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Well, we've all seen what Crytek's CryENGINE 2 can do to our computers, we've even seen what it can theoretically do to our computers, but now it's that time when we sit back and relax, smoke a Cuban cigar and... watch some Far Cry 2 nastiness.

Yes, we've some pretty interesting news coming from our gaming brothers PC Games Hardware from Germany. During an interview with Dominic Guay, Technical Director at Ubisoft and currently in charge of the production pipeline and other technical aspects of Far Cry 2, it has been revealed that Far Cry 2 will NOT have in-game levels (so no loading times).

Here's the motivation: "We had a few major goals in mind as we built the technology. First, we wanted to get rid of the concept of 'levels'. 'Levels' have been used since before the Pac Man days to manage progression and content and are, from a technical standpoint, a very safe way of managing things. However, FC2 is a truly open world game and we couldn’t do with such a limitation anymore. A change of scale like that one changes a lot of thing in a technology."

While we are indeed amazed of Ubisoft's ambitious goal to set new standards for open world environments, we're still scratching our heads about how exactly is that going to happen, since according to previous information the entire map in Far Cry 2 will measure no less than 50 square kilometers.  Not even Crysis is that big and we all know what hideous amounts of RAM, Quads and Ultras kneel before that game... And wait, it kinda gets worse from here:

"One big evolution that we brought to our graphic technology is the fact that our lighting model is completely dynamic, including the sun. That means that the sun can move in realtime during game time and the whole scenes lighting adapts accordingly. Also of note, we implemented a dynamic ambient lighting algorithms that manage the radiosity component of the lighting in the environment: basically what is also referred to as “indirect lighting”.

Another feature I like a lot is our procedural sky rendering system. We can basically manipulate the meteo according to our wish and the sky adapts in real time."

Of course, this is not all the Dunia engine can do, but I'll let you read the rest over at PC Games Hardware. The interview is worth a click if you're into technical details, like parallax occlusion mapping, procedural rendering and stuff like that.

But before heading there, just read this summary of what we're going to have in this highly anticipated sequel:

an African open world measuring no less than 50 square kilometers, making Far Cry 2 one of the few titles which allow for almost infinite viewing distance
three types of environment: jungle, savanna and desert
day-night cycle and the consequences that derive from this cycle (for both the A.I. and the player). Between the brightest day and the darkest night the player will witness all the splendor of visible light nuances (think of the rainbow for example). Actually light plays an important role in FC 2, with Dunia engine being designed to feature advanced indirect lighting (which makes the shadows look crispier or blurred depending on the reflections and on the number of lighting sources).
entirely destructible vegetation. The player can either shoot threes, branches and plants or set them on fire. Depending on the localization of the hero the vegetation will be more or less denser.high-quality textures.highly-realistic environments, with incredibly detailed atmospheric effects. Ubisoft wants to give players the impression that they're in a life-breathing space, where storms can form literally out of the blue, where scorching sun-rays provoke rapidly spreading fires ("dynamic fire propagation") and where vegetation grows and dies (almost)  naturally. According to Ubisoft, the weather will change depending on how well the player is doing: if he's advancing through the game without headaches then the sky will be clear and sunny, but if he encounters difficulties, the skies will darken and storms will form up. dynamic music systemnon-scripted A.I. (well, I kinda doubt that my self, because any A.I. in any game is scripted- the difference comes from the complexity of the scripting and the complexity of the tasks the A.I. has to accomplish).systemic auto-healingweapons of choice (from machete to snipers, from machine-guns to flamethrowers)an entire arsenal of vehicles, consisting of gliders, trucks, cars or boatsno less than 12 different mercenaries to choose from, with the rest of 11 mercs being considered "buddies" in the gamehighly destructible environments support for the Ambx-technology from Philips (which will also be released as a patch for Far Cry in the near future).
For the moment, since images and video speak better than words, we'll kindly invite you to start drooling over your keyboards with some pretty nasty weather simulations and procedurally rendered vegetation.