Far Cry 3

Blew my mind when I recently realized the villain from this guy is the dude from Breaking Bad, Tuco's cousin or whatever.

Anyway, this is the iteration of Far Cry that started the train rolling. Far Cry 1 introduced the open world shooter to us all and was a really good time. A great little sandbox. 2 took it a step further and added a bit more of a narrative plus more systems like gun degradation and fires that would blaze out of control. But 3 kind of refined it all and then put a narrative on it.

It introduced the concept of the little stations you'd have to climb up to-- fun little platforming bits in their own right-- that would open up different areas. I believe it might have introduced the idea of bases you could capture as well.

Perhaps the biggest change it added was kind of the RPG elements where you could craft and modify guns as well as upgrade your dude with abilities.

All of this turned it into a wonderful sandbox game.

I think where I ding it on points was the kind of cringe story. They made you play as a weirdly bro-y rich white dude. And then there's some crazy chick who wants to kill you but also have sex with you??? And then there's the insane villain...it just doesn't really make sense at all.

So I think what you're left with is the seed of something great realized in 5 but just not as refined as it could be.