"Kyrat native, devoted son and Pagan Min's guest of honor." It sounds groovy.

Jun 19, 2014 07:47 GMT  ·  By

Ubisoft has offered us a first look at Ajay Ghale, the protagonist of the upcoming first-person shooter Far Cry 4, who players will get to ride elephants through.

Players will assume control of the Kyrati native in the next entry in Ubisoft's open-world adventure series, stirring mayhem all over Kyrat, but once again, the spotlight is shining brighter on the game's antagonist, Pagan Min.

The image above is the first depiction of the protagonist's face, described as a "Kyrat native, devoted son and Pagan Min's guest of honor," as the intro cinematic revealed during E3 2014 was all delivered from the first-person perspective that the game plays in.

The story debuts with Ajay returning to his home in order to scatter his mother's ashes, but things go south, as they tend to do in Far Cry games, and he runs into his old friend, Pagan Min, who turns out to also be a major villain.

During its press conference event last week at E3, Sony announced an exclusive PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 multiplayer feature called Keys to Kyrat, which enables owners of Far Cry 4 to invite their PlayStation Network friends to join them in the adventure, even if they don't have a copy of the game.

Far Cry 4's new multiplayer features don't stop there, as developer Ubisoft also integrated co-operative play with the campaign, allowing a friend to join you in the game world in seamless drop-in, drop-out fashion.

Far Cry 3's multiplayer was a completely separate experience from the campaign, so this innovative approach could turn out to be one of the most exciting things about the upcoming game.

In case you're wondering why that might be, there's a Far Cry 4 coop gameplay video that shows how awesome it is to go on a rampage while riding an elephant and having a friend stealthily snipe peskier opponents and sow confusion in their midst.

During E3, Alex Hutcshinson, the game's director, said that the team was very close to adding a female playable character for co-op, which would have been a first in the series. He said that the devs opted to forgo the option on account of the additional workload it would have entailed, but promised they would plan ahead in the future.

Far Cry 4 is scheduled to ship on November 18 in North America, and on November 21 in Europe, for the PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 platforms.