I feel like this is a good place to begin. Picking one's difficulty is a tough choice that faces many players and while most would like to say
"I'm so F-ing pro that I can play it on infamous one handed with my left eye closed while jerkin it with the other hand" Anyone who tells you these sorts of things is a noob, and a braggart and deserves a sound slapping, if you can't reach them in person then give them a verbal slap...

Anywho on topic again; The difficulties work as follows.

~ Missions are always the same, regardless of difficulty level
~ Diamonds (From all sources) are still given at the same value Eg: 10 diamonds for early Cell Tower Missions. (ALL diamond cases have scripted amounts of diamonds in them) There will always be a grand total of 1000 diamonds in the game.
~ Buddies encountered will be the same for each region (Obviously a roughly randomized order)

So you might be wondering... "If all these things stay the same, what DOES change with the difficulty?" So I've enlisted the help of another handy list to explain it.

Easy: You are a total bullet sponge, you might as well be god among those pitiful mercenaries. They will need to unload an entire magazine into you to make you so much as flinch. They seem to be less accurate although I cannot confirm this. Meanwhile, you will be able to sprint for a long period of time and you will be able to carry enough ammo to keep the african war party rolling. You'll also have more morphine shots incase you do mess up. Good for beginners and people who want to feel like Rambo in africa.

~ Normal: Your bread and butter difficulty, it's not called normal for nothing. Personally, a seasoned gamer (I am by no means a seasoned gamer and I agree with this point) would find it a little too easy still. You can carry a decent amount of ammo on you, you'll get 5 morphine syrettes and you can still soak up bullets like a CoD protagonist. However there will be times in the game where you will find yourself actually hurting a bit or being forced to duck into safety.

~ Hardcore: This I feel is where the game begins to shine. It goes from being "Rambo in africa" to being an actual challenge. You will take healthy amounts of damage (yes I really said that) and will carry far fewer syrettes. You will also find yourself running out of ammo and grenades more often as you cannot carry much. Your sprint will also be much shorter before you start puffing and panting. Health boxes only give you 1 syrette.

~ Infamous: Ah yes infamous...

It'll take about two bullets to drop you to your knees. Any kind of mounted weapon should terrify you, and stealth becomes almost the only option for dealing with the entire game. Don't play on infamous difficulty unless you have a death wish or want to experience a true challenge from this game. Oh and you sprint and carry less than you did in hardcore. Health boxes also only provide 1 syrette.

"Buddies" as the game calls them, are foreigners and mercenaries just like you, they're here in the UAC (Unamed African Country) to make money, much like you are I suppose. They will offer you missions that expand on their backstories. Offer you special ways to complete the main story missions that have extra rewards, and they will rescue you if you die, allowing you to much more quickly get back into the action, instead of having to reload a save.

Player Character/Buddies:
If you have a particular character you think is your favourite, then I personally recommend NOT picking them. I say this because if you do, you will see their forearms and hands for the rest of the game. Your character is a mute once you take over, aside from grunts and yells of pain or frustration. Keep in mind your character selection comes from the list of available buddies in game, so you will never meet which ever character you choose, you will however meet some of the characters you didn't choose. For example, I really like Frank Bilders, the irishman, so I choose to play as someone different, because that way, I get to work with frank in the game, and he actually has a voice and personality and is an interesting character.
However there is a flip side If you absolutely cannot bring yourself to kill/watch a character die, pick them, otherwise this will happen.

NPCs:
There are a variety of buddies you will work with who are not playable characters, namely, the female buddies. Michelle Dachss. Flora Guillen and Nasreen Davar. However they function no differently from your regular buddies, offering you missions, picking you up off the floor etc. Then there is the usual string of mission giving NPCs and of course, regular militia men.

As for affecting the story... Your "best buddy" will call you on your cellphone after every mission briefing with the faction leaders, and will tell you they have a special offer. They will send you to some out of the way safehouse somewhere, and give you a new task to complete, usually one that will have an effect on the mission you were assigned. (Such as redirecting special forces troops to a new location or derailing a train full of troops)

The problem with these missions is that the task often ends up being more difficult than your original job and they always end in a situation in which your buddy will be fending off a small attacking force and you will have to go help them, this is a time where buddies can often become injured or even killed. However they do upgrade your safehouse. If you do every single subversion objective in the main missions, then you will have a safehouse complete with:

~ Large health box
~ Ammo, explosives, and fuel piles
~ The "assault truck" Aka standard pickup with the M249. The weapon will be upgraded with more completed subversions, it will go up to the .50 cal machine gun and finally to the MK-19 Auto-Grenade Launcher.
~ Small ammo, health, grenade and fuel boxes
~ Mounted weapon (mounted on sandbags usually)

Buddies will also be able to rescue you if you die, Provided your "Second best buddy" is listed in your menu as "rescue ready" they will come to you if you die, and they will kill many of your attackers while dragging you out of danger, you will black in and out but you are usually treated to a greyscale scene of them crouching over you, checking your wounds, dragging you a short way and helping you up, then protecting you while you heal yourself (which always plays one of those special animations.) they will also replace your secondary weapon with a STAR.45 pistol and later an Eagle .50, Your previous secondary weapon can be found where you originally died however. (Healing animations for the particularly sadistic among you:) Once a buddy has rescued you, you must visit an unlocked safehouse that is in an unloaded chunk OR unlock a new safehouse and sleep in it. Then your buddy should appear in the safehouse and after a short conversation, will be rescue ready again.

