Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, however the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day Central African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate "The Jackal", a notorious gun runner. As of January 23, 2009, the game has sold 2.9 million copies.
The game starts off with the player given a mission to kill the infamous arms dealer known as "The Jackal". The player's character lands in the northern territory of Leboa-Sako and is introduced to the harsh reality of life in the country. On the way to the town of Pala in a cab, the player character begins to suffer from the effects of malaria and passes out. He awakes inside a hotel and finds the Jackal standing over him. With the player incapacitated by illness, the Jackal briefly offers some insight into his philosophy, quoting from Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil about the will to power. He threatens to kill the player character, but ultimately chooses to spare his life and leaves after stabbing a machete into the wall which the player character retrieves.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Pala has collapsed and the UFLL and APR are engaged in open fighting. The player either passes out with malaria after managing to escape or is severely wounded before he can escape. The player is revived in the camp of one of the faction lieutenants in the area (either Anto Kankaras or Joaquin Carbonell of UFLL, or Walton Purefoy or Quiepo of APR). In return for saving the player's life, the lieutenant orders the player to conduct basic errands. The player meets a journalist named Reuben Oluwagembi, who is writing a book about the conflict and the Jackal's part in it. He requests that the player find the tapes of his interview with the Jackal, scattered over the region. Once the player has acquired some malaria medicine from a priest who is helping civilians escape the violence, the player is given the freedom to choose their next mission.
The player is forced to work with both the UFLL and the APR in Leboa-Sako, each using the player as a deniable agent in order to avoid a full-scale war. When the player is in the faction HQ before he is taking a mission, conversations are heard between the faction leader and the mercenary leader; for example, on one occasion they discuss the rumor that the Jackal has cancer and only a few months left to live. After many successful missions, a faction captain (either Leon Gakumba or Prosper Kouassi) contracts the player to assassinate the other faction's captain. Once the assassination is complete, however, the player is betrayed and ambushed by the contractor and his troops. The player escapes, but in the chaos, he is forced to choose either to defend the priest and the civilians under his care, or to aid fellow mercenaries. The player's character eventually falls in combat, and awakes in the back of a truck filled with bodies. Any buddies the player has made up to this point are now either killed or declared missing, dependent on whom the player opted to aid. He falls off of the truck onto the road and seeks shelter in the desert, finally collapsing in the following sandstorm. The Jackal appears and takes the unconscious player to safety, but is then forced to flee when retreating troops of the other faction, now without a captain, arrive. A lieutenant from this faction offers the player a chance to redeem himself by assassinating the faction captain who betrayed the player. The player assassinates the target at a troop rally and escapes south, to the province of Bowa-Seko.
In Bowa-Seko, the player and a Buddy follows the lieutenant's orders to destabilize the area and reignite the conflict by conducting a false flag operation in Port Selao. Following this, the two factions are now at war in the new province, opening up a variety of work from both sides. Eventually, the player is hired by one of the leaders, either Addi Mbantuwe or Oliver Tambossa, to deliver diamonds to the opposite faction, for a peace settlement between the factions. When the player arrives at the location, however, he finds the area devastated and the faction leader dead. The Jackal appears and explains that he wants the conflict to continue, since the warlords want peace only to conduct their crimes outside the world's attention. He then seizes the diamonds and knocks the player character unconscious.
The player wakes imprisoned in an old slave outpost and discovers that he has been used as a scapegoat, blamed for murdering a faction leader and disrupting the peace settlement. The player escapes and continues his search for the Jackal. In the process, he performs a series of missions, consisting of assassinating Nick Greaves and Hector Voorhees, the new warlords of the APR and UFLL, respectively. However, the player can choose to kill his contractors instead after meeting with Greaves and Voorhees. Reuben then calls the player for help, fearing that he and some other journalists are either going to get deported or shot at the airfield. The player fights off the militia and rescues the journalists.
With Reuben's help, the player finally tracks down and meets with the Jackal, who reveals his intentions to help the civilian population escape the war-torn country. Although he must eventually kill the Jackal, the player character agrees to help. The Jackal's plan is for the player to assassinate the two remaining faction leaders and take a case of diamonds to bribe the border guards. After finding the diamonds, however, the player must fight his fellow mercenaries and friends, as they want the diamonds for themselves to escape the country.
With both faction leaders dead and the diamonds in hand, the player (whose malaria has increased to the point of near-fatal symptoms, and is hinted to be dying from it) meets the Jackal at a hut near the border (named 'The Heart of Darkness'). The Jackal plans to dynamite the valley leading to the border, in order to prevent the militia from following the evacuating civilians. However, the detonating cord has malfunctioned and the explosives must be short-circuited with a car battery at the site, leading to the detonator's certain death. The Jackal offers the player a choice; he can detonate the explosives, or take the diamonds and shoot himself upon leaving the country, either way ensuring the civilians' escape. The game ends with Reuben Oluwagembi witnessing the explosion, then turning to take a picture of the massed crowd of refugees crossing the border. One of the border guards is seen holding the case of diamonds.
The APR and UFLL warlords have attempted to end hostilities and establish a government but the violence continues. Reuben's story was ignored by the international press and he is supposedly publishing it on his personal blog. The civilian population largely escaped and NGOs credit the low casualty rate to the work of the country's Underground. The Jackal has since disappeared and world governments insist that he died in the conflict, although no body is ever found. In addition, the player's exact fate is unseen, though presumably the protagonist dies, either in the explosion or by the gunshot heard at the end of the game. Such actions are performed linearly without any choice on the part of the player, despite the in-game journal hinting that the protagonist might choose to kill the Jackal instead.
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