Rico Rodriguez is back, and so is IGN First.

All month, we’ll be showing off exclusive footage and impressions of the most insane open world Avalanche has created yet, from the game’s new Army of Chaos features to using physics alone as a weapon. But first, let us get you up to speed.

Just Cause has always had a fairly straightforward philosophy - blow s**t up, and look cool doing so. But just because that approach hasn’t changed doesn’t mean you won’t have new ways to do it. Here are 9 new features coming along with Rico for the new adventure.

Grapple Upgrades

Just Cause is not a back-to-basics kind of series. Rico’s grappling hook has become more and more useful over the course of the series, and now it’s a truly multifunctional device. Aside from helping traversal and tethering objects and enemies together, it can now also attach rocket boosters and airlifter balloons from close to the start of the game. All of those functions can be combined – ever wanted to make a flying rocket bus? – and even modded to act exactly as you want them to. Oh, and you can have ten tethers of any kind equipped at any one time. Have fun.

Supply Drop Toys

Your rebel pilot buddies are more tooled-up than ever – and that doesn’t just mean they have more vehicles to supply drop to you. Your menu of choices now includes items specifically designed to be messed around with, from explosive fuel barrels to crazy wind cannons. Plus, inspired by one YouTuber turning the last game’s shipping containers into a game of plus-sized Jenga, you can even just have the supply drop crates themselves. They make excellent cartoon anvil stand-ins.

Extreme Weather

The island of Solís might look picture-postcard pretty, but it comes with weather more dangerous than any dictatorial army Rico's blown up thus far. Blinding sandstorms, lightning-flecked torrential downpours, and thundersnow blizzards will all cause their own problems, but the standout is the island’s gigantic, roaming tornado, always ready to spin a spanner into your chaotic works.

Secondary Fire

Someone at Avalanche clearly sat looking at the right trigger on their controller, then realised there was a neglected little button sitting right next to it, because Just Cause 4 effectively doubles your firepower with the addition of alternate fire modes. From the expected (an underslung grenade launcher on an assault rifle) to the pleasantly absurd (a homing missile launcher strapped to a sniper rifle), half the fun of finding a new weapon is now seeing what else it might be able to do.

Tougher Enemies

If Rico’s getting more powerful, it’s only fair that his opposition does too. Black Hand forces aren’t just smarter, but react organically to what you’re up to. If you’re terrorising an outpost in a helicopter, you'll receive an airborne response. If you’ve rolled up in a tank, expect heavy ordnance to arrive and try to blast you out of your armoured shell. Even ground troops have diversified, with Grenadiers dropping bombs as a final insult when they die, and Ghosts wearing active camo to pop up for a kill.

Exotic Weapons

Solís’ tyrannical rulers have harnessed the weather to cause you problems - thankfully you’ll be able to harness it right back. Taking over major installations will reward you with some experimental weapons to tool about with. The DA 9.3 “Lightning Gun” let’s you casually fry passers by, and summon remote storms, while the PWC V4.2 “Wind Gun” is essentially a vacuum cleaner gone totally insane, letting you anyone and anything with dangerous, hilarious gale-force. Of course, the most powerful weapon in Just Cause has always been the player’s own twisted mind – these are tailor-made for horrible experiments.

Multiple Biomes

Where Rico’s previous adventures have tended to take place exclusively across a single stretch of sunny paradise, Solís is a little more varied. The sun-dappled fields and pristine capital city might look familiar, but they soon give way to vast windswept desert and a dense rainforest, dotted with wildlife to accidentally murder. And, at the centre of it all, are the snow covered peaks Rico’s aiming to conquer.

Wind Currents

“Infinite parachutes” might sound like a dull superpower, but I bet you Wolverine would swap having cutlery in his knuckles for it. Rico’s never-explained ability to swap between wingsuiting and parachuting at leisure is made even more useful in Just Cause 4, with certain areas of the world now swept over by strong wind currents. Just soar into one and it’ll propel you even further across the game’s imposingly vast map.

Vehicle Functionality

Even humble vehicles are getting an upgrade for the new game. Industrial vehicles now come with a variety of functions that you definitely won’t be using for the intended purpose. Certain helicopters come with high-powered magnets, letting you turn anything not nailed down into a wrecking ball. Certain fighter jets even let you retract the wings for extra speed and death-defying stunts - just check this out. Oh.

We’ve only scratched the surface of what Just Cause 4 brings along - make sure to check out all our IGN First coverage this month.