Saving your butt from the fire puts your buddy in harms way however, as they will obviously be around where the enemies are, the same place you just died at, and while they can fend for themselves quite well, sometimes they will become injured. When buddies are injured they lay on the ground and let off a blue smoke flare, that guides you to them. You are then faced with 3 choices.

~ Walk away and abandon them. Once the chunk of world they are in is unloaded, they will disappear and be listed as "Abandoned" or "Missing" in your buddies list. They usually cry out or yell at you when you start walking away, trying to guilt trip you.

~ Attempt to heal them with your morphine Syrettes. This option is obviously only available if you have syrettes spare, and it is the default option when interacting with them. You will inject their chest with one of your syrettes and it will help them get back up. However the more often a buddy is injured, the less this will work. (The first time they are injured, 1 syrette should be enough, but if they are injured repeatedly you may find it taking more than 1) Keep in mind there comes a time where this will not work at all, and you will have no choice but to mercy kill or abandon that buddy.

~ "Mercy" kill them. In this option, it's kind of touching really, you draw their sidearm and they order you to "Do it" or make some other comment about their inevitable death, you then look at their feet and shoot them in the head, buddy dies, confirmed dead. It is also possible to have a buddy die when using the syrettes, If it takes more than 2 syrettes to get them up, the third or fourth (I forget which) will cause them to overdose on morphine and send them into immediate cardiac arrest, therefore killing them, the pistol is the more merciful option here I assure you.

I am not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but during the introduction in the hotel, you do not have to partake in the massive fight, you can run out of town without killing a single soldier. The direction you take from town, will determine which faction picks you up after you collapse.

Another option, is to simply stay in the town and fight for your life, this chaos and mayhem is actually rather fun, however you will still collapse after a time, and this will cause you to be picked up by the faction corresponding to whichever exit you were closest too.

If you run to the southwest/east of town, you will be picked up by the APR and taken to the Rooster-Fights(SW) or Lumber(SE) location. Here you will find yourself presented with a G3 assault rifle, STAR.45 pistol and a rusted flamethrower (IIRC lumber has an RPG). If you head Northwest/east then you will be picked up by the UFLL and taken to the slaughterhouse(NW) or Fresh Fish(NE) locations, where you will find a G3 assault rifle, a STAR.45 pistol and an unreliable RPG.

In the end though, the tutorial is always the same basic concept. Get guns, fix car, drive to safehouse, sleep, drive to camp, scout it, free buddy, drive back, get paid etc etc.

Ok so in the UAC you have a civil war taking place, being fought with mercenaries and cheap guns supplied by the jackal. You might think this is a game where you get to pick a side, kill the other side and install yourself as king. Well... No. Dispell all notion of that. This game is nitty and gritty, and the factions are just as horrible as each other. Oh and regardless of which side you work for, you're on a classified mission so their own guys will shoot at you no matter what.

Basically the idea is nobody is your friend here, except your buddies, you can count on them... Right? Interestingly enough the buddies are the ones who provide the truth about the factions you're working for. They often explain reasons for doing what they do, such as ambushing a troop train, because they wish to kill a UFLL commander who has made a fortune kidnapping and selling young boys. Or killing the APR men in charge of distributing a new drug known only as "Hazlenuts" which is actually made purely for children. Basically each faction is horrible. Now on to what they stand for.


The APR or Alliance for Popular Resistence who are foreigners from another african country, and wish to unite the UAC with the rest of africa, apparently.

The UFLL or United Front for Liberation and Labor wish to keep the country independant.Most of them are native to the UAC but there are foreign mercenaries in their ranks also.

When you know the things they do though... It becomes very hard to pick a side.

This part of the guide will cover many things, including the movement aspect of stealth. However there is already an entire guide on the mechanics of stealth and how it works in this game, So I will link it here as it is already covers everything I intend to mention about stealth.

Know your enemy (stealth mechanics and tactical approach) by "HaraDaya!"

Now as you may have guessed after that long tutorial finished and the world opened up, that this is an open world game, this means when you're told to go somewhere, there is no one linear path, you could take any manner of routes and methods of transport to get to your destination, and in this game getting there is half the fun.


Shank's pony, also known as good old walking/running. On foot you present a smaller target, and are much quieter than an engine (We hope). This means you are able to move more unhindered around the environment, as well as fit into gaps and such that vehicles cannot. It is generally advisable to avoid the roads when on foot as the enemy likes to drive patrols around, and these patrols will attempt to run you over if they see you, this is most often an instant death. As you are moving slower, being on foot also allows you to better survey the land, meaning you can be more prepared for conflicts and ambushes and such, and have the opportunity to pick your targets. You can also sprint in short bursts and use this sprint to slide, which can get you into cover or out of sight fairly quickly.

