Overview
This guide will allow you to make the most out of your Far Cry 3 adventures, read it to gain insight into useful strategies and tricks that will make your time a little less frustrating.
An introduction
Hunting, Crafting, and Inventory Management
The three things mentioned in the title are extremely important when beginning this game. The majority of your time on the first island (the north island, where you start out) will be spent gathering animal pelts to craft better equipment. The only way to upgrade your character’s equipment (inventory size, # of weapons that you can carry at one time, and ammo reserves for all weapons) is by hunting animals, skinning them, and crafting said equipment.
When starting out the game, the most important things you’ll wanna get are:
1. Holsters – Allow you to carry more weapons. The maximum at any time (once fully upgraded) is 4.
2. Ammo Pouch – Allows you to carry more ammo for guns. The starting allotment is miserable.
3. Wallet – Rather self explanatory… Dosh, money, cash, moolah, dinero, blah blah blah
4. Loot Rucksack – Allows you to carry more items (leaves,skins,loot,etc.). Incredibly important for the budding explorer.
5. Arrow Quiver – Allows more arrows + special arrows to be carried. The bow is great and you’ll need some arrows.
The rest of the upgrades are definetly useful, but they aren’t quite as important as the ones mentioned above. To obtain these upgrades, you must go to specific locations on the map and hunt the animals required to craft the item. Always be wary of what animal you are hunting and the equipment required to take it down, many animals are hostile and tough to kill. The hunting and crafting itself is quite straight forward, so I’ll skip over that. One thing that is also important is to manage your rucksack. Until you fully upgrade it (which gives you 96 slots), you’ll often need to go to shops and off-load some of that excess crap you’ve picked up.
Just as a useful thing, here’s all the skins you’ll need to upgrade your stuff:
Standard:
4x Bear Skin
6x Boar Hide
2x Buffalo Hide
2x Cassowary Leather
5x Deer Hide
8x Dingo Pelt
5x Dog Skin
6x Goat Skin
5x Komodo Dragon Skin
4x Leopard Skin
2x Pig Hide
4x Shark Skin
4x Tapir Hide
5x Tiger Skin
Extended:
Black Panther Leather
Blood Komodo Leather
Golden Tiger Leather
Maneater Skin
One Horn Buffalo Hide
Undying Bear Leather
White Belly Tapir Leather
Yellow Neck Leather
Story Missions, Side Missions, Quests, and Trials
Story missions (obviously) progress Far Cry 3’s storyline and should be spaced out along the game. If you ONLY do the story missions, you’ll miss out on a ton of great content, but if you don’t do them, you can’t get certain skills (and you’ll be missing the pretty good story). Story missions unlock (not every time, but about every 2-4 of them will) new skills, so if you see “Complete more missions to unlock this skill” on a skill that you really want, go do some main missions. As well as having 39 main missions, Far Cry 3 has side missions that have small stories, but do not pertain to the plot. These will reward you with money and XP, making them pretty worthwhile endeavors. These missions are indicated on the map as silver/blue-ish exclamation points (in contrast to the story missions’ gold exclamation points).
Far Cry 3 also has smaller, more repetitive quests known as “Path of the Hunter” and “Wanted Dead”, which can be found on outpost bounty boards after liberating them. These quests are fun to do, and reward you with valuable XP and money. They’re really good if you’re in a pinch for cash or are close to getting a skill point and need a quick burst. Keep an eye out for “Path of the Hunter” quests that have “RARE” stamped on the front. These special quests will allow you to hunt a special animal of a certain kind (such as a Black Panther, a variant of the leopard) for the skin, which will allow you to craft the largest upgrade for a piece of equipment. These quests will never disappear, so don’t worry about having to do them in a rush, none of the bounty board quests (not even the rare hunts) will go away.
The final little piece of missions that Far Cry 3 has are “Trials of the Rakyat”. These are short little time trials, reminiscent of some of the side missions in “Saints Row:The Third”. They present a relatively small amount of time to kill enemies with the weapon/vehicle provided. Honestly, I didn’t do too many of these, but they are pretty fun time wasters that add another thing to do in this game. They are optional, but once again, provide you with useful XP and cash, depending on how well you do.
Outpost Liberation
Outposts are scattered around both the North and South islands of Rook Island, 34 in total. These forts contain a lot of enemies and should be approached with extreme caution. As always, stealth is the best option if available, but going loud can be a lot of fun sometimes. Your best bet is to find a safe spot in the grass, pull out your camera (with the ‘z’ key) and tag all the enemies in the base. Once tagged, devise a plan to eliminate the enemies and turn off the alarm.
