Just Cause 4 Reviews
With its extreme weather scenarios and the familiar, over-the-top usage of Rico's grapple gun, wingsuit and parachute, Just Cause 4 is the most ridiculous and best it has ever been.
Just Cause 4's thrills give way to repetition and a dull mission structure, but it's a ridiculous roller coaster while in full swing.
Although that said, even if the bugs and AI were fixed, it would still leave behind a version of Just Cause that barely changes anything you actually do since the third edition, yet has made every aspect of doing it so astronomically more annoying. What went wrong? How did such an established and entertaining series end up in such a quagmire? Gosh I’d love to know.
Just Cause 4 has some cool ideas and nifty gameplay mechanics that are completely undercut but its own poor mission structure and game design.
There's explosive fun to be had in Just Cause 4, but it's mostly a rehash of old ideas.
Just Cause 4 is just a better Just Cause 3, and that's not a bad thing, but it feels that many elements were added just 'cause rather than seeking to revolutionize Rico Rodriguez's many revolutions. New weather elements hardly play into the moment to moment gameplay, even if they make for some pretty epic moments during a few campaign missions. It's a physics playground of the highest order, but rarely does enough with the clever mechanics in it's repetitive mission structure, whether it's the bland challenges scattered on the map or the increasingly dull and overly long Region Strikes. Just Cause 4 has some great ideas, massive explosions, and much needed improvements over the last game, but it can't quite step out of the shadow of its own idea that pure and utter chaos should be the headliner, making the massive open world feel less compelling and more, well, just 'cause.
Just Cause 4 is another solid entry in a franchise that continues to bring me hours of over-the-top, hilarious action. It doesn't do enough to evolve the franchise, and doesn't make enough use of the new weather effects, but the new tools available to Rico and the improvements in customization options is well-worth the price of entry.
Featuring a deep and diverse world, addictive action gameplay, and a fantastic new engine, Just Cause 4 is easily the best game in the series, hands down.
I adored the second game, dealt with the third one, but this fourth entry just lost its appeal far too quickly. It might be time to rethink and restructure the series, or perhaps move on to a new idea.
Taking more of a narrative approach while not really offering all that much narrative but definitely adding a little more marvel in the form of cataclysmic weather events as the major antagonist, Just Cause 4 is a shade more than just another Just Cause game. The major gameplay loop of orchestrating chaos remains true to the series but it is meted out just a bit more slowly while unlocking the goodies to perform your opus just a bit more freely. The real shine of the game comes from just whipping about the game world transitioning between grappling, wing suiting, parachuting, carjacking, plane-jacking, and inviting the player to turn the entire island into their own X-games playground on steroids.
Just Cause 4 is more a technical demonstration of the engine's capabilities than an exciting modern game. If you are waiting for an interesting missions, nice story and fresh decisions, then you just will not get them. The game may be fun for the first couple of hours, especially due to explosions and acrobatics, but then it gets pretty boring.
Review in Russian | Read full review
It pains me to speak ill of a series I’ve thoroughly enjoyed in the past, but Just Cause 4 is a disappointing extension that needs to aim a lot higher and is, frankly, kind of boring. In the climate of exceptional games that have preceded it this year, it simply does not hold up.
Despite issues in several areas, Just Cause is ultimately about the scale of its action moments over which players have complete control, and the freeform sandbox in which players run amok, and to these ends Just Cause 4 is the best in the series.
Just Cause 4 delivers a truly astounding open world that lacks much to do beyond “blow up more gas tanks.” A shallow story, an absence of interesting NPCs, and frustrating mission design make for an uninvolving game that sometimes feels like a job to play. There is fun to be had in Just Cause 4, but only if you stage a revolution against what the game wants you to do.
Just Cause 4's traversal system can be wonderfully entertaining, and the chaotic, explosion-sim physics in play are frequently exhilarating, but they're manacled to a game that has absolutely no idea how best to use them. What's the point in giving players an array of tools that lets them cause wanton destruction on a gargantuan scale, and then designing a campaign full of drab, copy-pasted missions that barely require you to use them? It's a bit like getting the coolest BMX on the market for Christmas, but then your Mum tells you you're only allowed to ride it around the garden where she can keep an eye on you. Cheers, Mum.
Just Cause 4 is an enjoyable ride with a memorable and exciting campaign, full of thrilling gameplay moments. However, the rest of the game is a compilation of outdated mission design and poor technical performance. My advice: stick to the campaign for a fun fifteen hours and forget about everything else.
Beautiful, explosive, and endlessly creative - but hampered by similarities to its predecessor, some repetitive mission design, and not many leaps forward in its core mechanics.
The latest adventure of Rico Rodriguez, with its good dose of adrenaline and over-the-top action, forces our hero to embark on a real impossible mission to dismantle the dangerous Project Illapa. Despite the lack of variety and the exaggerated length of the campaign, Just Cause 4 still manages to push the boundaries of players' imagination, dragging them once again into a world of destruction, explosions and pure chaos.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There’s plenty to do in Just Cause 4, be it the actual campaign or simply wreaking havoc across the land.