History VideoGame / FarCry4

** Finally, the game uses the ultimate result of its balance of power missions to ruthlessly parody the concept of a moral choice system in video gaming. Ultimately, [[spoiler:neither rival vision for Kyrat benefits the people,]] especially considering one is [[spoiler:a nation consumed by religious fanaticism and purges, while the other had Kyrat becoming a narco-state akin to Pol Pot's Cambodia]]. The third option really isn't any better: [[spoiler:If Ajay takes over (by killing Amita and Sabal), nothing changes. He doesn't become king, the Royal Army doesn't surrender or leave, and you still keep fighting as though Pagan was still alive. It's implied that Ajay's only plan is to keep using the Royal Army as an excuse plot and target practice. Did you ever have a plan to better Kyrat, or were you just there to keep killing people to make money to buy guns to kill people in bigger, more badass ways?]]

** [[spoiler:During the drug-trips caused by Yuma, you'll see the end result of the person you side with. This gives you a chance to side with someone else, if you didn't like the foreshadowing]].

* GreyAndGrayMorality: While the overall conflict between the Golden Path and Pagan Min's rule is BlackAndGreyMorality, the overall conflict between Amita and Sabal is a lot more complicated. Amita is a psuedo-Marxist who believes in turning Kyrat into a narco-state to help bring education and gender equality to the people, while Sabal believes in the GoodOldWays and upholding the tradition of the next [[MessianicArchetype Tarun Matara.]] Amita's pragmatism and "greater-good" mentality serves as a stark contrast to Sabal's conservatism and HonorBeforeReason mentality, and neither are shown to be explicitly in the right. [[spoiler:Completely and utterly subverted after the surviving leader takes control of Kyrat. Without the other mind behind the Golden Path to balance the survivor out, Amita and Sabal delve into extremism: [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil Amita forcibly conscripts children to serve as soldiers and workers,]] and it's heavily implied that [[WouldHurtAChild she murdered Bhadra.]] Sabal, meanwhile, becomes an outright KnightTemplar and slaughters numerous supporters of Amita for betraying the gods, all while Bhadra is ForcedToWatch. Needless to say, how Sabal or Amita come to rule Kyrat serves as a good lesson what happens [[RedOniBlueOni when one Oni dies,]] [[RealityEnsues and the survivor has nobody else to balance them out.]]]]

** The FlavourText for the Switchblade refers to ''Theatre/WestSideStory:''

* PermanentlyMissableContent: The "Warrior" signature weapon is unlocked by hijacking two Royal Army convoys. These stop spawning after you have liberated all of the outposts in Kyrat.

* UpToEleven: ''Far Cry 4'' takes just about everything from ''Far Cry 3'' and gives it this treatment, with Signature weapons being one of the most visible. ''Far Cry 3'' only had one per category, with any further than that being outside additions through uPlay (the "Cannon" Model 629) or pre-ordering (the "Predator" M-700). Now there's closer to twenty of them, so many that some of them have ridiculously-easy unlock requirements (the Stormer requires tearing down a ''single'' propaganda poster) and that some of them really aren't much of an upgrade (even the in-game store menu can't find much to talk up about the Sixer, which is unlocked simply by ''visiting the store''). Where some underwhelm, however, there are others that are even more ridiculous than the old ones - the Buzzsaw, the Signature MG 42, pretty much [[GameBreaker breaks what remains of the game at that point in half]].

* VideogameFlamethrowersSuck: [[AvertedTrope Nope!]] ''Far Cry 4'' is one of the rare FirstPersonShooter[=s=] that not only ''doesn't'' have its flamethrower suck, but it's ''extremely'' useful. On top of having a surprisingly good range, Flamethrowers utterly destroy anyone unlucky enough to be in the range, and to make matters even better, fire spreads rapidly and makes a stupidly-good AOE effect. Even more awesome than that is that for the Southern part of Kyrat at least, Flamethrowers are one of the handful of weapons that can reliably defeat Heavy Soldiers, which serve as DemonicSpiders in the game's EarlyGameHell. The gun's only real downside is that it demands the user to be within range for the gun's devastating damage to take effect, but at that point, you only have to worry about the target itself, given how fast it brings down opponents.

** The "Hunting: Supplies" and "Eye for an Eye" {{Side Quest}}s require the player to track down specific animal or human enemies and kill them, but like the "Path of the Hunter" and "Wanted Dead" sidequests in ''3'' the deed must be done with a specific weapon. This is in stark contrast to most of the game, which encourages the player to use whatever tactics and equipment they see fit. Stealth-centric players aren't likely to ever ''touch'' a shotgun during the campaign, but some of these side missions require it.

** Hindi-language songs by The Bombay Royale play at pivotal moments in the story, [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowing]] later revelations.

* AirborneMooks: This game features the most aggressive eagles in the world. They will routinely swoop down from the sky to attack the player at random times, and their attack animations start about 20 feet away from the player, making them nearly impossible to avoid or kill in time.

** During the mission "Take Cover", the rebel outpost Utkarsh is shelled by artillery, and the player has to rush over to defend it from waves of Royal Guard, between waves of taking cover from the shelling, while the Golden Path moves to take out the guns.

** Hurk's exploding, C4-covered monkeys from the Rook Islands appear in at least one hallucination.
** The C4-covered monkeys make a non-hallucinatory appearance in one of the Hunting sidequests, in which an escaped convict who used them to break out of prison hires Ajay to put them down. Ajay tells the convict that he's heard of this stupid idea [[CallBack before]].

** After taking the Kyra Tea Factory for the second Balance of Power mission, a Bomb Defusal sidequest is unlocked where the Royal Army comes back and tries to destroy the factory outright with several bombs.

* AnnoyingArrows: Thoroughly averted. [[DemonicSpiders Royal Army Hunters]] wield bows of varying technological standards instead of big-ass rifles like their sniper colleagues, but they ''will'' wreck the player in seconds if they spot them, regardless of distance, cover and body armor. Gets even worse when they whip out their [[ArrowsOnFire fire]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin arrows]], which not only deal more damage on impact but, surprise, set the target and everything around it on fire.

** Shown in-game as a note from Ajay's mother: it contains some sentimental words and sum up what she wants Ajay to do in Kyrat. It's considered sell-able junk (only distinguished from other sellable junk by not being caught up if you use the "auto-sell" function to quickly sell off all your unusable junk), and if you sell it, it's {{Permanently Miss|ableContent}}ed, along with the words that summarize Ajay's mission.

** In one of the [[StoryBranching Balance of Power]] missions, taking Amita's side will require you to capture an opium factory from the Royal Army. Entering said factory during your siege results in another [[PlayedForLaughs humorous]] hallucination.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: While Royal Army and Golden Path drivers are very good drivers with only the occasional mishap, this trope is the order of the day for civilians, whose driving AI seems to be "go at top speed" and "don't react to anything that gets in your way", meaning frequent death for you and any Golden Path allies or Sherpa merchants unfortunate enough to be on or near the road they're traveling down.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: While Royal Army and Golden Path drivers are very good drivers, this trope is the order of the day for civilians, whose driving AI seems to be "go at top speed" and "don't react to anything that gets in your way", meaning frequent death for you and any Golden Path allies or Sherpa merchants unfortunate enough to be on or near the road they're traveling down.

** If you sit down and enjoy the crab rangoon for 13 minutes at the start of the game, you can skip [[spoiler: the entire game, going straight to an ending]].

* EasyExp: Invoked in full force - pretty much everything the player can do out in the open world will yield ExperiencePoints, from discovering new locations over [[GottaCatchThemAll tearing down propaganda posters]] to, naturally, killing enemies (but not animals, strangely, despite most of them being much more dangerous than Pagan's soldiers). It's incredibly common to max out one's level well before even half of all missions and collectibles are accounted for. In a strange twist for a first-person shooter but consistent with its [[VideoGame/FarCry3 predecessor]], most ways of gaining XP for the game's RPG elements amount to a heavy aversion of RPGsEqualCombat since massacring the Royal Army is actually the least effective source of experience, with even some of the fancier takedowns barely adding much of a multiplier to the experience per kill.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: The [=SA50=] is the game's top-tier sniper rifle that doesn't become available until the main story is almost over, but it combines the [=Z93=]'s massive damage and penetration capabilities with the Dragunov's semi-auto rate of fire and can mount a suppressor to boot. You can still make copious use of it for completing any leftover side activities after the credits have rolled, though.

** The skill screen claims that you only need to complete one quest for Yogi & Reggie to unlock the duration boosts for the hunting syringe. It's a lie by omission at best; it specifically needs to be an optional sidequest for them to unlock the skill, which means you actually need to complete ''three'' quests for them because the first two are required as part of the campaign. What's odd about this is one of them also introduces the thangka CollectionSidequest, and the thangka you collect during that mission ''does'' count towards the requirements to unlock another skill.
** Longinus is mostly in the same boat, as there is both another skill and a weapon unlocked by doing a certain number of missions for him, but you have to do two as part of the campaign before the game actually starts counting. It's a little less apparent than Yogi & Reggie's case, since one of the two only marginally involves him, spending just enough time to introduce him before completely changing gears to [[spoiler:pushing back an attack on Banapur]].

* ContinuityNod: Longinus was a warlord from [[VideoGame/FarCry2 an war-torn African country and was saved by a priest named Maliya, who helped in hiding him in a church in Pala and baptized him at Goka Falls.]] His missions even involve you seeking out caches of diamonds, using a tracker that is almost identical to the GPS you used in ''Far Cry 2''.

* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: Ajay Ghale, having grown up in America, pronounces his own name "AJ Gale". However, since his name is natively Kyrati, everyone else in the game, Pagan Min included, pronounces it "Ah-Jay Gah-Lay". [[LampshadeHanging Rabi-Ray-Rana of Radio-Free-Kyrat comments on this]].[[note]] In India and Nepal, his name would be pronounced Uh-Jey Guh-Ley[[/note]]

** Yogi and Reggie never get any comeuppance for [[spoiler:turning Ajay over to Noore]], or for all the times they drug Ajay without his consent.

** Gulo the Honey Badger. The rumors are that he's unkillable, but your hunting contact shrugs it off as a series of memetic mutations with no truth whatsoever. ''He's wrong''. [[spoiler:When you get to the hunting area, there's multiple Royal Army soldiers dead with their throats ripped out along with several other predator animals, including several tigers and a ''Rhino''. Gulo can deal at least four bars' worth of damage in a single bite, and is so high in HP that you need an ''LMG'' to pump three times his weight in bullets into his hide to kill him.]] The game makes a joke of this by tampering with the mission selection screen for Gulo, warning the player multiple times that they must have a death wish.

** During the mission "Take Cover", the rebel outpost Utkarsh is shelled by artillery, and the player has to rush over to defend it from waves of Royal Guard while the Golden Path moves to take out the guns.

* BeeAfraid: Once in a while, you may find a Himalayan honey bee hive hanging from a tree or awning. If you shoot the hive, needless to say they'll be a little pissed off. Which you can use to your advantage if there are enemies around the hive, provided you don't get too close.

* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler:Mohan Ghale murdered Pagan Min's infant daughter. Likewise, the resistance he established was a reactionary religious terrorist group if Sabal is to be believed. The modern incarnation isn't much better]].

** The signature M712, called the [=HS77=], is designed to resemble [[Franchise/StarWars Han Solo]]'s pistol, and its store description has the obligatory reference:

* TakeThat: Dr Noore [[spoiler:intends for her suicide to be this towards the audience of her arena]].

