Boss fights definitely, your sentiment reminds me of Warframe. Don’t miss farming bosses. However, there are a lot of ways randomized loot can be implemented, and I wouldn’t call all of them dark patterns

Doesn’t need to be true, just convincing to some suits

Confusing syntax to replace confusing syntax, library dependencies that let you do nothing you couldn’t do without them. Generic solutions are always the best for specific problems, right?

Heard on the radio towers, though I personally enjoyed some of the climbing as a break from the typical far cry chaos. At that point the dead horse had not yet been beaten, though, and it wasn’t as much of an annoyance.

Cheaper / shallower mechanics is definitely also fair, and I agree Ubisoft sacrificed that depth for more realistic visual (common AAA loss). The npc ai in far cry 2 was a rare gem though.

I actually spent a lot of time playing with Far cry 2’s map editor, and far cry 3 was a big step back there too. I guess I just love the world, characters, and story of Far Cry 3.

Far Cry 3 was definitely a step back in some areas (fire!) but I think it was still a great game and pretty much perfected the Far Cry formula. Unfortunately after that game, Ubisoft just cannot move on