Just Cause 3: brings its unique brand of chaos a little closer to home.

The Mediterranean-flavoured realm of Medici is the setting for the next game in a series famous for its exotic locales. The colourful landscape will include rocky coastlines, flower-filled fields, mountains and forests. The map will be the same size as the previous game’s Panau about 400 square miles but will pack in more detail. Panau was pretty, but a lot of it was just empty countryside. Avalanche also says there’ll be more verticality this time, taking advantage of returning hero Rico’s grapple and parachute combo as well as a new wingsuit.

The action is once again absurd and straight out of a James Bond film, but Rico has more of a personal stake in toppling this particular dictatorship, as he was born in Medici. He’s also left The Agency, so let’s hope he’s still able to have weapons and vehicles dropped in at will, as that was one of the most fun things about  Just Cause 2 .

He does now have infinite C4 that can be remotely detonated the catch being he can ‘only’ plant five charges at a time. These can be lobbed mid-parachute, so expect aerial attacks on bases to be brilliantly explosive. Hacking is new too: anti-air guns can now be turned on the enemy. New tension physics will pull two grappled objects together, and if you hook onto a speeding car, boat, or plane, you’re no longer stuck in one place, but able to crawl/walk around it freely. Yet it’s clear this is a refinement of what we saw in earlier games, rather than a radical reinvention.

Disappointingly,  Just Cause 3 won’t launch with multiplayer, despite the popularity of  JC2 ’s fan-developed online mod. But we could still see a mode “sometime down the line.” On the positive side, focusing their efforts entirely on singleplayer will make for a better game.

Medici looks like a great playground, and for the first time we’ll get to see what’s under the map, with tunnels and caves to explore. As well as countryside we’ll see cities and clifftop towns, all with a rich Mediterranean feel. That beauty won’t last for long, though, as enhanced destruction physics mean pretty much everything you see can be covered in C4 and blown to pieces.  Just Cause 2  was great, but held back by a weak campaign and slightly rough controls. Hopefully this sequel makes up for that, while still retaining the sense of freedom and chaos that typifies the series.