The fourth game in the ''Franchise/FarCry'' series (a thematic sequel, but with references to ''VideoGame/FarCry'', ''VideoGame/FarCry2'', and ''VideoGame/FarCry3''), set in Kyrat, a war-torn fictional nation in the Himalayas.

The fourth game in the ''VideoGame/FarCry'' series (a thematic sequel, but with references to ''VideoGame/FarCry'', ''VideoGame/FarCry2'', and ''VideoGame/FarCry3''), set in Kyrat, a war-torn fictional nation in the Himalayas.

-->-- '''Pagan Min''', summing up the entire game

* ActionBomb: Hurk's exploding, C4-covered monkeys from the Rook Islands appear in at least one hallucination.

** Occasionally Pagan's troops will attack outposts Ajay has liberated.
** In the mission "Return to Sender" the player's first home base is torched by Pagan's army, and the player has to get there quickly to fend them off.
** During the mission "Take Cover" the rebel outpost Utkarsh is shelled by artillery, and the player has to rush over to defend it.

* AscendedExtra: A Yeti is first seen [[spoiler:when Ajay escapes from Durgesh prison at the end of ''Don't Look Down'' and presumably being the one who brought him back to Kyrat]]. Yetis later become a recurring enemy in ''Valley of the Yetis'' DLC.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Assassination targets have about twice as much health as the most heavily armored regular enemies (not counting [[HeavilyArmoredMook Heavies]]). Similarly, Pagan Min[[spoiler:'s body double]], [[spoiler:Sabal]], and Master Sandesh from ''The Valley of the Yetis'' all can survive quite a bit more damage than regular Mooks, though none of them last long against headshots or high caliber rounds.
* AutomaticCrossbows: This game one-ups the recurve bow from ''3'' by adding not only a lower-quality "Hunter's Bow", but one of these as well, built out of the same base as the [=BZ19=] submachine gun - it doesn't get alternate ammo types, but it does get more ammo carried at once, a faster rate of fire, and actual magnified optics rather than just a sight to compensate for the arrow drop.

* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Yuma is a master of MindRape drugs and only faces Ajay when he is under the influence, effectively making her some sort of MasterOfIllusion. This merges with her obsession with Shangri-La; she actually ''becomes'' the famous warrior who discovered Shangri-La (the same guy you play as in the Shangri-La segments) during Ajay's encounter with her.
* BeakAttack: Prepare to suffer ''a lot'' of those whenever you're outside a building, because those Kyrati eagles really don't like humans.

** With the right skill, Ajay can ride elephants into battle. He can also throw meat chunks in order to attract predators, most likely in an attempt to turn them on his human enemies. This is a ''very'' high step up from ''Far Cry 3'', where every animal would either run away or bite you in the neck (though they still do here). As for the Shangri-La episodes, the protagonist of that story can summon a giant spirit tiger to kill demons.

* BossInMookClothing: Rare animal variations encountered in the Fashion Week sidequests play this straight, but regular rhinoceros will do a good number on you. Even with 4 bars of health, you can still be reduced to barely any health if one hits you head on. And they topple cars too, which can instantly kill you. [[MadeOfIron And they take A LOT of bullets]]. And their attacks have a very high chance of knocking human-sized targets to the ground, so getting hit once not only hurts like hell but usually results in a stun-lock that's next to impossible to escape from. [[ThisIsGonnaSuck And of course there is a rare rhino named Karkadann]], which has even more health, deals even more damage, is encountered on a narrow bridge full of cars to throw at you, and needs to be killed with a [[ShortRangeShotgun shotgun of all things.]] Happy hunting.[[note]]Of course you could bring your elephant buddy to level the playfield.[[/note]] The boss part is played especially, painfully straight if you compete in Shanath Arena where one combat mode pits you against a rhino as the final wave, which is a lot nastier than it sounds because you almost never face it with particularly good weapons, tend to be low on ammo, and have little room to outmanoeuvre the relentlessly charging behemoth.

