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About this mod
Vanilla+ is a huge update to Far Cry 2 that stays loyal to the original experience.
- Permissions and credits
- Mirrors
Vanilla+ improves the graphics, rebalances weapons, adds new features and quality of life improvements, fixes bugs, unlocks dlc and makes subtle changes to the gameplay to add more flavour and variety while preserving the original feel of the game.
Steam, GOG, Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store versions are all supported. Every feature is available in all languages and while using either mouse and keyboard or controller.
The mod is fully compatible with the Steam Deck, and seperate installation instructions for this are included.
Vanilla+ is for people who want an enhanced version of the original game, bullet-sponge enemies included.
I have other versions of this mod that have the same base features but different focusses:
Realism+ removes bullet sponge enemies, with deadlier combat for both the player and enemies.
Chill+ tones down malaria and weapon degradation, and has options for vanilla or realistic combat.
Insanity+ allows super fast sprinting and crazy high jumping, and also has options for vanilla or realistic combat.
Vanilla+ improves the graphics, rebalances weapons, adds new features and quality of life improvements, fixes bugs, unlocks dlc and makes subtle changes to the gameplay to add more flavour and variety while preserving the original feel of the game.
Steam, GOG, Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store versions are all supported. Every feature is available in all languages and while using either mouse and keyboard or controller.
The mod is fully compatible with the Steam Deck, and seperate installation instructions for this are included.
Vanilla+ is for people who want an enhanced version of the original game, bullet-sponge enemies included.
I have other versions of this mod that have the same base features but different focusses:
Realism+ removes bullet sponge enemies, with deadlier combat for both the player and enemies.
Chill+ tones down malaria and weapon degradation, and has options for vanilla or realistic combat.
Insanity+ allows super fast sprinting and crazy high jumping, and also has options for vanilla or realistic combat.
Full feature list:
Improved graphics
- New vibrant colour scheme - This simply removes the game's desaturation values, so what you see is the assets' original colours. No Reshade required.
- 60 FPS cap - prevents various bugs.
- Removed rim lighting - the blue light at night that makes the player look like an alien.
- Optional removal of flashing items.
- Optional customisation for the removal of blur when sprinting and aiming.
The following graphics settings have been improved, the default settings for these have been moved down a tier, so Ultra High is now Very High, High is now Medium etc:
Geometry (Ultra High) - This setting has a huge performance impact. Turn this down to Very High if you have low fps!
- Increased draw distance for trees.
- Increased draw distance for minor terrain details (rocks etc).
- Enhanced LOD for objects/trees/vegetation.
- 8x max number of decals (bullet holes etc).
Geometry (Very High) - This setting replaces the original ultra high setting as it has a small 1-2 fps impact.
- Increased draw distance for trees.
- Enhanced LOD for objects/trees/vegetation.
- 4x max number of decals (bullet holes etc).
Shadows (Improvements have been added to every setting)
- Higher resolution shadows.
- Trees and vegetation cast more shadows.
- The original game had a line ~10m from the player where high quality shadows became low quality shadows. This has been fixed.
Ambient (High)
- Increased draw distance for static shadows.
Terrain (Ultra High)
- Enhanced terrain LOD.
New textures
- AI-Enhanced textures for the UI/HUD and signs, posters and billboards.
- Road signs have a new a high resolution hand-painted style font. New signs have been created for weapon shops and safehouses. Weapon shop road signs are no longer green.
- Hand-drawn map icons in the style of the originals, literally hand-drawn by me!
- Detailed weapon icons, made using pre-existing game art.
- Syrette icon is now an actual syrette, not a syringe.
Weapon improvements
- Extra gadget slot for the flare gun or IEDs, accessible by pressing the machete button twice.
- Weapons can be holstered by pressing 'x' on keyboard (rebindable) or holding Y on controller. Press fire, use or change weapon to unholster. Press reload to show the hud.
- Weapons can be inspected by holding the reload button.
- Weapons found in safehouses (mission related, not from safehouse weapon crates) are now in better condition. They now have 50% durability remaining, increased from the default 25% durability remaining.
- Increased ironsight FOV.
- Renamed the 'Eagle .50' to the 'Desert Eagle' and the 'Homeland 37' to the 'Ithaca 37'. Removed unnecessary hyphens from others.
- DLC weapons have been added to the ammo upgrades.
- DLC weapons are more reliable and accurate to account for them lacking performance upgrades.
- AR-16's sight has a red dot.
- Sawed-off shotgun uses shotgun ammo.
Weapon rebalances
Machete - The machete didn't have a real place in combat as stealth kills would still alert every enemy and it took several regular swipes to kill anyone. It is now useful in both stealth and as a regular melee weapon.
- Machete stealth kills are silent.
- 'Creeping' has been added to the machete so you can walk at half speed by holding the iron sight button.
- Regular machete attacks are a one hit kill.
Pistols - I found the pistols were forgotten about once the SMGs were unlocked. They are now more viable.
- Makarov & Silenced Makarov - +25% damage, 3x max ammo, magazine size increased to 12, -15% accuracy.
- Star .45 - +40% damage, 3x max ammo, +33% effective range.
- Desert Eagle - +50% damage, 2x recoil.
SMGs - The SMGs were always better than the pistols, so alongside buffing the pistols the SMGs have been slightly nerfed.
- The order of unlocking weapons has been changed. The MP5 is automatically available at the start of Act 2. The Uzi is available as a reward from convoy mission 4, and the SVD is available as a reward from convoy mission 3. This has been done to give the silent shotgun a better reason to exist, and the Uzi is more appropriate as an Act 1 unlock.
- MAC-10, Uzi, MP5 - +50% recoil.
- The MP5's ammo upgrade has been changed to the light assault webbing and it now gets ammo pickups from the other SMGs.
Shotguns - In the original game they were underpowered and there was no reason to choose them over an assault rifle. They have been completely rebalanced and now excel within 50m.
- All shotguns are more accurate with improved effective range.
- SPAS12 - reduced magazine size to 9.
- Silenced shotgun - reduced magazine size to 4.
Assault rifles - Enemies were particularly bullet spongey when shot at range with assault rifles, this should now be improved while maintaining their medium range specialisation.
- All assault rifles effective range increased by 33%.
- AR-16 - Now fully automatic, +15% accuracy.
- Golden AK-47 - -50% Recoil.
LMGs - The PKM had way too much recoil and LMGs only became useful with the M249 Saw.
- PKM recoil reduced by 20%.
Flamethrower - The flamethrower had pitiful range, limiting its usefulness for both the player and enemies.
- Flamethrower range tripled to 30m.
- Flamethrower max ammo reduced by 50%.
Rocket launchers - Rockets were very slow moving, especially the Carl G's.
- RPG/Carl G - Rocket speed increased 2x.
Explosive crossbow - The projectiles were slow moving and travelled in a straight line. The explosions are also significantly smaller than the rocket launchers and yet you can carry the same amount of ammo.
- Crossbow projectile speed increased 2x, projectiles fire in an arc.
- Crossbow ammo increased (+1 infamous, +2 hardcore/normal, +3 easy).
Mortar - The mortar is a specialised, high skill weapon. Despite this it had the same ammo capacity as the other explosive specials.
- Mortar max ammo increased by 50%.
Vehicle improvements
- Vehicle and boat speed increased, reduced the damage vehicles take from crashes.
- Permanent windshield bullet holes.
- DLC vehicles come in a variety of colours.
- Improved hang glider stability when shot - you will lose some control and altitude but only be pushed into a nose dive under very heavy fire.
- Increased look angle for the swamp boats so you can look behind you while driving.
- Added 'v' as a dedicated keyboard button to look back when driving (rebindable).
Weapon/Upgrade shop improvements
- Reorganised shop so the order of everything makes more sense (unfortunately this has broken the Upgrades section of the pause menu, you need to use the shop computer to see which upgrades you have bought).
- All ammo, health and repair upgrades are available early in the game.
- Weapons in the armoury don't respawn instantly - there will be fresh stock next time you visit.
- New vehicle upgrades have been added for the DLC vehicles.
Gameplay improvements
- Integrated Scubrah's 'Functional Outpost' Mod - If all the enemies within an outpost have been killed, they will respawn in one hour real time. This only occurs if every enemy within an outpost is dead, and the timer is not shortened by sleeping in-game.
