Far Cry 4 Won't Allow Players to Hunt and Skin Elephants

As exciting as Far Cry 4's reveal has been for many gamers, there was one aspect of the game that had a few people concerned. If you played Far Cry 3 you probably remember the feature that allowed you to hunt, kill, and skin the wildlife that inhabited the island. The hunting feature is returning for Far Cry 4, but it brought to light an important question for the game. Can you kill the elephants in Far Cry 4?

[mafiahajeri]

Im still going to try and ram into an elephant with a truck...

[Gamecrastinate]

I'm pretty sure everyone is, regardless of whether or not you love elephants. I know I will be trying to explode elephants for sure.

[InTheLab]

Strap some C4 onto an elephant and send him to town... yeah!

[ScottyHoss]

Put C4 on the Jeep and go battlefield style, or strap it to his stomach, and see if he can fly like Dumbo!

[AndrewLB]

Scotty- Haha! That was without a doubt the most awesome way to kill people in a multiplayer game.

http://youtu.be/elM_Ov9ZZ3s

[JsonHenry]

I love elephants. But its a game... so yeah, I'm gonna shoot the crap out of them just for fun.

[MEsoJD]

I think it's B.S. that you can't hunt them. I'm against hunting under most situations in real life, but it's a game…

[T2]

I'm not a fan either but you can actually get a license to hunt 🐘 in Africa... My friend wants to do it he even bought a special gun. No clue why but hey I guess if villagers shoot them may as well charge someone more money to do it I guess?

[medman]

@mafiahajeri
Dat elephant gonna mess you up!!! Personally, I'll be crouching under one trying to knife the belly and see how long before it crushes my head like a grape. Good times.

[Jrmy84]

Its because of all the elephant killings do to the ivory trade that's why they aren't allowing it.

[Christopher]

With the constant controversy over the killing of elephants for their ivory, I can definitely see this as a good move.

[darx]

I agree but isn't odd that you can blow peoples heads off and that's ok.

[Juiceid]

I also agree, but people suck and animals are cool.

[TheFutureIsBlue]

The people in this game probably deserve getting their heads blown off lol

[darx]

@Juiceid

Can't argue with that!

[Christopher]

Humans are expendable. Elephants must be saved!

In the end, it's all about limiting negative social feedback. They don't want FOX News to come out saying how it encourages people to kill animals that are protected by various laws.

[Somebody]

"To the development team, the elephants you’ll encounter in the game are meant to be majestic animals, killing them just wouldn’t be right."

They think it's just too majestic to kill. They are afraid killing elephants might encourage real life poaching but at the same time their action say it's OK to poach other less majestic animals.

[T2]

It's the cute theory only applied to wise or smart animals.. Noone cares when a chicken gets clubbed over the head or a pig, but no way you can club a baby seal or dolphin... Add elephant to that list. Just think they eat dogs in tons of places, seems horrible but it's fact

[AndrewLB]

Why? Does anyone honestly think that killing an elephant in a video game is going to lead to me wanting to kill a real one? Talk about politically correct crap. Like how recently a 2nd grader was suspended from school for eating a pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Hypersensitivity and the subsequent overreaction is destroying the world.

If I ran Ubisoft I would have included killing elephants, and when some dumba$$ complains i'd just tell the person to grow a pair, it's just a game.

[torchic]

finally good to see a sliver of good-will and common sense amongst a sea of ignorance and a lack of education and compassion. that's why you're a mod, good on you cgoodno.

[ceballos77mx]

Why would you kill them, call them as backup they were kicking ass on that demo

[solar]

they might do it in real life.....

[Bathyj]

That seems dumb and its the first thing I thought of when I saw them, will Ubisoft shy away from killing elephants when you can kill every other animal in the game?

Seems like it will kill the immersion if elephants are essentially in God mode. They didnt mind us slaughtering whales by the dozen in Assassins Creed. It is make believe after all.

I wonder if gay rights activists are going to up in arms when you eventually get to kill the end boss.

