The Shanath Arena is a location within Southern Kyrat in Far Cry 4. Here, Ajay can participate in a blood sport involving various wave-based matches against large numbers of enemies. The Shanath Arena is headed by Noore Najjar, who was forced to run the place by Pagan Min in exchange for her family's safety. The Arena itself was created in the 1700's under the order of the former Kyrati monarchy, who used the Arena to distract the common folk from issues with the government. Three centuries later, it is a money-making machine for Pagan Min and his regime, pulling in constant bets and spectators. Although the Arena is not available in Cooperative Mode, the fast travel point to Shanath can still be used by the host of the session.
Description[]
The games operate by pitting the Royal Army and Royal Guard into several teams, marked my differently coloured powders applied to the uniforms and skin of each enemy. Light blue, red, yellow, and green. Soldiers of each team will try to kill other teams, including animals, and Ajay himself. Ajay is by himself, and will be attacked by everything.
Animals are periodically included in rounds, who will attack the nearest human on sight. However, animals will not attack members of the same species, but they will attack other species, such as bears and tigers trying to kill one another.
Gameplay Overview[]
Ajay starts combat with a single weapon which changes depending on his Arena Level, but he can loot improved weapons from enemies in the Endless and Battle modes. An announcer will say various phrases throughout each round, and notify Ajay when there is one enemy or animal left in a round. If an enemy or animal at the end of the round is not killed quickly enough, they will eventually be highlighted for Ajay to find them. Combat involves four teams of mixed Royal Guard and Royal Army soldiers, split up into four teams, marked by coloured powder applied to uniforms and skin. Animals will be released throughout waves, attacking any humans on sight until killed.
Snipers, Rocketeers and Hunters are not included in combat, nor are prey animals. Animals such as elephants, rhinos, bears, tigers, honey badgers, dholes and leopards are included. However, certain animals only appear in certain modes, such as Weapon Challenges not having any elephants or honey badgers. The combat is split into rounds, each round lasting until Ajay is either dead or kills every other living being in the arena. While each round is in progress, new participants cannot arrive, except for a rhino in the 5th round of Weapon Challenges. Flamers never appear in Weapon Challenges, and regular Heavies rarely spawn during them as well.
For the fight, Ajay receives points depending on how spectacular his killing blows are. He does not get any points if an enemy is killed by another enemy. A regular kill (human or animal) awards 10 points; a basic takedown, grenade takedown, explosive kill or headshot awards 25; throwning knife takedown or heavy takedown awards 50. Even if Ajay dies, he adds these points to his total rank. Chain Takedown kills reward by far the most points of any action in the Arena, at 100 for each kill. A very efficent (albiet difficult) method of quickly earning as many points as possible is to ignore using guns entirely, and instead focus on getting as many chain and sidearm takedowns as possible. By doing this, Ajay can easily earn over 2000 points in a round, making getting 5 stars in Weapon Challenges far easier. This also works for the Endless and Battle modes, where points still contribute to Arena Rank, earned XP and Rupees.
For a spectacular kill (25 or more points), Ajay may get a drop from spectators, either a health syringe (green smoke), ammo (purple smoke), weapon (blue smoke) or throwables (orange smoke). Weapon drops can contain a weapon that is otherwise unobtainable from enemy corpses, however these weapon drops do not appear in Weapon Challenges. If Ajay's preformance isn't satisfactory, the crowd will hurl vulgar insults at him, and loudly boo him. "Unsatisfactory" can be anything such as standing still for too long, hiding from combat, and taking too long to kill the last remaining enemy. Also, sniping seems to annoy the crowd, as they will call Ajay an asshole if he sits in one spot and snipes from a safe distance. Explosions please the crowd, and will cheer when grenades go off.
During the fight, Ajay will not have access to any of his gear; all of his skills will remain, though. If he carries armor, the armor will be allowed in the arena. Of all weapons, only basic, unmodified versions of guns normally carried by enemies will be available, plus a starting weapon (depending on his rank). Of thrown weapons, only grenades, molotov cocktails and throwning knives are available. Destructible wooden barricades are set around the arena that provide temporary cover until destroyed by gunfire, charging animals, or explosives. The crowd will throw down red explosive barrels into the Arena every round, providing a double-edged sword to Ajay; either being a hazard to himself, or being traps for enemies. A single zipline also goes across the length of the arena horizontally, but enemies will never use it. If Ajay hides inside one of the eight rooms during a wave, the doors will stay open until he leaves the room, even between rounds.
