Far Cry 4's map may be the same size as the one we got to explore in Far Cry 3, but it also happens to be a lot denser.

“ The main world is roughly the same size as Far Cry 3 but it’s a lot more dense.

“ We thought seriously about very low in Russia, in the Siberian forest.

That's according to the game's senior level designer Vincent Ouellette, who told IGN at EGX that we should expect the upcoming title to take a lot longer to fully explore compared with last time – thanks to there being so much more to do, coupled with an increase in both highs and lows in terms of the terrain."The main world is roughly the same size as Far Cry 3 but it’s a lot more dense in terms of how many activities, points of interest and civilians there are," he said. "On top of that we also have the arena, which you can play indefinitely, and we got the Himalaya missions on top of the mountains, as well as Shangri-La which lets you explore the myths and legends of the beliefs held by the people in Kyrat. So taken all together, the general offering is much bigger."Even within the missions we’ve added the concept of choice a lot. At the top of the Rebellion there are a few leaders and they don’t always agree which way you should push the country. One’s more traditional and religious, the other is more oppressive and wants to modernise. You can choose which side you want to ally with and that’ll change sometimes how the mission plays out in terms of objectives, while other times it’ll change events."While Ouellette emphasised a diverse space both in terms of flora and fauna, but also verticality, was paramount to the team when they went about choosing where to set the follow-up to the 2012 hit, that doesn't mean the Himalayas were the first place they stopped off. A lot of others were considered, particularly a Siberian forest in Russia. As he explained, the setting as much as the individuals you encounter are of utmost important to the series, so it wasn't a decision any of them were ready to make lightly."All the microzones needed to help you orientate yourself without looking at the map. Animals were a big focus too. Everything gameplay related helped choose the location, but we wanted elephants, rhinos, honey badgers, eagles and stuff. It needed to be exotic as well. The Far Cry experience… we’re not a military shooter, the world is treated as a main character so it has to be intriguing and make you want to stick around and explore."That's not to say the humans aren't important in this instance, however. The people of Kyrat have been designed with care, and none more so than new villain Pagan Min. His rise to power is unlike any we've seen before in the series, yet rather than try to outdo what they managed to achieve last time with Vaas – a feat many would think nigh-on impossible – the team decided the best thing to do would be to try something totally different. So raw brutality has been replaced by snakelike manipulativeness; fear and revulsion with a strange appeal."Vaas was the schoolyard bully who’d beat you up and steal your lunch, and Pagan Min is more like your best friend who’ll whisper in your ear that you should go steal a car but then pretend to be a nice boy when he meets your mum. He’s manipulative and flamboyant; he likes to show off."He’s not originally from Kyrat. He was the son of a drug lord in Hong Kong and, when his father got killed, he got a piece of the pie but that wasn’t enough. So that’s when he moved to Kyrat, which he saw as ripe for the taking with all the civil war stuff going on. He allied with the royal family that were fighting to get back to power and then as soon as they did, he assassinated them and took the country for himself. His face is printed on the money, which he loves. He’s that kind of guy, and you're going to meet him very, very soon."

Luke Karmali is IGN UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter