The third and final part of Just Cause 3‘s Air, Land and Sea DLC combo launches tomorrow on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Square Enix and Avalanche Studios have confirmed. The August 11 date is only applicable to season holders however, with everyone else required to wait until August 18 to take their adventures to the open water. 4a5q44

So, what can fans of Avalanche’s sandbox playground expect with the Bavarium Sea Heist? Well, like Sky Fortress and Mech Land Assault before it, Sea Heist introduces some brand new, very destructive toys for you to play around with, this time coming in the form of the ‘Loochador’ rocket boat and the ‘Eden Spark’ gun, which, as the name suggests, “unleashes devastating bolts of lightning,” so says Avalanche.

• Drive the custom made ROCKET BOAT “LOOCHADOR” and test its multi-lock missile launchers and miniguns against the Black Hand fleet.
• Unleash devastating bolts of LIGHTNING on your enemies with the new powerful “EDEN SPARK” GUN.
• Infiltrate the mysterious “STINGRAY” RESEARCH STATION and liberate the Medici coastal waters of Scolio.

It appears as if you’re going to need all of that extra firepower too, as Sea Heist’s newest mission tasks Rico with infiltrating Stingray, an offshore research facility run by the shady Eden Corporation just off the coast of West Medici.

The Bavarium Sea Heist is available to buy separately for $6 or, if you’ve got the cash spare, you can still pick up the expansion for $25. Avalanche has yet to confirm if it intends to release additional DLC for Just Cause 3 in the future, but we’ll keep you posted once we hear more.

Just Cause 3‘s latest slice of DLC may already be available for the game’s season holders, but the add-on content launches in full for all owners of the game tomorrow and to celebrate, publisher Square Enix has released a new launch trailer showing off all the cool things you can do in the gargantuan mech that can only be described as a construction vehicle on legs.

Preceding the destructive in-game footage though is a weird (but in a good way) cel-shaded short featuring Rico Rodriguez taking on a military-grade helicopter by way of literally jumping into it hundreds of feet in the air. As you do.

Anyway, see below for all the new features coming with Mech Land Assault.

• Pilot two types of powerful Mech and drive them anywhere in Medici.
• Unleash the Mech’s Gravitational Remote Influence Projector or GRIP to attract and hurl objects at your enemies.
• Jump and smash helicopters from the sky or ground pound tanks with the GRIPS’s Force Pulse attack.
• Prove your skills and earn upgrades in Mech arena challenges.
• Call in a Rebel Mech buddy for extra firepower when the going gets tough.
• Includes a powerful new energy weapon, the Bavarium Power Core rifle.

Mech Land Assault is the second DLC of developer Avalanche’s Sky, Land and Sea trio of add-ons for Just Cause 3, which concludes near the end of Summer with the Bavarium Sea Heist which, if its predecessors are anything to by, will be equally outlandish.

Available to Season owners from today, June 3, Square Enix has unleashed the riotous first trailer for Mech Land Assault, Just Cause 3‘s second of three mainline expansion packs.

Priced at $11.99 (€11.99/£9.49), the DLC will ship Rico Rodriguez off to the idyllic island of Lacrima, where he hopes to expose the Black Hand and their abandoned eDEN research base. What our gun-toting adrenaline junkie doesn’t realize, though, is that the facility houses giant mechs, and today’s explosive snippet teases some of their gravity-defying abilities.

Like Metal Gear Solid on steroids, Rico is able to attract and hurl objects with the Gravitational Remote Influence Projector, resulting in some truly jaw-dropping fireworks.

Here’s an overview of Mech Land Assault:

• Pilot two types of powerful Mech and drive them anywhere in Medici.
• Unleash the Mech’s Gravitational Remote Influence Projector or “GRIP” to attract and hurl objects at your enemies.
• Jump and smash helicopters from the sky or ground pound tanks with the GRIPS’s “Force Pulse” attack.
• Prove your skills and earn upgrades in Mech arena challenges.
• Call in a Rebel Mech buddy for extra firepower when the going gets tough.
• Includes a powerful new energy weapon, the Bavarium Power Core rifle.