*** As in ''Far Cry 2'', you can take an [[GrenadeLauncher M79]] or a double-barreled SawedOffShotgun as a sidearm.

** The mid-range assault rifles have reduced lethality or functionality. The [=MS16=] now deals as much damage as the entry-level STG-90, [[ArbitraryGunPower despite]] having a bigger round. The F1 can no longer mount an optical sight, leaving it with the low-magnification open reflex sights. This is presumably to ensure that they won't make the new Signature Weapons redundant.

** In a sense, all the named Fashion Week animals count as well - nobody forces you to face them, but they enable great bonuses if you do, namely by unlocking the top tiers of your various bags.

** The Warrior is a silenced assault rifle with good stats and a red-dot sight that's very easy to unlock very early in the game. The Bushman is a silenced assault rifle with slightly better stats and a tactical holo-scope that requires a crazy amount of grinding the game's ThatOneSidequest to acquire, and when you finally have it, you probably won't be too happy to notice it isn't that much better than the Warrior; at least not good enough to justify the countless annoying Shanath Arena battles you had to fight to unlock it. All it has over the Warrior is a better optical attachment for use at range.
** Among the game's many collectibles are the Yalung masks, fifty of which are (often quite well) hidden all over Kyrat. Finding and removing them all awards you... unlimited Guns for Hire tokens, which are not only dirt-cheap to buy and easy to acquire through karma events, grabbing a Yalung mask yields ''three'' tokens notwithstanding, but also utterly useless because the rebel fighters they call in are about as competent in battle as a five-year old that got his hands on a knock-off assault rifle. Most players don't use a single token after the first one during the entire game, or at the very least, just spend them to get a free ride, when they aren't restricted by missions. The much more helpful and also immediate reward for tracking the masks down are rather the very decent 500 experience points you get for each of them.
* PredatorsAreMean: Even worse than in ''VideoGame/FarCry3''. Eagles manage to become a serious threat when climbing radio towers. Tigers and bears will hunt humans aggressively. And don't swim in the lake, it has demon fish.

* {{Qurac}}: Kyrat is this, being a fictional South Asian country under the control of a dictator and his army and full of rampant militancy, with it also being heavily misogynystic in it's backstory.

* RuleOfThree: Killing three friendly civillians in short period will instantly knock Ajay out and the game automatically reload the latest save data.
* RunningGag: Radio DJ Rabi-Ray-Rana really likes to talk about [[ToiletHumour poop]]. He talks about the possibility of Pagan Min having a golden toilet; he talks about how he can't just shit in the woods, he needs a bowl (and a bidet); he muses that if he were a SerialKiller, his CallingCard would be ''shitting on or near his victims'', etc.

* ShaggyDogStory: The ending of the "Kyrat Fashion Week" missions. Once you hunt and kill all the rare animals, Mumu tells you to head to his workshop and start the event up. [[spoiler:Unfortunatly, when you do arrive, the workshop is trashed and a note left by Mumu explains that Pagan found out about the event and had the army destroy the workshop. Mumu was able to escape, but the event has been called off, leaving everything you did for Mumu pointless. What’s even more confusing is that one of the missions is obtainable after taking over Pagan’s fortress, opening up a PlotHole unless you take it over before dealing with Pagan.]]

-->''An M712 enhanced with a silencer, extended magazine, and optics for quicker handling to ensure you always shoot first.''

** Hurk gets heavy on movie references in the last of his DLC missions; for starters, he's stuck in the back of a moving truck with a bomb set on it that will explode if it dips under a certain speed; Ajay outright starts to ask "[[Film/{{Speed}} isn't that the plot to...?]]" before Hurk cuts him off by asking him to "be my Creator/{{Keanu|Reeves}}". He then suggests grabbing a Buzzer to catch up to the truck, finishing with an obligatory "[[Film/{{Predator}} get to da choppa!]]"