I put this into a seperate category because, like walking it is faster, obviously its uses are more limited to the water, however there is a sizeable enough amount of water to make it viable. It comes in somewhere between running and sprinting in terms of speed, in that sprinting is still faster, but swimming is faster than running. The downside is the water is very murky, so if you dip your head below it and lose sight of the surface, becoming disoriented is very common and can lead to drowning. While in the water you also will not have access to your weapons and I have a theory that swimming in water causes your guns to degrade faster, although I've not tested that yet.

Far cry 2 has a myriad of different vehicles available for driving. From beat up old coupes to large, armed vehicles, if you have the fortunes DLC pack (I think it ships standard with the game on steam) Then you will also have access to a fast, nimble ATV, which is the fastest off road vehicle in the game. You will also have access to a large Utility truck that comes equipped with an M2.50 Cal, which is insanely powerful when the enemy are still driving jeeps with the M249 on it. Vehicles come armed with roughly 3 different weapons, or unarmed. Now each vehicle has its own special qualities.

Buggies: I will include the ATV here as they both function in the same manner, it is a small, nimble, extremely fast vehicle, and they are easily the fastest vehicles when taken off road. They are lightly covered and offer little to no protection from bullets. However they can outrun most vehicles provided their engines are not crippled. A downside to this is that they have very loud engines so the AI will hear you coming from a long distance away.

Cars and Unarmed trucks: The beat up coupe you fix at the start of the game falls in here along with the large flatbed truck that you have to destroy when ambushing weapons convoys. They function in the same way for the most part. The coupe is faster to accelerate and all around not terrible. It is a little slow when taken off road however, it will be unable to outpace the assault trucks in an offroad situation. The coupe makes a rather clanky noise as you drive it and its engine is moderately loud. The truck on the other hand is slow and loud, however once it gets rolling it is much harder to stop. Meaning it can plow on through obstacles, sometimes... Mainly wooden structures and peoples faces but you get the point. Both vehicles offer moderate protection against gunfire, as you're only vulnerable through the windows.

Assault and Utility Trucks: The assault truck is the vehicular workforce of the entire game, and probably the most common things you'll run into, especially in the northern section where it is mostly land based. Both factions deploy them, they're easily replacable and you should not fret about losing one. Just try to avoid them when they're coming at you on the road. They have a fairly average speed all round, they can keep up with a coupe and outrun a coupe offroad. It won't slow down too much heading off road. Also it has a mounted gun on it, which you can slide into from the drivers seat. So it is quite useful as a player vehicle. As you progress through the story the enemy will eventually upgrade theirs from an M249 (the weakest MMG) to the browning M2 .50cal, needless to say the .50 HURTS and should be avoided at all costs. If you're using it however, it is slower to fire than the M249 however it is far more accurate, and also far more damaging, several shots to the engine block of an enemy vehicle will have it on fire. You will also find the rare enemy patrol with an MK 19 grenade MG on their jeep. These are VERY dangerous. As for the utility truck, it is big, can be found in both areas, by big I mean it has big fat monster truck tires, and its quite fast for its size, although not nimble. It can handle offroad well, but not quickly.


Only one entry into flight, if you can call it flight. The paraglider. Access to these is quite limited, and their usefulness is somewhat arguable. Some of them are positioned to allow you to access a diamond case you could not otherwise reach, but other than that the glider is so rare that its positioning isn't usually very useful. It can cover a portion of the map but once it lands you're back on foot.

Sailing only has two boats to enter in the category sadly, on the flip side both boats serve a unique purpose that is actually quite entertaining to use sometimes. Boats also offer a mechanic of stealth when used correctly.

Swamp Boats: These are the most common boats you will find. They are very shallow hulled and have an above water fan for propulsion, therefore they can navigate very shallow waters and are quite nimble (for a boat) They always come with a mounted turret on the front. Which like the jeeps, varies from M249 to M2 .50 to Mk 19 grenade MG. It is possible to glide past enemies during the night, if you are travelling at full speed and exit the drivers seat, the engine will die out but the boat will continue to glide (Unlike land vehicles) This allows you to glide right past them if you're going fast enough before you cut the engine, and were far enough away that they didn't hear you.

Fishing Boats: These boats are large and clunky, but they also feel like a real boat, there is enough room to walk around on the deck without worrying about falling off. It is very slow compared to the swamp boat and it too comes with a mounted turret like the swamp boats. The key difference is that it has a deep hull, not a shallow, almost flat one like the swamp boat. Therefore it cannot traverse narrow or shallow water ways without getting consistently stuck. Still a good choice for sitting on in the middle of the lake and sniping people.

That about wraps up vehicles. The last thing to mention in movement is the bus system. Each region of the map has 5 bus terminals on it, one in each corner and one in the central town. Catching the bus is equivalent to fast travel. it is enemy free, takes only a second, and the game prompts you to save afterwards. The bus has its uses though.

For now I think I will wrap this up here, I've been typing for awhile and it's getting to my wrists. I'll carry this on with a look at weaponry and such later. as well as adding in a few other points.

For now, enjoy my parting wisdom.
Premise for Far Cry 5. ^