Mech Land Assault is available to today, June 3 for Season holders. All other Just Cause 3 players will have to wait one more week before the expansion rolls out for all s, but you can whet your appetite with the slew of action shots, below.

Air, Land and Sea. That’s the title of Just Cause 3‘s appropriately bonkers expansion , and after Square Enix and Avalanche caused chaos in the air with Sky Fortress earlier this year, we now have word of the second mainline installment for the action sequel.

Entitled Mech Land Assault, the DLC will be priced at $11.99 (€11.99/£9.49) as a standalone purchase – the expansion , meanwhile, is available for $24.99/€24.99/£19.99 – and is set to take place on the all-new and beautiful island of Lacrima.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though, after Rico uncovers a mysterious and abandoned research facility housing giant mechs. Ruling over that small army of bipedal machines is the Black Hand, and in the screenshots above, you can get a glimpse of the explosive action that awaits.

Here’s an overview, courtesy of Square Enix:

• Pilot two types of powerful Mech and drive them anywhere in Medici.
• Unleash the Mech’s Gravitational Remote Influence Projector or “GRIP” to attract and hurl objects at your enemies.
• Jump and smash helicopters from the sky or ground pound tanks with the GRIPS’s “Force Pulse” attack.
• Prove your skills and earn upgrades in Mech arena challenges.
• Call in a Rebel Mech buddy for extra firepower when the going gets tough.
• Includes a powerful new energy weapon, the Bavarium Power Core rifle.

Just Cause 3 Season holders can expect Mech Land Assault to deploy on June 3, before opening up for all s on June 10.

Just Cause 3 takes to the skies on March 8 with its Sky Fortress DLC, publisher Square Enix has announced. Those that have purchased the game’s Air, Land and Sea expansion will be able to the update next week, and the DLC will go on general sale a week after that on March 15.

But how exactly do you even set foot on a giant floating fortress occupied by the game’s antagonistic eDEN corporation? Not to worry – Rico’s getting an his wingsuit as part of the DLC, which fits the suit with rocket-powered propulsion and enables upgrades to add the likes of shoulder-mounted guns and rocket launchers. Because you know, this game wasn’t crazy enough already.

Anyway, Avalanche Studios’ Tobias Andersson is looking forward to seeing the kinds of mass destruction players will be able to cause with the new wingsuit, also revealing that the new features will carry over to the main game.

The new content will fundamentally alter how our players approach the game – we’re really looking forward to seeing how fans adapt to the new Wingsuit. The new story missions, challenges and gadgets that can be taken into the main game really mix things up, and we can’t wait for players to revisit Medici and start getting even more creative.

In preparation for the release of Sky Fortress next week, Avalanche is rolling out a patch tomorrow that aims to fix a few lingering problems:

• Reduced initial loading time and in-game loading screens by 20-50%
• Fixed several memory leaks resulting in crashes
• Reduced a number of random crashes v
• Improved streaming of game world
• Some performance optimizations related to hitches and stuttering
• Implemented DLC system in preparation of the Air, Land and Sea packages

Still haven’t gotten around to destroying everything that moves in Just Cause 3‘s sandbox playground? Check out our review here to see what we thought of it.

Ever the action series to take the genre’s rulebook and blow it to kingdom come, the debut trailer for Just Cause 3‘s Sky Fortress DLC adds a sci-fi mix to Avalanche’s barnstorming threequel.

Set for release at some point in March, the add-on will be priced at $11.99 (€11.99/£9.49) and is the first of three expansions launching under Just Cause 3‘s Air, Land & Sea season . As you’ve no doubt already guessed, today’s sizzle reel – which includes jetpacks and colossal aircrafts – heralds the arrival of Air.

Further down the line, the studio plans to launch Land Mech Assault, itself billed as “another new series of missions that introduce a unique new vehicle that can be carried over into the main game; a heavily armoured mech armed with a gravity gun.”

Per Avalanche:

“If Just Cause 3 is over-the-top action then the Air, Land and Sea Expansion aims to stand on its shoulders and reach even higher,” said Tobias Andersson, Senior Producer at Avalanche Studios. “An incredible amount of time has been spent ensuring every new item is fully integrated into the main game and can be used during existing missions. Rico’s new Bavarium Wingsuit will fundamentally alter the core gameplay of Just Cause 3 and we can’t wait to see the crazy stunts that players perform with it.”

