If you’ve ever wondered who the mysterious Jackal in Far Cry 2 really is, Ubisoft now – 13 years later – provides an answer.
It’s hard to imagine Far Cry without comic-strip villains who spend minutes on end indulging in rambling monologues. And before Vaas Montenegro, Pagan Min, Joseph Seed and Anton Castillo, there was one who is often forgotten: the Jackal from Far Cry 2.
Since his appearance in the Ubisoft shooter released in 2008, numerous fans have wondered what the mysterious arms dealer is all about – or whether he is even real and not just a figment of the protagonist’s imagination. Almost 13 years after the release of Far Cry 2, the game’s game director Clint Hocking finally sheds some light on the mystery.
If you are interested in the latest part of the series, then you should take a look at our detailed preview of Far Cry 6shortly before its release.
The villain from part 2 is the hero from part 1
Clint Hocking confirms in an interview with IGN what many fans have suspected for years: The villain from Far Cry 2 is the hero from Far Cry – so the Jackal is really Jack Carver!
Of course, there were quite a few clues that led players to speculate. In Far Cry 2, we have the task of hunting down the notorious arms dealer and are sent to a fictitious African country to do so. In order to track down the Jackal, we work together with various hostile factions and also have to be careful that our dewy malaria infection doesn’t kill us.
Far Cry 2 doesn’t really provide us with much information about the Jackal – according to Clint Hocking, the villain in the game is more of a McGuffin and simple motivation to progress. The little info about the arms dealer is limited to the fact that the Jackal has a military history, deals in – well – weapons and wants to be paid exclusively in blood diamonds.
This, of course, overlaps with the hero of the first Far Cry: Jack Carver also comes from the military, occasionally earns his living with weapons and is handed a box full of conflict diamonds at the end of Far Cry Instincts. And then, yes, there are the textures for the Jackal’s character model, which is titled “jackcarver” … making the big secret little secret.
Hocking, on behalf of Ubisoft, now confirms the fan theory around Jack Carver and the Jackal for the first time in an interview with IGN:
Jack Carver in the first Far Cry was this shady smuggler, a crook who deals guns. The idea was that [the Jackal is Carver], around ten years after he saw whatever he saw on the island. Whether it was under the influence of drugs or post-traumatic stress disorder – maybe it was real. The idea was that ten years later [Jack Carver] has taken his smuggling business to the next level and he’s involved in the conflict [of Far Cry 2].
The next Far Cry villain for part 6
After the Jackal, Vaas Montenegro, Pagan Min and Joseph Seed, Anton Castillo is the next big villain of Far Cry. The dictator of the island archipelago Yara is played by Giancarlo Esposito (The Mandalorian, Better Call Saul, The Boys) and is the antagonist of Dani Rojas in Far Cry 6.
Far Cry 6 will be released on 7 October 2021 for PC and consoles.
