Just Cause 4

Just Cause 4
Developer(s)	Avalanche Studios
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Engine	Avalanche APEX
Resolutions	640x480 - 720x400; 800x480 - 800x600; 832x624 - 1024x600; 1024x768 - 1152x872; 1280x720 - 1280x768; 1280x1024 - 1360x768; 1366x768 - 1400x1050; 1440x900 - 1600x900; 1680x1050 - 1920x1080; Up to 4K;
Platforms	PS4, Xbox One and PC (Steam and Epic Store)
Release Date(s)	; Click to see full size.; "Epic Games" PC version came in early 2020.
Genre(s)	Open-world action-adventure sandbox
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	PEGI 18, ESRB M 17+
Media	Consoles: Downloads and disks.; PC: Steam and Epic Store.
Input Methods	Controller / keyboard and mouse
Languages	English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Arabian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Russian, Korean (interface only), Chinese (simplified) (interface only), Chinese (traditional) (interface), Polish (interface only)

Just Cause 4 is the fourth game in the Just Cause game series.

Info summary

Just Cause 4 is an open world sandbox action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix.

Quotes from the official Just Cause 4 website on Square Enix:

"Welcome to Solis, a huge South American world home of conflict, oppression and extreme weather conditions.
Just Cause 4 sees rogue hero Rico Rodriguez land in Solis to hunt down the truth about his past, at any costs.
Strap into your wingsuit, equip your fully customizable grappling hook, and get ready to bring the thunder!"

"Soar through the skies with your wingsuit - Skydive, Base Jump and Free Dive with no limits!
Fight your enemies under extreme weather conditions, including treacherous tornadoes and tropical lightning storms, taking the iconic Just Cause action to insane new heights.
Use extreme weather events to your advantage thanks to never seen before in-game physics."

"Spearhead the rebellion and defeat the Black Hand, a hi-tech private military organization.
Face off against Gabriela Morales – your most fierce, capable, and unpredictable adversary yet.
Uncover the truth of Rico’s father’s past life on Solís’ and its extreme weather."

"Explore the remote South American country of Solís, home of conflict, secrets, and danger.
Enjoy 1024 square kilometers of exotic playground, from rainforest to desert, via snowy mountain peaks.
Discover a plethora of wonders as you explore the world of Solís from bustling cities to rural grasslands."

Quote about the gold edition of the game from Amazon:

"Rogue agent Rico Rodriguez journeys to Solís, a huge South American world home of conflict, oppression, and extreme weather conditions. Strap into your wingsuit, equip your fully customizable grappling hook and get ready to bring the thunder! Gold Edition Includes: just cause 4 - full game; neon racer Pack which Includes the following DLC items - neon racer Supercar: blitz around in your very own modified Supercar with boost Valve on tap. You'll be the fastest thing in Solís; neon racer wingsuit: race across the skies with this unique neon design; neon racer parachute: drift over the Clouds at speed with this unique neon design; expansion pass - unlock access to each of the three expansions upon their release. More details on the expansion episodes will become available when the game is released; Golden Gear Pack - contains the coveted Golden Gear shotgun Featuring ricochet tracer secondary fire, plus the Golden Gear wingsuit and Golden Gear parachute; digital Deluxe content - fight back against the Black hand with their own technology! Includes special Black hand DLC weaponry: Black hand stealth micro JET: special aircraft with retractable wings and experimental stealth Optic camouflage; Black hand prototype weaponized wingsuits: the Black hand's secret weapon - this prototype wingsuit features boost technology and enhanced Missile weaponry. 24Hr early access - enjoy just cause 4 before everyone else does!."

Just Cause 4 was officially announced by Square Enix at the Xbox E3 conference on June 10th, 2018. The game was released on December 4th, 2018.

This game is the sequel to Just Cause 3, which was released in 2015, three years and three days prior to the release of this game.

Just Cause: Mobile, a multi-player spin-off game, was announced in 2020, but cancelled in 2023.

Last we knew, there was still no word of any possible sequel. See Just Cause 5 (unofficial name for a possible sequel) for a collection of all known info about a possible main series sequel.

Setting and plot

The new nation is Solís, located in South America. The game takes place after the events of Just Cause 3.

Rico travels to Solís to discover the truth about the circumstances of his father's death. Rico's mother was from Medici and his father was from Solís.

Solís is the homeland of the Black Hand, and as such, they rule Solís with a very militaristic regime. The Black Hand has also become an even more powerful enemy as they have obtained advanced weather-manipulation technology from the eDEN Corporation (Downloadable content for Just Cause 3) and continued to develop it themselves.

See this for anything achievement related.