- Play as the female mercenaries.
- Play as an 'Anonymous Mercenary', randomly generated using the same system that generates enemies.
- Play as any NPC (an optional customisation - check the download).
- Improved player agility - Increased stamina, increased sprint speed, reduced sprint turn penalty, increased jump height, increased slope climbing capability, reduced fall damage.
- Improved stealth - reduced enemy perception pre-combat by 20%.
- Changed the malaria pill animation to an existing rare animation, where the player pours out two pills and puts one back.
- Reduced monocular sensitivity.
- Briefcases that previously contained one diamond now contain two.
- Explosive barrels now start fires.
- Removed the flashing save reminder from safehouse icons on the map and GPS.
- Optional limited saving - disable quicksave and saving from the pause screen. If chosen you can only save at safehouses, gun shops, bus stops and mission givers. No more save scumming!
- Optional limited navigation - remove the player arrow from the map and other map/GPS/road sign tweaks for an extra immersive experience.
- Optional tutorial skip - start the game straight after the long-winded opening. Choose between a normal game start and one with all weapons unlocked and upgraded.
Enemy improvements
- Enhanced enemy arsenal - enemies can use almost every weapon and go through loadout progressions over the course of the game.
- Buddies also use more weapons and will go through their own loadout progressions.
- Enemy infighting - patrols and camps will fight each other.
- Patrol vehicles have been swapped to a more interesting variety and they now include dune buggies and several utility truck variants.
- Weapon convoy drivers and gunners are now unique enemy types that wear military style outfits and use high class weapons. These guys aren't fucking around anymore, they want to protect the convoys and have brought the tools to do so. They are a new potential source of powerful vehicles and weapons if you can carefully take them out. If you take the easy way and blow up all the vehicles up you won't get anything extra.
- Enemy vehicles use a mix of shotgun and assault enemies.
- Specops enemies now have a unique appearance fitting for being 'foreign commandos'.
- More unpredictable enemies - behaviours such as rescuing injured comrades, using mounted weapons or closing distance using vehicles are no longer guaranteed to occur.
- The chance for enemies to chase you when driving through checkpoints has been reduced to 25%.
- More black enemies.
Bug fixes
- A new game executable is included that has been patched to use 4GB of RAM, this improves load times and game stability.
- Restored missing big truck engine sounds.
- Restored missing critical healing animations on Infamous difficulty.
- Fixed the Jackal tape bug where the 10th tape repeats and you can't hear the remaining ones.
- Fixed bouncing NPCs.
- Fixed the silent phone call bug (mostly, use DirectX 9).
- Fixed being able to see the edges of your arms when using the hang glider.
- Fixed the hang glider bouncing on water - it is now buoyant and you can climb onto it while it is floating.
- Fixed assassination targets having the same vision as snipers.
- Fixed a sniper that often gets stuck inside a rock in map 2, at the ammunition outpost between the Crash Site and Sepoko. They are now stood next to the rocket enemy at the same outpost.
- Fixed the MAC-10 being silent.
- Fixed mouse speed clamping.
- Improved a slight misalignment of the vehicle GPS.
- Fixed a bug where at low resolutions the M1903 crosshair disappears.
- Fixed the Wwwwww main menu bug.
- Fixed the player not walking slower when using ironsights with the M79.
Unlocked DLC – Ubisoft authentication no longer required
- Predecessor tapes.
- Homemade and Primitive machetes.
Customisation Options - You can add/customise these options with the included files and instructions. It's very simple and doesn't take more than a few minutes. The download includes comparison images for all of the different visual options.
- A complete AI-enhanced texture pack (available in a separate download, check the files section).
- Outpost Respawn Timer & 'Outpost Cleared' Notification (Credit to Scubrah).
- Playable NPCs.
- Weapon Animations.
- Weapon Icons.
- Map Icons.
- Syrette Icon.
- Remove HUD Icons.
- AR-16 & MGL-140 Scope Colours.
- Malaria Pill Animation.
- FPS Cap.
- Original Graphics Settings.
- Original Colour Saturation.
- 'Colourful Far Cry 2' Reshade.
