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Just Cause 3 dev diary is all about the explosions

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“There’s a million ways to play the game, in terms of blowing stuff up” starts the latest Just Cause 3 developer diary, proving once and for all that the men and women of Avalanche Studios truly understand me. They’re talking about your ability to bring down statues, people, townhouses, gas stations, power stacks – basically everything you see can be turned into lots of flying bits. It looks fantastic.

An abridged live-feed of my brain while watching this: “Cor! Look at that! Look at all that stuff blow up! Look at the bridge! Kabloom! Yes!”

There’s two great things on display here. The first is technology. That’s not (just) marketing speak when they talk about the power of the newest generation of consoles. You can completely tell which games have straddled the gap and which are forging into the future. The amount of stuff tumbling over, firing into the distance and generally ending up where it shouldn’t here was not possible before.

The other is a commitment to silliness while maintaining believability. Just Cause has always ridden an incredibly fine line of managing to be the way you want things to be, if not the way they actually are. Grappling hooks do not actually work as a method of transport, because human bodies are soft and squishy. Explosions usually deafen you. Planes cannot be attached to each other and endlessly spin in a circle. But a rudimentary understanding of physics and a willing disregard for sense means they can, if only in a digital world. Probably better there anyway, less dangerous.

December 1st is the due date for this particular detonation. Avalanche have been fairly quiet so far, but seem to be ramping it up now so expect more regular updates. It’s on Steam with a pre-order discount to normal retail price.