Spoiler warning: Significant plot details follow.

Having arrived at Solís, Rico will start his own rebellion, called the Army of Chaos, to overthrow the Espinosa Dynasty rule and to fight the Black hand and start the Solino Civil War, eventually resulting in the liberation of all of Solís. The Black Hand itself is commanded by Gabriela Morales, who believes herself to be similar to Rico and that Rico is dangerous because of their similarity.

Rico helps an archaeologist named Javi Huerta uncover the truth about the history of Solís and about the Espinosa Dynasty (who have been a central part of the history of Solís). There's evidence of many crimes and cover-ups.

It has also been explained in the "Just Cause 4: All About Narrative [ESRB]" trailer that the storyline is now more broken up and less dependent on missions. The player is no longer expected to get all mission/story information from cut-scenes. Instead, the player learns a lot of the story information from exploring the environment and piecing the information together. Also, this time it won't be completely clear who is "good" and "bad", because of the layered intentions of the factions. See the Category: Just Cause 4 Missions for a list of all missions.

The plot thickens a lot as The Agency becomes a new enemy by the end. Details would be a major spoiler (see missions Operation Thunderbarge and Operation Illapa) and this was later expanded upon in the Danger Rising expansion pack. At the end of the storyline Rico and Tom Sheldon team up to take down The Agency.

Returning things and new game features

General gameplay

Rico Rodriguez is making his 4th return.
The Black Hand is back, this time as the main antagonist.
The allied faction in this game is the Army of Chaos, once again a rebellion formed from citizens of the country.
The Agency returns to be spoken of in several missions and makes an appearance in the third and final DLC expansion pack: Danger Rising.
The Grappler can now be equipped with Air lifters and boosters, alongside the original retractor (tether). Each grapple mode can be further customized. See equipment section.
Enemy AI is noticeably more intelligent as they have tactics, use cover and attempt to flank and surround the enemy.
The heat system is back, except without obvious heat levels. It is much more complex (and subjectively more difficult) than before.
Like previous games, very few weapons (or sources of damage) can 1-hit-kill Rico, but there are some - most notably are large explosions from sphere tanks or ballistic missiles and lightning strikes. Wingsuiting into a wall or falling still kills him.
There are four types of climate zones: the rainforest, grasslands, desert and snowy mountains.
There are 4 types of extreme weather events - Tornados, Sandstorms, Thunderstorms and Blizzards/snowstorms (that also have lightning strikes). These are part of Project Illapa.
Some cosmetics can be customized.
The rebel drop, now called the supply drop has recieved numerous upgrades. See the article for more.
See also:
- Just Cause 4 100% completion list.
- Just Cause 4 General gameplay tips.

Chaos points and game progression system

Main articles: Liberation & Chaos points

Chaos points have returned, but the way they work is completely different now.

Getting points: Destroying Black Hand infrastructure, equipment, and vehicles rewards the player with chaos points, just as before.
How the points work: Chaos points are now automatically spent on unlocking units (called "squads") for the Army of Chaos. Once the player has completed a "region strike" mission (raiding larger bases is a type of mission), it is possible to spend those army units on capturing the newly unlocked region. As another new game feature, there there is an actual war front along the edge of the captured territory. It is necessary to capture more of the map in order to unlock the storyline missions that take place there.
Amount of chaos points needed: The amount that is actually needed is next to none in comparison to previous games. In general, outside of mission objectives, the player almost does not have a reason to cause chaos, because dealing with enemy units who spawn during heat (during and outside of missions) is actually enough to progress the story.
Necessity of raiding bases outside of missions: In previous games the player had to raid bases in order to earn chaos points, but in JC4 there is never a need to raid a base outside of missions. Base raiding is now only required in "region strike" missions because liberations now only happen on a region level at the click of a button while looking at the map. Most settlements don't even have to be visited, unless going for 100% completion. So as a result, many bases are completely captured off-screen and without any destruction taking place. This is something for which JC4 has been criticized by some players, who feel that no heavily fortified enemy position, or even remote village, should be captured off-screen without player contribution.
Destructible chaos objects all respawn infinitely and their destruction numbers are not listed anywhere. This is good for players who like to destroy potentially infinite amounts of things and for those don't want all their captured bases to be destroyed. JC4 has been criticized by some players for this, because it takes the meaning out of the action and leaves no physical sign of anything ever having taken place. However, the developers made chaos objects respawn infinitely so one could argue that the player can blow them up over and over again.

Completed save games (Operation Illapa finished) can select "New Game+", which restarts the game with a more dangerous combat difficulty. However, everything previously unlocked in supply drop will also be available.