- Remove Sprinting & Aiming Blur.
- Shoot and throw grenades while driving and using mounted weapons (Lots of bugs).
7-Zip is required to extract the mod download, get it here.
Something not to your liking? Want to make your own mod? I've made a guide to Far Cry 2 modding that covers how to change everything in this mod and more, find it here.
I use a steam controller to play and my settings can be found by searching for "Far Cry 2: Vanilla+ (Tom's Mod) Binding"
Changelog
v6.0 - The entire mod has been rebuilt from scratch, using new methods I learnt when writing my modding guide. Almost everything has been tweaked, often being simplified to best achieve what I originally intended. New features have been added including playable female mercenaries, new animations, significant retextures, and new customisation options that make this by far the most customisable Far Cry 2 mod that has ever existed. There is too much to list here so if you are revisiting, please check out the new feature list above.
v6.1
Improved the animation for machete stealth kills, credit to dannyhl2 for finding this method
Weapon convoy drivers and gunners are now unique enemy types that wear military style outfits and use high class weapons. These guys aren't fucking around any more, they want to protect the convoys and have brought the tools to do so. They are a new potential source of powerful vehicles and weapons if you can carefully take them out. If you take the easy way and blow up all the vehicles up you won't get anything extra.
Increased sprint speed by 10%.
Swapped the bus stop map textures to a more hand painted style.
Added AI upscaled weapon textures to the standard install (the same textures were previously found in the additional customisation texture pack).
Added an AI upscaled dirt road texture to the standard install (the same texture was previously found in the additional customisation texture pack).
Added two AI upscaled sign textures to the standard install that I'd accidentally missed out in the previous version.
Tweaked enemy weapon progression:
1) A more diverse selection of weapons will be used during the hotel attack.
2) There is a 0% chance of top tier weapons being used during the tutorial.
Added apostrophes to 'Le Milieu' on Michele's page in the character select screen.
Fixed a bug where the MAC-10 was silent.
Fixed a mistake I made where I increased the reliability of the sawed off shotgun by too much. It has been reduced to a 20% increase over default to account for the gun lacking a reliability upgrade in the shop.
v6.2
Removed the fix for bouncing NPCs as multiple people reported being damaged when touched by npcs during certain animations.
- Removed NPC edits that were meant to fix bouncing at high FPS.
- Capped FPS at 60 (the old fix for bouncing NPCs).
- Added FPS cap options to 'Extra Customisations' (30 FPS, 60 FPS, Unlimited FPS).
v6.3 - Complete - Eventually I'll come back and do more updates but for a while this is it.
Divided the download, so save anywhere/limited saving options and also the enhanced texture pack are seperate.
Added AI-enhanced versions of all UI textures.
Created a new loading symbol texture.
Edited the safehouse road sign texture to a less smoothly painted style that more closely resembles the art used for the weapon shop road sign.
Added an option to keep flashing items
Revised pistol balance - thanks to Abbanon for the suggestions.
- Makarov/Silenced Makarov - +25% damage, -15% accuracy
- Star 45 - +40% damage
Tweaked graphics settings
- Textures (Low and medium) - increased minimum texture quality because the new textures looked terrible using the low presets.
- Shading (Low and Medium) - increased minimum weapon mesh quality to prevent low quality weapons seeming like a visual bug.
Removed mouse speed clamping
Hotfix 1
Removed the flashing save reminder from map safehouse icons.
Hotfix 2
Fixed the Save Anywhere download having limited saving.
Fixed the Uzi name in the convoy reward screen.
Complete v2
Overhauled enemy loadouts
-Edited progressions so there is no chance of enemies using late game weapons in the first quarter of the game, but they then quickly progress from mid-tier weapons to high-tier. This more closely matches the original game.
-Enemies now use the mp5 as a primary to prevent it clipping with other weapons when holstered.
-Removed the MGL140 as a potential weapon because the AI's use of it isn't satisfactory. They either completely obliterate the player in seconds or look bugged and out of place pointing the weapon without firing.
-The chance of enemies using silenced weapons has been reduced.
-Secondaries have been rearranged so different enemy types use only two classes of weapon.
-Added a new loadout for patrol drivers so they don't use the flamethrower.
