Just Cause 4 Reveal Trailer - E3 2018

E3 2018: JUST CAUSE 4 FIRST LOOK: PHYSICS LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

BY RYAN MCCAFFREY Just Cause 4 reminds me of Tim Allen’s old standup act, where he’d complain about a power tool in his yard or garage not having enough power, and then the punchline would be, “So I rewired it” with that animalistic grunt for a chaser. Just Cause has always been a potent sandbox -- a power tool in its own right -- rife with possibility for players to wreak untold havoc and destruction. But Just Cause 4 doesn’t just offer more ways to wreck shop. Instead, developer Avalanche Studios rewired the whole damn thing.

And by that I mean they threw away their old game engine, which had been added on and upgraded to for years, and installed the bespoke APEX engine -- complete with physics-based rendering, actual wind, and a totally new animation system. And though I didn’t get to play it myself, I did see the team’s most recent build running in real-time on a PC, and it is no joke. When I sat down to see Just Cause 4, I expected more of the playground of destruction that the series is known for. But I honestly wasn’t expecting Avalanche to have taken it this far. There’s even a tornado! (More on that shortly.)

Next came the grand finale of the demo: the tornado.

These massive weather events -- blizzards, sandstorms, and lightning storms are apparently also in Just Cause 4 -- are comprised of actual physics. So yes, things get sucked up into the tornado as they should, from random debris to cars to passenger jetliners. It’s a hell of a sight to behold, honestly. I’ve seen many games tout their physics in the past -- some of them even doing so impressively -- but I think Just Cause 4 might have the most impressive large-scale physics system I’ve ever seen. The Black Hand is evidently trying to keep the tornado from getting to the capital city, and for some reason Rico wants that to happen, so Shakir went around destroying several wind cannons that were keeping the twister at bay.