Equipment

Rico's arsenal like his grappler, parachute and wingsuit returned.
- In the Danger Rising DLC, he is also equipped with a new fourth device of transportation: the Hoverboard.
The grappler now has a lot more features and is customizable. All these can be customized to lift, pull, or push as hard as the player wants. There are special parameters for each tether type, such as balloon height for the airlifters, booster direction for the boosters etc.
- The rocket boosters will make a return, but in the form as a mod for Rico's grappling hook. Previously it was a feature of GE-64. They can be customized and are slightly more physics-based (physically sensible) than the GE-64 boosters.
- A new feature that comes into the game is airlifters. They are balloons that are attached to any tether to the grappler and have different settings like inflating and float up to a set altitude, follow where you're pointing, have it follow the character etc.
- The Standard tether is more or less the same, except it is now more customizeable than before.
Freely walking on top of vehicles returns. It seems like Rico's movement on vehicles is not as limited as they were previously, so the player can now basically grapple on to almost every part of a vehicle (e.g. hanging off the side of a plane).
Rico can carry two two-handed weapons of players choice, but there are no longer any usable single-handed weapons.
Weapons now have this new ability called Secondary Fire, as an alternative way of how the weapon handles and fires.
See also: Category: Just Cause 4 Weapons.

Mission structure

Main article: Category:Just Cause 4 Missions.

Bigger storyline missions are called "operations". Each "biome" (climate zone) has its own set of storms and main missions about investigating them. It's possible to do these missions parallel to each other, without having to finish one region first. Each set of operation missions tells a part of the story and they all work towards the same story conclusion.
There are also "region strikes" that are mainly about weakening a base' defenses to make the Rebellion's taking over of key areas easier. Completing these will make it possible to liberate a region.
There are many sidemissions as well. Completing them will unlock mods for the grappler.
Random Encounters are back.
Stunts are back too, with doing them accounting for the majority of "completing" locations.

Vehicles

There are 117 vehicles total.
See Category: Just Cause 4 Vehicles.

New Game+

Completed save games can select "New Game+", which restarts the game in a significantly harder combat difficulty. The saves don't need to be 100% completed, all that's required is that all main storyline missions are done and all regions liberated.

Graphics

This section is largely a matter of opinion and some may disagree with it.

As one would expect from a newer, more recent game, the graphics have improved. Additionally, the Apex engine is said to be capable of higher-quality graphics. The following notes are in comparison with Just Cause 3:

Improvements:
- Textures have been improved.
- The level of detail has significantly improved.
- There is a more detailed, diverse and realistic natural environment, with more realistic-looking vegetation.
- Explosions are brighter, more complex and detailed, more firey in shape, texture and tone, more colorful and generally more spectacular.
- Lighting and global illumination have improved.
- Shadows are sharper.
Regressions:
- There seems to be a slight regression in water textures. Sometimes, in rivers, the water looks flat and apparently incredibly fake. Water quality was addressed in one of the patches. Apparently, the water looks better at night than it does at day.
- In JC4, NPCs' faces seem to be less detailed than they were in JC3.
- Most would agree that cut-scenes in JC4 look worse than they were in JC3. This is strange since promotional content and game trailers showed pretty high-quality cut-scenes, indicating that higher graphical quality is available, but the game was at times downgraded to improve performance.
  - However, a majority of the base game's cutscenes are prerendered, which means they're basically videos playing out in front of the player. It is very peculiar that prerendered cutscenes look worse than, live, real-time rendered gameplay.
Other:
- The artistic style of JC4 seems to be completely different than that of JC3. Colors are generally much brighter, making the world look sharper than JC3.
- There is also a heavy yellow filter to the game that can be removed with the use of some simple reshades.

Soundtrack and music

Just Cause 4 has many different soundtracks. They are used in different times of the game. The soundtracks can be divided into five main categories:

Combat music. This is a collection of dramatic action songs that are played during heat and sidemissions including region strikes and Sargento, Garland and Javi sidemissions. Most of these are electronic songs.
Exploration music. This is a collection of calm songs that are played when the player doesn't have any heat, is not doing any missions and is flying around in his wingsuit (without heat). The songs also play when hoverboarding without heat.
Special mission music. These are unique songs that are played during main storyline missions. Operation Thunderbarge, Windwalker, Sandstinger and Illapa all have unique soundstracks that are only played when the player plays these said missions. These are similar to combat music, but are unique and play only in missions.
DLC music. This is a collection of songs that are played when the player is in areas added by DLCs or is playing DLC missions.
Other. All other soundtracks fall into this category. Songs include ones that are played during specific loading screens, cutscenes and credits.