Priced at $11.99 individually, Just Cause 3‘s season can be picked up for $24.99 (€24.99/£19.99) and will entitle you to all three expansions, which are set to launch for PS4, Xbox One and PC by the end of summer 2016.

Avalanche Studios is ringing in the New Year by preparing Just Cause 3 fans for the game’s first major expansion pack, Sky Fortress.

Said to be “nearing completion,” the developer took to Steam to post a comprehensive update on post-launch plans for the open-world actioner, and Sky Fortress will jump-start that wave of extras with new features and a host of new ways to light up the skies of Medici. Acting as the first of three planned expansions arriving under the Land, Sea, Air season , here’s an update from the Just Cause 3 team.

“For those of you who picked up the XL Edition, or for anyone interested in the Air, Land and Sea Expansion we announced earlier last year, we’ve got some exciting news for you all,” Square Enix said in an update on the game’s Steam page. “Whilst one side of the studio is working on patches, fixes and optimisations for the game, which will continue to roll out over the coming weeks, the other side is busily bringing this additional content to life.

“The first pack – ‘Sky Fortress’ which is the ‘Air’ pack, is nearing completion, and will bring new missions, features and other exciting surprises to the skies of Medici. We’re play testing this content right now so watch this space for more news on this very soon.”

But additional content wasn’t the only topic of conversation in Avalanche’s update, who pointed to pages for both EU and NA should s experience any glitches or problems in the game. As our review noted, Just Cause 3‘s open world is hamstrung by performance issues, though the studio assured players that fixes and extra patches are inbound.

No word yet on a release for Just Cause 3‘s Sky Fortress add-on, though it appears to be imminent.

Had you lost patience with the numerous bugs that cropped up in Just Cause 3 on release day? Reports of memory leaks on the PC version, awfully long loading times on consoles (Xbox One in particular) and poor optimisation became numerous enough after launch to make Square Enix and Avalanche Studios sit up and take notice.

But not to worry, Square Enix have heard your complaints and announced the existence of a patch which aims to fix most of the game’s major problems when it hits this week.

You can read the main points below, but for the full patch notes, you can head to the game’s official site here.

We’re pleased to announce that Patch 1.02 is coming to PC & consoles this week. The patch will be hitting PS4 in Europe first this morning, rolling out across other consoles over the next day or two, pending final approvals, with the PC version landing on Friday.

Since launch, we’ve been pouring through your reviews and comments to help us prioritise our fixes accordingly. We know many of you have been patiently awaiting today’s patch, and this update is part of a much larger plan to optimize and improve the game. Thanks for your patience here.

In the 1.02 patch (132.1MB), you can expect:
+ Significantly improved loading times
+ Optimizations to online stats
+ General stability fixes
+ Fixed an issue related to challenges, wherein vehicles sometimes disappeared when starting a challenge
+ Fixed issues related to screen resizing and closing the game window before the game has fully started up [PC ONLY] —
To those of you still having issues, rest assured we are working hard to alleviate these, and are listening very closely to everything that’s being said.

If one of the problems you’ve been experiencing isn’t mentioned above, try not to be too disheartened – Square says that they’re constantly monitoring and taking note of any additional problems gamers are having.

If you haven’t picked up Just Cause 3 yet, you should – we thought it was an absolute blast to play, despite a few kinks and falling ever-so-short of high expectations.

In light of Just Cause 3‘s technical issues, particularly those found on PC, developer Avalanche Studios has asked for patience as it begins rolling out a solution.

News of the bugs and unexpected framerate dips first reared their head just yesterday, with those on Xbox One noting that the game’s framerate would dip as low as 17fps in sections. Indeed, Digital Foundry’s damning report was echoed in our own review, though now that Avalanche has offered a response, we can expect a patch to arrive in due time.

For now, here’s the official word from the developer via Steam:

“We know that some of you are encountering some technical issues – we’re looking into them all and we’re fully committed to providing you the best possible experience. We know you’re going to want specific information on when a patch will land and what will be fixed – we would love to give you that information, and we will as soon as we have it.