-Added new loadouts for specops enemies so they are guaranteed to use mid-tier weapons.
-The chance for weapon convoy enemies to use high-tier weapons has been reduced to 50% in map 1 and remains at 75% in map 2.
-Fixed the enemy AS50 so they use it correctly as a sniper.
Texture changes
-Now fully compatible with DX10 by removing the upscaled weapon textures from the base download. They have been moved to the enhanced texture pack addon. DX9 is still recommended for general bug fixes.
-Removed mipmaps from the UI/HUD textures so they display correctly on when using low settings.
-Resampled and improved the quality of the flamethrower hud icon, unfortunately it still has to be at a lower resolution than the others.
Graphics changes
-Restored functionality to the 'Texture' setting, due to removal of UI/HUD mipmaps.
-Increased shadow map size for 'Shadows - Ultra High' from 2560 to 2720 (Max before the menu breaks). Also increased rain shadow map size.
-Updated the Reshade version to 5.0.2 and changed the legacy 'Colourfulness' shader to the more modern 'Vibrance'. The end result is identical.
-Reduced quality of the lowest settings for 'Shadows' and 'Terrain' for increased performance.
Bug/Mistake fixes
-Fixed rim lighting not being removed in the previous release.
-Removed the ATV as a patrol weapon because enemies float high above it if their space to get off is blocked. Replaced with the car in map 1 and the jeep wrangler in map 2.
-Improved a slight misalignment of the vehicle GPS.
-Fixed the Homeland 37 not being referred to as the Ithaca 37 in German, Hungarian and Polish.
Controls changes
-Added 'v' as a single button to look back when driving (rebindable).
Download changes
-Combined 'Save Anywhere' and 'Limited Saving' downloads into one thanks to removing the weapon textures.
-Added engine files for the Epic Games Store version.
-Added instructions for editing colour saturation with the 'Colourful Far Cry 2' Reshade.
-Added comparison images for all visual customisations and the Reshade.
Extra Customisations
-Added a GOG patch to fix the Wwwwwww menu bug.
-Removed mipmaps from UI texture customisations.
-Added a new customisation for original graphics settings, with various options for different fps caps.
-Added a new weapon animation customisation to hold weapons higher when crouched.
Complete v3
Scubrah's amazing script to increase the range for enemy and object respawns has been added as an optional customisation.
Playable characters
-Added the option to play as an 'Anonymous Mercenary'. This can be selected when starting a new game and will randomly generate a mercenary to play as, using the same system that generates enemies.
-Added a customisation that allows you to play as any NPC or multiplayer class. Replacing Paul by default but instructions are included to replace anyone.
Weapon changes
-SPAS12: Slight buff to damage and effective range.
-Sawed-off Shotgun: Now fires both barrels at once (14 pellets in one shot), increased horizontal spread, slightly reduced vertical spread, increased max ammo 20%.
-Silenced shotgun: Slight nerf to effect range.
-Increased crossbow max ammo to account for it's smaller explosion size (+1 infamous, +2 hardcore/normal, +3 easy).
-Increased AR-16 accuracy by 15%.
-Redid the pistol rebalances from a couple of versions ago because for some reason they were missing.
-Weapons found in safehouses (mission related, not from safehouse weapon crates) are now in better condition. They now have 50% durability remaining, increased from the default 25% durability remaining.
Enemy/Buddy changes
-Made assassination targets only vulnerable to the player, to stop them being killed through enemy infighting.
-Weapon convoy and specops enemies now have legitimately unique appearances that separate them from standard enemy mercs. Both are military style but they wear different gear suitable to their roles.
-During the "Destroy the foreign commandos' gear" mission, if the player does the subversion option and destroys the gear in the shanty town, the buddy will be ambushed by specops enemies.
-Fixed a sniper that often gets stuck inside a rock in map 2, at the ammunition outpost between the Crash Site and Sepoko. They are now stood next to the rocket enemy at the same outpost.
-Buddy weapons have been upgraded, they no longer use bottom-tier weapons at all.
Download/Mod changes
-Roadsigns are now coloured with mission objectives when using 'Full Navigation' and have no colour when using 'Limited Navigation'. Previously both options had these colours removed. (Fixed subvert mission signs still showing as blue).
