Far Cry 3 dev on game narratives: "almost no-one" can get great performances

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The maniacal performance of the player character's captor, Vaas in the Far Cry 3 demo was one of the most memorable moments of E3 this year. We caught up with narrative director on Far Cry 3, Jason Vandenberghe on the show floor to discuss the art of honing a great virtual performance, and explore the reasons why so many virtual actors end up in "the uncanny valley of performance."

Talking about why some virtual performances work and others don't, Vanderberghe said "there's an uncanny valley of performance, not just in characters, but performance, and we are just , like, one or two of us have just gotten across that frickin' gulf, right? Like, scrambling up of it, going "okay!"

"Now we have to figure out how to repeat that, and make sure that we're consistent in doing it, so it's a fun moment to be pushing that. Our goal is to be at the very front, to be way ahead of anyone else."

For more on Far Cry 3, check out our Far Cry 3 preview from the E3 2011 show floor. The Far Cry 3 announcement was one of our pick of the biggest news stories of E3 this year.

Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.