“But right now, a little over one day since we launched, we have huge numbers of players in our enormous game world and we’re monitoring all the data coming in. We need a little bit of time to recreate some of these issues and build fixes. Rest assured though – we are fully committed to making Just Cause 3 as awesome as possible.”

No word yet on the inevitable console patch for Just Cause 3, but we’ll keep you updated as we learn more. In related news, Avalanche has begun sending out the feelers for new talent as it starts work on two “action-packed” sandbox games.

In recruitment Tweets posted yesterday by founder of Avalanche Studios Christofer Sundberg, a tease has been dropped that work on follow up titles to Just Cause 3 is already underway. Readers will note that their latest game released just days ago, but it seems that Avalanche are certainly not keen to take their foot off the gas just yet.

In the Twitter advert, Avalanche send readers to their careers site which gives a little more detail about what they are looking for from applicants, as well as offering a few further hints about just what they’ll be working on. The vacancies cover ground the developer’s Stockholm and New York sites, with various allusions towards work on  an “exciting and unique high-profile unannounced title.”

Yesterday we launched #JustCause3. Want to our team to help us create two new action-packed sandbox games? https://t.co/yWeC8DIWKS

— Christofer Sundberg (@CHSundberg) December 2, 2015

There’s obviously no word yet on exactly what these games will eventually entail, but a mention in an ment for a Stockholm-based ‘World Designer’ confirms more open-world titles are at the forefront of Avalanche’s attentions. Could this be a tease towards Just Cause 4? Only time will tell…

In the meantime, why not check out our review of Just Cause 3, and see whether an addition to this sandbox series would be a wise move.

Keen to pick up Avalanche’s explosive sequel Just Cause 3? You may want to hold off for a while. Digital Foundry has published a video essay pinpointing the raft of technical issues in the open-world title, with everything from framerate drops to glitches affecting the gameplay experience.

Unlike Rocksteady’s turbulent PC launch of Batman: Arkham Knight earlier in the year, Just Cause 3‘s early problems are by no means exclusive to one platform, with scores of Reddit s reporting disappearing oceans, freezing and other spontaneous bugs. Early analysis claims that the Xbox One version appears to be the worse affected, where the framerate can reportedly drop as low as 17fps, while crashing is also cause for concern.

Per Digital Foundry:

“Avalanche pushes the boat out there with the Havok [physics engine] middleware, but this does cause performance issues on both consoles. Blowing up a bridge with C4 explosives causes a mid-20s dip on both machines as the structure crumbles into its component parts. Bearing in mind that not a huge amount is happening from a visual perspective otherwise, it does suggest that the Jaguar U architecture of both consoles is being pushed to its limit.”

At the time of writing, neither Avalanche nor Square Enix have released an official statement regarding these alarming issues, but we’ll keep you posted as this story develops.

Launching today across PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC, we found Just Cause 3 to be a rip-roaring thrill ride in our review, but one that isn’t without its technical faults.

After a middling debut that showed hints of potential greatness, Avalanche took a major step forward with its second Just Cause game. The result was a fantastic sequel, which did most things right and brought an almost unparalleled fun factor to the table. It was big, raucous, and full of B-movie charm, with addicting gameplay that focused on blowing shit up.

Perhaps the best part of Just Cause 2, though, was its grappling hook and parachute combo. Together, they combined to create an incredibly fun and memorable way to traverse the game’s gigantic, environmentally varied and beautiful-looking map. Hell, being able to grapple up to the top of a cliff and then jump off of it was just as fun as shooting propane tanks and making enemies go boom. The same was true of using the grapple hook as a zip line and tether, so that main character Rico Rodriguez could quickly move from point-to-point while remaining in the air.

Needless to say, the game was full of possibilities, many of which came from its incredible traversal mechanics. Of course, the gunplay, explosions, helicopters, jets and stunts helped, too.

Now, two years into the latest generation of consoles, Avalanche is back with Just Cause 3, an explosive sequel that many have been looking forward to. It’s a gigantic game in size, scale and scope, but it suffers from technical problems and questionable design decisions that make us wonder whether the developer was perhaps too ambitious with its latest project.

