gamescom 2015: Just Cause 3 Brings Challenges and Explosions

If you love explosions (and who doesn’t?), Just Cause 3 should be at the top of your must-buy games list. You blow up practically everything in this game – helicopters, trucks, tanks, buildings, gas stations, planes, bridges, you name it. There’s a lot more to Just Cause 3 than destruction, of course, but we’re focusing on the explosions.

Just Cause 3 promises to be bigger and more expansive than ever before when protagonist Rico Rodriguez returns to country of Medici. The evil dictator General Di Ravello has taken control of Rico’s home and killed his parents, which means this is part revenge story, part liberation of Rico’s people. He once again becomes the ziplining, gun-toting, tank-driving face of the revolution.

We’re excited to explore the huge, bustling island of Medici – which, at well over 600 square miles, is as huge as an actual small island nation. At gamescom 2015, we got a small taste of what Just Cause 3 has to offer, and got to try out the game’s challenge missions. Challenge missions are an array of bite-sized game moments that test your skills and gunplay. Doing well in them earns you mods, which can be used to customize Rico in a variety of ways.

There were four missions on hand at gamescom: two destruction-based missions, and two wingsuit skill courses. In one, we were armed with a rocket launcher and infinite ammo, and tasked with blowing up everything as fast as possible. Launching rockets at satellites and radio towers, and then watching them crumble to fiery ruins, is great fun. But the mission, set high above the ground, also showcased Just Cause 3’s improved zipline feature. Rico can leap from ledge to ledge like a superhero, or use it to grab objects and fling them about. He can also leap off and use his parachute to travel long distances.

The other mission that we got to try out tasked us with flying through rings while skydiving in our wingsuit. Here, you can really get a sense of Medici’s impressive scale. It’s massive, and it’s very much alive. As we swooped down near a town, we could see people and cars going about their day. The wingsuit is amazingly fun – an improvement on the parachute mechanics from previous Just Cause games. Skimming over the water, performing midair acrobatics, and weaving around buildings is all exhilarating.

Vehicle combat is also back, and bigger than ever. A tank-driving mission let us blow up buildings and cars, and the destruction physics were on full display. Like we mentioned, there’s a lot to blow up in Just Cause 3, and the tools at your disposal are varied and powerful.

Finally, there’s one of the coolest pieces of news to hit gamescom this week: our announcement that anyone who purchases Just Cause 3 for Xbox One will also exclusively receive Just Cause 2 via Xbox One Backward Compatibility.

We’ll have to wait until December 1 to fully explore Medici on Xbox One and Windows PC, helping Rico start another revolution against the evil dictator controlling his home. But Just Cause 3 is already the most action-packed of the series – which is saying a lot.