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[Music/TheClash Darling, you got to let me know: should I stay or should I go?]]'']]

** The Warrior is a silenced assault rifle with good stats and a red-dot sight that's very easy to unlock very early in the game. The Bushman is a silenced assault rifle with slightly better stats and a tactical holo-scope that requires a crazy amount of grinding the game's ThatOneSidequest to acquire, and when you finally have it, you probably won't be too happy to notice it isn't that much better than the Warrior; at least not good enough to justify the countless annoying Shanath Arena battles you had to fight to unlock it.

* PredatorsAreMean: Even worse than in ''VideoGame/FarCry3''. Eagles manage to become a serious threat when climbing radio towers. Tigers and bears will hunt humans aggressively. And don't swim in the lake, it has piranha.

* TheComputerIsALyingBastard: The skill screen claims that you only need to complete one quest for Yogi & Reggie to unlock the duration boosts for the hunting syringe. It's a lie by omission at best; you actually have to complete ''three'' missions for them to unlock the skill, it's just that the game doesn't tell you beforehand that the first two count as part of the campaign (the first of which introduces Noore) rather than a side-quest.
* ConcealmentEqualsCover: While most of the enemies play the trope straight, the snipers, who can take about half your life meter per shot through almost any object in the game, are a rather jarring subversion. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Naturally, the player's sniper rifles do not have the same ability.]]
** The exception to that last one being the games' three .50-cal sniper rifles: The powerful Z93, the even more powerful SA 50, and the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Z93's ludicrously powerful signature version, the AMR]], all of which can shoot through walls. Considering the fact that the game provides six sniper rifles in total, it's not unreasonable to say this a case of a zig-zagged trope that can be largely averted for the player, [[DiscOneNuke especially since the Z93 is accessible very early in the campaign]], thus making the weaker models that play the trope straight completely redundant.

** Doing Himalayas missions (such as the DLC missions or Hurk's missions) will pit the player against the [[EliteMooks Royal Guard]] much earlier in the game than you're normally supposed to encounter them, and subsequently lets you loot their endgame-level weaponry (most notably the .50 [=BMG=] sniper rifle) within the first couple hours of the game. Even better, unlike ''Far Cry 3'', they're properly added to your inventory and allow you to buy attachments for them as soon as you pick them up, rather than having to wait until they're "officially" unlocked by reaching the second half of the map.
** The Bushman assault rifle exemplifies this best. The player gets the chance to unlock it barely a third into the storyline, long before its stock version, the P416 is introduced. It has an excellent fire rate, solid damage, a silencer, and a decent scope for mid-range sniping, making it a very [[JackOfAllStats versatile weapon]]. It's somewhat balanced out by the fact that Ajay has to reach rank 10 in the [[ThatOneSidequest Shanath Arena]] just to get it; fortunately, it's easier to rank to 10 if you link your Uplay account with the free "arena companion" mobile game, and your Arena progress carries over to a new game, so if you ever restart the game, you just need to unlock access to the Arena to get the Bushman again.

** The player can get the M79 grenade launcher after liberating a mere eight bell towers. It can take out many vehicles in one hit and [[HeavilyArmoredMook Heavies]] in just a couple. Unlike all other grenade/rocket launchers in the game, it fits in a sidearm slot, making it possible to use in vehicles (devastatingly effective for road chases and general mayhem) while keeping a beginner's single primary slot free for a longarm. Plus it reloads more quickly than the other launchers and the player can carry a lot more 40mm grenades than rockets. One of these versatile devices is available for free in the very first real fashion mission at what is probably going to be the second outpost the player liberates, or via an Armored Escort mission, where they always provide this weapon free of charge.
** If the player know where to look you can score a Z-93 sniper rifle within five minutes of unlocking the first outpost. It requires a long hike via Buzzer and Ajay dispatching a handful of dangerous enemies but the Z-93 is more than worth it. It is only slightly less powerful than the signature Anti-Materiel Rifle but can be outfitted with a suppressor, making it much more useful to a stealth-focused player.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: The game's A.I. drives absolutely insane. It's not uncommon to see civilians in their cars come flying out of nowhere and accidentally mowing down Golden Path patrols while going 50 mph, or vice versa. The A.I. does make a decent attempt to brake if they're about to run over you, though.
* DullSurprise: A common complaint about Ajay is that he reacts to some genuinely CRAZY STUFF with less enthusiasm than even Jason Brody's understated reactions.

* EasyExp: Invoked in full force - pretty much everything the player can do out in the open world will yield ExperiencePoints, from discovering new locations over [[GottaCatchThemAll tearing down propaganda posters]] to, naturally, killing enemies (but not animals, strangely, despite most of them being much more dangerous than Pagan's soldiers). It's incrediblly common to max out one's level well before even half of all missions and collectibles are accounted for. In a strange twist for a first-person shooter but consistent with its [[VideoGame/FarCry3 predecessor]], most ways of gaining XP for the game's RPG elements amount to a heavy aversion of RPGsEqualCombat since massacring the Royal Army is actually the least effective source of experience.

** Much like Rook Island, Kyrat is heavily implied to be one the further you get into the game and the more collectibles you dig out. To say nothing what happens to Ajay when he's experimenting with the local plant life.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: The [=SA50=] is the game's top-tier sniper rifle that doesn't become available until the main story is almost over, but it combines the [=ZR93=]'s massive damage and penetration capabilities with the Dragunov's semi-auto rate of fire and can mount a suppressor to boot. You can still make copious use of it for completing any leftover side activities after the credits have rolled, though.
* EliteMooks: The Hunters. These guys are the real deal - unlike the rest of the army, they respect the traditions and culture of Kyrat, and then use those traditions and culture to murder everyone in their way. These guys have brains - they perform stealth (basically, they are resistant to the game-breaking tagging system, and have their own detection system which you won't be warned about), keep their distance and use bows to deal high damage without tracing themselves, shoot at anything close to Ajay that explodes, and can use traditional Kyrat drugs (with some hallucinogens in the mix) to become beastmasters and instantly convert powerful wild animals to their side, forcing Ajay to fight the animals and army instead of having them fight each other like they usually do. It's implied that using bows in a world of guns has honed their skills and brains... or that all the dumb archers were naturally selected already. These guys become player characters in the multiplayer, they're that good with bows and hunting.

*** One of the items you can get is a {{Gamebook|s}} that references the very first ''Far Cry''.

** The "Hunting" and "Eye for an Eye" {{Side Quest}}s require the player to track down specific animal or human enemies and kill them, but like the "Path of the Hunter" and "Wanted Dead" sidequests in ''3'' the deed must be done with a specific weapon. This is in stark contrast to most of the game, which encourages the player to use whatever tactics and equipment they see fit. Stealth-centric players aren't likely to ever ''touch'' a shotgun during the campaign, but some of these side missions require it.
** The "optional objectives" variant is featured on some assassination missions, where an extra cash bonus can be obtained by hiding the target's body in a specific location before fleeing the area afterward.

* ArrowsOnFire: Army Hunters again, as mentioned under AnnoyingArrows. You like to snipe unsuspecting outpost guards while squatting in a nearby bush? Nice and cozy, sure - [[OhCrap until some sneaky hunter you didn't notice before sets you, your favorite bush and the entire undergrowth around it on fire with a single arrow out of nowhere]]. [[FromBadToWorse Which also tends to alert everyone still alive in the outpost to your position]]. There are two small upsides, however. First one: hunters don't just nock fire arrows like their normal ones, they do an elaborate twirl beforehand that looks really cool but leaves them open for retaliation, if you're lucky enough to spot the bastard before he turns you into a crispy pincushion. Second one: players can deploy bows and fire arrows themselves and thus potentially turn these tactics against their enemies. [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard Nothing more satisfying than offing a hunter with a flaming]] [[MemeticMutation arrow to the knee.]]