Just Cause 3 begins with a bang, as our special agent protagonist, Rico “Suarez” Rodriguez jumps out of a helicopter and plummets towards his tropical and Italian-inspired homeland of Medici. He’s not there for pleasure, though, because duty calls and an asshole of a general needs to be taken out of power. The people are oppressed, the land is in turmoil and happiness is a rarity, so something must be done. After all, the leader is a maniac.

Medici, itself, is insanely large, so much so that you won’t believe your eyes. It’s not made up of a mere couple of islands, or even three, and is instead comprised of a massive amount of islands, provinces and continent-like landmasses. Thankfully, fast travel is available, although it’s costly until you liberate full provinces which is no small task. Then again, this is a series that prides itself on having jet planes and helicopters available for hijacking and purchase, so those options are preferred.

Exploring every inch of this world will take you hours, and you’ll find things to gawk at everywhere. The land is varied, with different regions offering their own geography (including mountains), and there’s plenty of beautiful-looking sea to traverse. Rico is also really good at swimming, although the deep blue waters that surround his home are surprisingly empty in of fish and, at times, even flora. Enemies have no problem patrolling it and pumping gun fire into its depths, though.

The main crux in Just Cause 3, though, remains what was so good about its predecessor: the parachute and grappling hook combo. It’s back again, although it doesn’t feel as tight as it did before and moving around the environment using it isn’t as seamless as it once was. Something has changed, and not for the better, yet it remains fun regardless.

A new wingsuit is also added to the fold, allowing for much more exhilarating entrances from above. Being able to jump off of a high plateau (or jet plane) and glide through the air towards a settlement can be a rush, although it takes some time to get used to and doesn’t control perfectly at all times.

Alongside the wingsuit comes a bevy of new challenges, though only some use it for their score-asg tasks. You can expect to be asked to glide through rings (while aiming for red bullseyes), drive bomb-laden vehicles from point A to point B as quickly as possible and complete races in different types of vehicles. Of course, being that Just Cause 3 is much like its predecessor, in that it’s filled with the potential for explosive chaos, players will also find themselves piloting attack choppers and shooting up as many explosive items as they possibly can in a given time limit, be it fuel tanks, satellite dishes, or whatever else.

Challenges are rated differently here than you’d normally expect, because you’re scored in gears and five are up for grabs each time. This is different from the normal three star rating system that we see employed in both console and mobile games and the game is better for it. Gears are helpful, too, because they’re automatically used to unlock different mods when earned.

Mods are what you would expect, too, because they modify, alter and improve your gear. There’s a large variety of them, and each one has its own asset, allowing you to partially tailor the game towards your personal play style. For instance, grenades’ fuses can be limited and their glass grenades mod allows them to explode on impact, which is rather helpful. Conversely, you can opt to make vehicles flip into the air at the press of a button. Those are just a few of the mods that are available, and listing them doesn’t even scratch the surface of the different types and options at Rico’s disposal.

Getting back to the core of Just Cause 3‘s gameplay, it’s important to note that most of your time will be spent traversing Medici and looking for things to topple and blow up. You’ll have a large map to use, although it’s cumbersome and devoid of a mini-map, and will need to employ it in order to find different settlements to take over, much like with Just Cause 2. Freeing these locations works similarly, too, in that you’ll have a checklist of things to take out and, once completed, will get to raise your rebel flag and call them yours.

The problem with this mechanic in 2015 is that it’s too basic and repetitive to be part of a great game. Sure, it’s fun blowing shit up and attaching explosive gas canisters to enemies, but there needs to be more variety. I also don’t like how much of a needle in a haystack approach is taken to the settlements themselves, because you can spend a while looking for the one last objective. The game doesn’t tell you where things are, which is good in a sense, but some of the things you’re tasked with destroying are small and tough to spot from above. The propaganda vans are the most frustrating because they move, and glitches can seemingly cause them to not appear. I easily spent ten to fifteen minutes walking, soaring above and driving within one particular township in search of one, but could not find it anywhere.