-Disabled the 'Upgrades' pause menu option. This section has been broken for a while but now it displays nothing to prevent any confusion.
-Updated the Reshade to 5.2.2
Complete v3.1
Updated Scubrah's script for outposts respawning.
- The script is now more specific to only keeping outposts loaded in memory. This fixes issues with the hotel firefight and other potential bugs.
- A potential fix for buddies not reappearing after rescuing the player.
Complete v4
New vibrant colour scheme. - This simply removes the game's desaturation values, so what you see is the assets' original colours. The effect is identical to the previously used 'Colourful Far Cry 2' Reshade.- Customisations have been added to restore the original colours, and also to install 'Colourful Far Cry 2' Reshade. The Reshade has the benefit of also boosting saturation of all menus.
Integrated Scubrah's 'Functional Outpost' Mod- If all the enemies within an outpost have been killed, they will respawn in one hour real time.- Only occurs if every enemy within an outpost is dead, and the timer is not shortened by sleeping in-game.- The 'Outpost Cleared' notification has been removed.- Customisations have been added to change the timer length (30 mins, 60 mins, 120 mins) and to restore the 'Outpost Cleared' notification.
The MP5 is now a primary again.- This seems to make sense while keeping the edited unlock order so the MP5 is unlocked automatically at the start of Act 2. This gives the silent shotgun a better reason to exist, the Uzi is better placed as an Act 1 unlock, and with the buffs given to other assault rifles the MP5 should not be as weak.- Effective range increased by 33% from it's default values (the same as the assault rifle primaries).- Durability restored to default.- Recoil restored to default.- Uzi durability restored to default.- MP5 still uses the light assault webbing for it's ammo upgrade, still gets ammo pickups from other SMGs, and still it listed as an SMG in the weapon shop.
Fixed the blurry flamethrower weapon icon. - This was due to a bug with the icon which meant it didn't properly display a higher resolution texture. The original resolution texture is still displayed in the shop menu, tutorial weapon popup, and convoy unlock popup.
- Added the Flare Gun and IEDs as potential first weapon purchases, available during the tutorial visit to the weapon shop.
- Slightly reduced all primary shotguns' ironsight FOV.
- New shadow settings which reduce shadow aliasing. These remove the 'shadow line' while keeping shadows crisp. Credit to BigTinz.
- New colourful weapon icons based on screenshots of the weapons. There are Customisations available with thinner backgrounds or without backgrounds.
- Fixed a bug where at low resolutions the M1903 crosshair disappears. Credit to BigTinz.
- Incorporated the 'Wwwwwwwww' menu fix into the main release.
- Updated the tools used for installing the Customisations to the most recent version, updated by BigTinz.
- The engine files for each seperate digital platform have been removed and replaced with just the GOG files. The game doesn't care so this just streamlines the install process.
- Redone the tutorial skip saved games so they work with the outpost respawn script. The alternate start now has only weapons unlocked and upgraded, leaving the rest of the upgrades to be decided on by the player, giving a small amount of gameplay and purpose for gaining diamonds.
- Added a customisation to remove sprinting blur, aiming blur, or both. Credit to Scubrah.
- Added a personal message to the loading screen text when quitting.
- Added instructions for how to install the mod on a Steam Deck.
Complete 4.1
- Added a fix for the player not walking slower when using ironsights with the M79 (Credit to JohnDou28 for finding this bug).
- Removed the customisation for a 120 minute timer for outpost respawns, as this is reportedly broken.
This mod was only possible by building upon the work of others, and where possible getting direct help from fellow modders.
Thanks to: the dead community of Far Cry 2 modders at openworldgames.org, BigTinz (Hunter), Scubrah, the Infamous Fusion team, dannyhl2, Marc, Glam Stachee, PuppyUnicorn, thirdkeeper, Jackal, and MSgtDylan.
Thanks to: the dead community of Far Cry 2 modders at openworldgames.org, BigTinz (Hunter), Scubrah, the Infamous Fusion team, dannyhl2, Marc, Glam Stachee, PuppyUnicorn, thirdkeeper, Jackal, and MSgtDylan.