Here are some (but likely not all) of Just Cause 4's soundtracks:

In-game radio

JC4 is the first game in the series to have radio stations in vehicles. These stations each play a selection of about 10 different items of music and they have some DJs talking. Solís Hoy is a news channel that discusses news and local rumors. The content of this channel changes throughout the storyline.

See:

Trailer music

Just Cause 4's trailers use music composed by Artizan, a musical group. Click here for a playlist of all their songs used in JC4 trailers.

Game editions and DLC

Main article: Downloadable content for Just Cause 4.

Just Cause 4 is a confusing mess of numerous different editions. See Downloadable content for Just Cause 4 for a list of all editions and their included content. If you're looking for Just Cause 4 with all DLC, get the Complete Edition, not the "Gold", "Digital Deluxe" or "Reloaded" editions.

Unlike with JC3, there didn't seem to be a disk edition of the PC version. Looking hard enough, it was possible to find at least 1 site that lists a PC DVD version, but all other sites have JC4 listed as a "download", or as a "Steam code". The console versions, however, were pictured as the box/disk version at most online stores.

See the Downloadable content for Just Cause 4 article for a full list of pre-order bonuses and other DLCs. All pre-order items have been released as separate DLC.

Expansion Pass

The game has 3 expansion packs (similarly to Just Cause 3 expansions) called "Dare Devils of Destruction", "Los Demonios" and "Danger Rising".

See Downloadable content for Just Cause 4 for full info about the expansion packs.

PC system requirements

Originally Steam listed the DirectX as 11.1, but this was later changed to just 11. At the same time, they removed 4K requirements completely.

Minimum

OS: ~~Windows 7 SP1 with Platform Update for Windows 7 (64-bit versions only)~~ As of 2020.04.20 this was changed to Windows 10. The game still runs on Windows 7, but there are no guarantees.
CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.1 GHz | AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5 GHz or better
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (2GB VRAM or better) | AMD R9 270 (2GB VRAM or better)
DirectX: 11
HDD/SSD: 59 GB

4K requirements (outdated)

OS: Windows 10 (64-bit Fall Creators update)
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700 (3.6 GHz or higher) | AMD Ryzen 5 1600X (3.6 GHz or higher)
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
DirectX: 11
HDD/SSD: TBC

Glitches, patches and updates

Main articles: Just Cause 4 Bugs and glitches and Just Cause 4 Patch history.

Reception

Compared to previous games in the series, this game was not as popular.

One of the biggest complaints among veteran Just Cause fans was that Region Strikes had basically taken over the role of liberations in previous games. Hence, Rico could capture an entire region through completing one mission, instead of the previous games where securing the area involved Rico personally securing every settlement.

Instead of causing chaos or other destructible related things, completion is now measured in stunts given after Garland King's New Star. This caused mixed reviews, as while some players enjoyed doing stunts, others found it impractical as to how doing a couple stunts "completed" a location.

Another point of criticism was the heat system. Unlike previous games in the series, the heat system in this game did not have five levels. Instead, heat progressively got more difficult as Rico kept fighting. He could be fighting Black Hand operatives in a Warrior Offroader one minute to Fellhawk Jet Fighters trying to kill Rico five minutes later. The massive escalation compared to previous games was a significant point of criticism.

Another point of criticism was that most of the vehicles in Just Cause 4 are copies of vehicles in Just Cause 3. For example, the Vagabundo Buggy is a renamed Urga Ogar 7 V8, the Verdeleon Eco is basically a renamed Verdeleon 3, the Mugello Vistosa is simply renamed to 2019 Vistosa Supercar, and more. For in-universe reasons, it makes sense to have some vehicle(s) be present in more than one country, but it is confusing and makes no sense at all that they would have different names, as if made by another company and the vehicles just coincidentally were identical.

On the other hand, the ability to customize Rico's grappling hook was a very successful feature. From boosting at extreme speeds to creating improvised flying tanks through balloons, the ability to customize the grappling hook was among one of the few features praised.

Awards

This game won the Action Game category in the 2019 Webby Awards.