Types of Matches[]
There are three types of matches:
- Endless: Similar to Battle, but the waves are endless. Every 10 rounds, a special wave will be sent, consisting of Heavy or Flamer enemies, or rare animals. It ends when Ajay is killed.
- Battle: Ajay enters the arena with a basic starting weapon, and must scavenge enemy weapons to survive 5 rounds of increasingly difficult opposition. He wins if he survives all 5 rounds.
- Weapon Challenges: Ajay is forced to use a single weapon of his choice, and must survive 5 rounds only using that weapon, or takedowns. A minimum of 3 stars is needed to pass, while he can earn up to 5.
Arena Ranks[]
- Rank 1: Fresh Meat - Mark IV
- Rank 2: Scrapper - Mark IV
- Rank 3: Brawler - 1911
- Rank 4: Hunter - 1911
- Rank 5: Apprentice - Skorpion
- Rank 6: Contender - Skorpion
- Rank 7: Challenger - .44 Magnum
- Rank 8: Rival - .44 Magnum
- Rank 9: Competitor - A2000
- Rank 10: Fighter - A2000
- Rank 11: Warrior - MP34
- Rank 12: Gladiator - MP34
- Rank 13: Kyra's Chosen - D2
- Rank 14: Kyrati Master - D2
- Rank 15: Arena Master - A99
Accumulating points will increase Arena Rank, allowing to participate in more difficult battles. Reaching rank 10 also allows Ajay to buy a signature weapon, Bushman. The Arena Rank is account-bound and carries over to each subsequent playthrough. Therefore, one only needs to reach Rank 10 once to automatically unlock the Bushman in every new game started. Keep in mind that winning a single match in the arena may be required to update the rank of the current game to the actual value (which precludes the player from using the Bushman until they have advanced the main storyline far enough to gain access to Shanath Arena). Even though the Bushman will be unlocked in every subsequent playthrough, it will still need to be purchased.
Trivia[]
- A loading screen reveals that the arena was built in 1759 to distract the people from their disagreements with the monarchy, initially showing elephants and tigers fighting to the death. It was built by King Avinash.
- The loading screen in the Dutch version of the game, however, claims that instead of elephants, it were lions and tigers fighting to the death.
- A note found during the Shoot the Messenger mission indicates that the animals in the arena are drugged with medetomidine hydrochloride, a synthetic anesthetic and painkiller commonly used in veterinary medicine, presumably to make them less sensitive to pain and more dangerous (however, the guards who are near the note claim it makes the animals tired).
- The woman in front of the arena (pictured in the gallery below) comments on Ajay's skill depending on his arena rank, often including sarcastic or annoyed remarks about him staring at her naked breasts. She appears to be a female counterpart of ancient Kyrati warriors: Shirtless, hair decorations, and bodypaint. This would fit since these women act as ceremonial guards for Noore. Other people at the Arena will make various comments to Ajay, who can be interacted with up to three times to get more dialouge. They will praise him more and more as he gets higher up the ranks, until they outright worship his skills as an amazing warrior, with one man praying to Ajay at his feet.
- Very rarely, a flatbed version of the Cargo Truck spawns on the road to the west of the arena with two citizens holding AK-47's next to a cage with a bear in it. The citizens could have been transporting the bear to the Arena when the cage fell off the back of the truck.
- The actual location of the arena is several thousand metres away from the rest of the map, very far out of bounds. It can be accessed using mods on the PC version.
- During Endless and Battle mode, the MG42 weapon drop is glitched, and it will get stuck out-of-bounds in the spectator stands, making it impossible to reach.
- Upon reaching the final rank of Arena Master, the "Enraged Rhino" is unlocked for use in the now-defunct Arena Master Companion App, a tie-in phone application for the game that allowed players to create custom waves. Three of these special rhinos only appears in the 5th and final wave of the Battle mode. They are painted with bright, festive colours (similar to the "Painted Pachyderm" shop unlock via UPLAY), and have an ornamental gold horn dectoration. They deal around the same amount of damage and have the same health as normal rhinos, but are far faster, able to sprint across the entire arena from end-to-end in about 1 second. They do not appear anywhere else in the game, and are unavailable in the Map Editor.
Gallery[]
Concept art:
