Lack of a story not a problem for Just Cause 3

If you have played Just Cause 3 already you know the story is nothing to write home about. In fact, the game appears to know where the real fun lies, and therefore, requires you to do a lot of the side missions in order to unlock more parts of the story. The question should be: how can a game like Just Cause 3 – which has been receiving 80+ from most outlets, our included – get so much praise despite a huge story problem?

It is simple really. Just Cause 3 prides itself on destruction and mayhem, and does it incredibly well. Outside of some troublesome load times, Just Cause 3 is actually one of my favorite pick-up-and-play titles of this generation. I can hope in for 10 to 20 minutes, liberate a village, have a ton of fun doing it, and not even realize I haven’t progressed the story.

Let’s face it. No one cares about the story in Just Cause 3. If they did, they probably are not still playing and won’t bother reading this article. Avalanche Studios has done such a great job creating a destructable playground with plenty of side challenges that it is easy to forget there is actually a story to begin with. The first time I was pressed by the game to finish some liberation missions before continuing the story, I actually haven’t been back – at the time of writing, this statement is true. Because of our delayed posting, I have now almost completed the story in Just Cause 3.

Between using my parachute, grappling to helicopters, and creating some magnificent explosions, I cannot say I’ve every yearned for more out of this title. A better story would have been nice, but even that would have been overlooked by the sheer number of things you can do in this game. Nothing, not even a good story – perhaps a great one, but not good – could be more enjoyable than moving from army base to army base, town to town, liberating the people and adding to my rebel stockpile.

It is pure fun, something many games forgot how to do. Avalanche Studios hasn’t, and that is why despite a bad story, the game can get such great scores!