14 DAY TRIAL // Far Cry 3 was seen by many as the best video game of 2012 and Vaas, the main villain, is one of the most memorable enemies that players have faced during the same period.
But the development team working at Ubisoft originally had a very different version for the character, which focused more on physical power and his ability to intimidate rather than on his craziness.
Dan Hay, executive producer on Far Cry 3, tells IGN that, “We knew what we wanted Vaas to be. We knew that we wanted it to be emotive. We knew that we wanted this character to be physical and to be…charming? Hard to look at. Almost like the sun. It’s impressive, but you can’t stare at it.”
The first incarnation of the character was called Bull and was half blind, with elaborate tribal tattoos and the design was dropped when Ubisoft first contacted actor Michael Mando to do the voice work.
Ubisoft then created another character called Pyro, which focused on the color red and had horrific burns on his body, which drove him towards madness.
When Mando was officially chosen to also serve as the model for the main villain, with the team ready to re-create his face and body, Vaas Montenegro was born.
The producer adds, “you can look at the sentence and say, ‘That's a cool idea,’ but there's going to be no emotion - it's not going to resonate with people - until you get someone like Michael Mando to come in and audition.”
Far Cry 3 sees the player explore a number of tropical islands, doing missions and side quests, gaining experience and developing their set of items and weapons, before they face the main villains of the story.
Far Cry 3 can be played on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.