Far Cry 3 producer: Vaas compares to Darth Vader

Vaas embodies the savagery of Far Cry 3's Rook Islands. The unbalanced pirate boss is one of the stand-out villains in recent memory. In an interview with IGN , Ubisoft Producer Dan Hay compares Vaas' memorable presence with how Darth Vader commanded attention whenever he appeared.

"You think about that opening scene in Star Wars," Hay says. "What you think is a huge ship is going by overhead, and then it's absolutely dwarfed by a massive ship. Then everything inside it is white, and the rebels are holding against the door. It blows up. They just had a firefight going on, and when it's all over, in walks this guy who's head-to-toe in shiny black. That moment is galvanized in your memory as a kid forever. For us, our focus was giving that same taste for Vaas and making sure that it's short, sweet, and about craving more of it."

Also in the interview, Far Cry 3 Lead Writer Jeffrey Yohalem, explains why Ubisoft decided to let players kill Vaas halfway through the game. Yohalem, who's made several attempts to clarify the meaning of the game's story in interviews, says that Vaas' sudden death halfway through was totally intentional. The decision was driven by, of all things, Virginia Woolf's 1927 novel To The Lighthouse and its offhanded mention of the death of the main character.

"She dies in the middle kind of parenthetically," Yohalem says. "The whole book is going, and you get to these parentheses in this middle portion, and she's dead. The rest of the book is about the absence of her. That is so daring. And we did it. I think that it's hard for some people, but at the same time, you also want that kind of a character to take a bow when everyone wants him the most. You never feel that in a game."

Missing Mr. Mohawk? Fear not: Vaas lives on as a reskin mod for Grand Theft Auto IV .

You can read the rest of the interview at IGN .

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Omri Petitte is a former PC Gamer associate editor and long-time freelance writer covering news and reviews. If you spot his name, it probably means you're reading about some kind of first-person shooter. Why yes, he would like to talk to you about Battlefield. Do you have a few days?