Just for the record, I recently rode an elephant and would have no urge to kill one these incredible creatures in real life, just seems at odds to the rest of the game that this one type of animal should be off limits because of peoples sensibilities.

[Christopher]

This is one of those "fight the battles you can win" situations. The chances that someone will pick up the "game encourages you to kill harmless, innocent elephants for sport" concept and run with it. I think Far Cry games get enough controversy over box art that they don't need to push it with elephant killing.

[e-p-ayeaH]

elephants shouldnt be in the game then

[AndrewLB]

Of course they're going to be pi$$ed. And i hope ubisoft tells the Velvet Mafia go f'themselves.

[Bigpappy]

I am glad they don't allow this. It is a statement. A world without those great beast would be a lot less of a world.

No killing of elephants or children.

[psyxon]

Preach.

[AnEwGuY]

I installed a mod for Skyrim that let you kill children...then after I actually killed one, I felt remorseful and immediately uninstalled it. ಥ_ಥ

[cyclindk]

It's a principle move, game or not, if this is the message they'd like to get across, kudos to them. Im sure there are plenty of other animals to mutilate.

[MasterD919]

The demo showed an elephant plowing through an exploding car like nothing happened, so no biggie.

[underwhere]

Pre-order canceled

[famoussasjohn]

Your loss if you're serious.

[Max-Zorin]

Either that, or Tony Jaa would have been on a manhunt.

[pandehz]

Im glad you cant kill it.

[e-p-ayeaH]

but killing everything else in the game is ok...

[MaxwellBuddha]

@e-p-ayeaH

Right???

[LordSane]

Are you drunk, Geralt?

[Einhert]

Sounds like a cop out to me

How do people get offended by pixels?

[e-p-ayeaH]

alot of ppl are stupid for the sake of being stupid

fiction isnt reality but many like to blend it anyways...

[e-p-ayeaH]

Blood Dragon is more realistic than this then because you can kill everything in that game.

[Einhert]

The developer statement also makes no sense, they allowed the hunting and skinning of Tigers in FarCry 3 which are just as majestic as Elephants and even more endangered than elephants.

Sounds like bending the knee for fear of offending people who just look for something to be offended about.

[Ogygian]

I don't get it. I'm vociferously opposed to elephant poaching in real life, but don't see why it's an issue in this game.

People don't decide to shoot people just because they can do it in games. Similarly, I doubt they'll go and poach elephants because they can do it in a game.

I guess this is more kneeling to social justice pedants (of which PETA are a part) who frequent the net and ignoring people who take a more balanced, mature view of dealing with social problems which does not involve censorship (voluntary or involuntary) of video game content.

[aliengmr]

Or they just had an opinion an decided to act on it. It could have even been a mechanics issue, considering how they are used. I don't know and I don't care.

Not sure what the difference is between kneeling to PETA or people like you. You want them to have the freedom to express themselves, so long as it doesn't go against your values.

A balanced approach would saying people have opinions that you don't agree with. Developers are free to acknowledge those opinions if they want to. You can't really be for freedom of expression if you think all those with and opinion you don't agree with should just keep quiet.

You have an opinion and I disagree with it. But please, keep having them. At some point you may say something that resonates with me and alters my perception. I mean that too, no sarcasm.

[SITH]

Ok... but C-4 Elephant launching?

[GenericNameHere]

It would be awesome if we can ride them and cause mayhem haha

The E3 gameplay footage at the Playstation conference was awesome though. I like to think the elephant didn't explode from the explosion because it has Adamantium skin.

[soandsoz]

I'm a bit disappointed by this. It's a video game, why not allow us to 'smoke' some elephants?

There's a certain degree of irony/dichotomy to be found in this announcement too. Does anyone remember the Tapirs in FC3? That's an endangered species for crying out loud... And one had little choice but to bag a few of those if you wanted to upgrade some of your equipment.

*Edit - in addition to (As Einhert pointed out) Tigers as well