* TheBeastmaster: With the right skill, Ajay can ride elephants into battle. He can also throw meat chunks in order to attract predators, most likely in an attempt to turn them on his human enemies. This is a ''very'' high step up from ''Far Cry 3'', where every animal would either run away or bite you in the neck (though they still do here). As for the Shangri-La episodes, the protagonist of that story can summon a giant spirit tiger to kill demons.

* CoOpMultiplayer: Hurk from ''Far Cry 3'' returns as a secondary character who a second player can assist you as after a point.

** Several sellable items qualify as continuity nods as well: A butchered wahine (with Vaas' head), conflict diamonds from Bowa-Seko, a knockoff [=GPS=] with a map of Rook Island, and malaria pills, to name a few.

** The game attacks the idea of FreudianExcuse and MoralityPet as an enabler and/or self-justification for doing terrible actions. Amita and Sabal both fall into self-justifications when [[spoiler:they decide to turn on each other in your respective branch of choices]]. De Pleur likewise uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician; so long as he can concentrate on her as an innocent in his life, he can completely bury his wrongdoings psychologically. Pagan Min himself {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this, stating AtLeastIAdmitIt regarding his brutal crackdown of the Golden Path and the villagers who support them by noting [[spoiler:that his daughter Lakshmana was killed by Mohan, the leader of the Golden Path]].

** Finally, the game uses the ultimate result of its balance of power missions to ruthlessly parody the concept of a moral choice system in video gaming. Ultimately, neither [[spoiler:rival vision for Kyrat benefits the people,]] especially considering one is [[spoiler:a nation consumed by religious fanaticism and purges while the other had Kyrat becoming something akin to Pol Pot's Cambodia]]. The third option really isn't any better: [[spoiler:If Ajay takes over (by killing Amita and Sabal), nothing changes. He doesn't become king, the Royal Army doesn't surrender or leave, and you still keep fighting as though Pagan was alive (albeit in an eternal coma, FINALLY). It's implied that Ajay's only plan is to keep using the Royal Army as an excuse plot and target practice. Did you ever have a plan to better Kyrat, or were you just there to keep killing people to make money to buy guns to kill people in bigger, more badass ways?]]

** [[spoiler:The player can also kill Pagan even if they pick the "good" ending. If Ajay has an RPG on him the player can shoot down his chopper before he flies off, and then find his body down the mountain where it can be looted for quite a bit of cash]].
** During "Truth and Justice", the player is intended to chase Pagan down and kill him using a gyrocopter. If the player has the right perks, [[spoiler: they can leap from the copter and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AUENzR-sxY shank him]], getting a unique animation where Ajay rips off Eric's wig.]]

* DifficultButAwesome: The [[AsTheGoodBookSays LK1018]] rocket launcher has a scope which [[PlayerGuidedMissile guides]] the rocket to where the crosshair is pointing, so long as the player is aiming through it. Undoubtedly useful, but it comes with the risk of leaving yourself exposed and unable to retaliate to enemy fire as the player direct the rocket to its target. One needs to secure a well-hidden vantage point before using it.

** Hurk gets heavy on movie references in the last of his DLC missions; for starters, he's stuck in the back of a moving truck with a bomb set on it that will explode if it dips under a certain speed; Ajay outright starts to ask "[[Film/{{Speed}} isn't that the plot to...?]] before Hurk cuts him off by asking him to "be my Creator/{{Keanu|Reeves}}''. He then suggests grabbing a Buzzer to catch up to the truck, finishing with an obligatory "[[Film/{{Predator}} get to da choppa!]]"