Trivia

This game has many firsts for the game series as a whole:
- This game has more languages (voice acting and subtitles) than any other Just Cause so far.
- This game is the first game in the series to not have standalone grenades and pistols. While they technically do exist, they just aren't used.
- With approximately 108 missions including DLC, this game features the most missions in any Just Cause game, with more missions than the previous three games combined.
- This game is the first to not have an obvious heat system.
- This game is the first to not show Rico flying into the new country. However, it is mentioned in Aeropuerto Scramble that Rico was smuggled in by Mira from Medici through Aeropuerto General Benítez.
- This game is the first to have actual tanks, as "tanks" in previous games were actually armored cars or APCs.
- This game is the first to have a fully functioning VTOL aircraft, in this case being the X700 Flycatcher (albeit DLC). While the Si-47 Leopard from Just Cause 2 is based on the Harrier Jump Jet in real life which has VTOL capabilities, the Leopard doesn't have VTOL capabilities.
- It is relatively speaking, but this is the first game in the series where Rico did not have to kill a "friendly" soldier. In Just Cause (1), there is one side mission with drunken Guerrilla soldiers who attack Rico, forcing Rico to kill them in self defense. In Just Cause 2, the Roaches traitor was still an ally at one point to Rico. In Just Cause 3, the pilot that Rico pulls out of the Urga U17 Akrobat to save Rosa Manuela has a rebel character model. In this game, there is no instance where Rico has to kill an Army of Chaos soldier.
On the other hand, this game also had the fewest armed helicopters, with only three, until the Danger Rising expansion.
- Just Cause 2 also has three attack helicopters, but the Rowlinson K22 once fully upgraded in the Black Market gets machine guns equipped.
- When the Danger Rising expansion was released, a new chopper, the A5 Coyote Assault Chopper, came with it, which brought the number of armed helicopters up to four, tying with Just Cause 2's four armed helicopters.
Several of the Vehicles in Just Cause 4 are pretty much identical to their Just Cause 3 counterparts, but they have been renamed.
Several rumors and leaks indicated that JC4 was in development several years before the official announcement on June 10th, 2018. See the Archive of Just Cause 4 news about them.
Robert Meyer, a developer for JC4, revealed in an interview in November 2018 that he had been working on JC4 for 3 years.
One of the writers for the story is Nick Giovannetti.
It has been reported that the Xbox One version of the game is about 45 GB. The PC system requirements list it as 59 GB. Downloading the gold edition from Steam takes 50.2 GB for the initial download and possibly more for the additional content.
It's unclear if a retail (disk) version exists for the PC. The PC disk version is at this point a myth.
- Originally promotional materials that showed the game boxes showed boxes for all 3 versions. Oddly the "box" of the PC version has "Steam" written on it, confirming that the PC version only comes on Steam. These 3 boxes were just CGI.
- In later trailers, the end scene was changed to only showing boxes for the console versions. Steam was normally marked at the bottom of the page, below the boxes.
- All official sources for where to buy the PC version only direct to Steam.
- Strangely, on November 14th, 2018, there was a confusing post on the official Just Cause Facebook page that had a picture of a stack of game boxes of each version, including a PC DVD.
- All internet searches for a Just Cause 4 retail version only show options for a "CD key" for Steam.
- There is 1 online store in India that seems to be selling a PC DVD version of JC4 and they even show a box cover. However, that box cover seems more CGI rather than a photo of a physical box.
As explained in one of the below videos dedicated to this subject, the developers are aware of how poorly Just Cause 3 performed at first (reported here and here), until several patches improved it. This time they've reworked how the game stresses the CPU and are confident that it'll run better.
The PC version of the game has been improved importantly: The game now safely minimizes when pressing the Windows logo key. JC2 and JC3 don't want to minimize and when JC3 is forced to minimize, it can become glitchy when maximized again. JC1 is fine to minimize on XP but refuses to do so on W7.
As one could expect, it is almost completely impossible to get through the game without dying once. It is possible, but the chances are extremely low.
- There was once a glitch in Aeropuerto Scramble where at the end of the mission, you spontaneously die even if no damage is taken. This glitch seems to have been fixed in some patch.
- The heat system in this game is significantly harder compared to previous games, and now that the heat has been updated as of some patch, it is extremely difficult for Rico not to die in combat.
Concerning the day-night cycle:
- Similar to Just Cause 3, this game either does not have a dynamic day-night cycle or if it does than days are very long and the game always starts at a day. A few missions automatically set the time to night.
- The game doesn't have a normal day/night cycle. Reportedly, when the game was first released days lasted about 2.5 hours and nights about 20 minutes. This has resulted in some players never having seen an in-game night during their play sessions, outside of a few missions that reset the game time to night. The vast majority of missions are set at day and starting the game also resets time to day. This is something that the developers have addressed in a patch in August 2019. The patch makes nights longer and adds chairs where the player may sit to force the game to pass its in-universe time faster.
While probably not intentional, this game and its theme of extreme weather are similar to a movie called Geostorm, which also deals with extreme weather. In that movie, there was also a villain that wished to harness extreme weather to make the United States the dominant superpower in the world.
The development of a number of new vehicle models was outsourced from a company called Red Hot. Link to their gallery of HD images.