning that rifle you've been relying on might decide to jam up at the worst possible moment. And with a weight-based inventory system, you can't simply stuff everything you find into your pockets and call it a day.

What's particularly interesting is that NGPlus leaves the original campaign and its environments intact. You're still exploring those same familiar tropical stomping grounds and fighting your way through a familiar adventure, but now there's an entirely different layer of character progression and equipment management influencing how you approach it. As an added bonus, you can even carry your progression over into another playthrough.

It's still in an early alpha state, so there's plenty of development ahead before this becomes a finished overhaul. But for anyone who's been itching to revisit the original game that started the Far Cry franchise, NGPlus offers a pretty intriguing proposition: the same island, the same enemies, but a whole new collection of problems for poor Jack Carver to deal with.