Alarms:
Alarms are your worst enemy when taking on an outpost. They call in reinforcements and take away your ability to gain massive XP for taking out an outpost. Holding ‘e’ on an alarm box disables ALL alarms in the outpost, while shooting the box only takes out the one you shot. Also note that once the alarm is triggered, you cannot turn it off, even if you destroy the box. You goofed if they call in the cavalry.
Animals:
Animal cages are often found in outposts, containing varying aggressive animals (cassowaries, tigers, bears, rabid dogs/dingos, etc.). They can be shot/stabbed to be opened, letting the animal loose in the base. While not really reliable, these animals can sometimes go nuts and clear a base out for you, which is awesome. Not a great tactic, but always a good idea to let the animal loose to distract the enemies.
High Priority Targets:
To take down the harder outposts, prioritize on which guys need to go first. Set it up so you can take out Heavies and Flamethrower guys first, snipers next, chargers after that, and finally normal dudes.
Weapon Choices:
A big part of taking out outposts depends on your equipment. Carrying the right guns can make all the difference. Snipers with silencers, silenced SMGs, shotguns, and the bow are all great choices. If you are taking a more direct approach, you can’t beat an LMG, Assault Rifle, some explosives, and a grenade launcher. It all depends on what way you want things to play out and in what environment you’ll be fighting in, so make adjustments based on your playstyle and situation 
Skillz
Skills are pretty important in Far Cry 3, but not all of them are super great. By the time the game ends, you’ll most likely have unlocked all, or most of them so this is more of a guide for which to get first. The skills are unlocked with skill points gained by leveling up. Do missions, quests, outpost liberations, and trials to get XP. Anyways, on to the list.
The Heron: Long Range Takedowns and Mobility
The Shark: Assault Takedowns and Healing
The Spider: Stealth Takedowns and Survival
- Best for the Heron
- Death From Above
- Deep Breath
- Steady Aim
- Soft Landing
- Breath Control
- Marathon Man
- Best for the Shark
- Everything on the top row
- Heavy Beatdown
- Chain Takedown
- Best for the Spider
- Everything! The ones to get first will be below
- Horticulture 101 (Twice as many green plants, absolutely awesome for health syringes)
- Ninja Run (super useful for stealth)
- Takedown Drag
- Stone Wall
- Nimble Hands
- Zoology 101 (Great for crafting, selling skins for money, and makes things much easier)
The best ones to go for are the shark (more health) and then the spider (better stealth).
Shops
You’ll encounter a lot of stores and shops along the way, peddling guns and customizations for your guns. These are important for getting all sorts of useful stuff for your firepower, getting your firepower, and getting rid of your rucksack’s contents. The shop has three functions, buying guns, selling items, and customizing guns. The first one, buying guns, is something you should not do!!! Liberating radio towers gives you guns for free, so don’t bother wasting money by buying guns at shops. The second, is extremely useful, and is a tool that you’ll need for getting money in this game. The third is really useful for getting cool and useful attachments for your weapons. The most useful will be silencers, red dot sights, extended mags, and high power scopes. Also, the red dot sight is the best scope for the recurve bow. Don’t forget to off-load the stuff you’ve looted from containers and dead bodies at the shops. This extra money will definetly help you in the end.The shops inside safehouses (the big cabinets that look like lockers) are exactly the same as the shops in towns.
Secretz and Collectibles
Far Cry 3 has a host of collectibles, macguffins, doodads, and watchamacallits that would make Lara Croft cream her pants at the though of snagging them. Honestly, this stuff is just for the hardest of the core and you can refer to the “Signature Weapons” section to find out what it unlocks. Anyways, here’s the list of the thingies you can find:
Lost Letters – Found in WWII bunkers, letters from dead Japanese soldiers, indicated by a letter
Memory Cards – Found in liberated outposts, basically just laptops (look at map image for location of cards)
Relics – Small idols of a heron, shark, spider, and boar scattered all over, indicated by a vase/pot
Radio Towers – Not really collectibles, but they do reveal bits of the map. Definetly take care of em.
Loot Containers – Indicated by a diamond on the map, basically just loot.
You can buy really useful maps in shops that show where the collectibles are and where the loot is, in portions of the map. These aren’t super expensive and will get you some great upgrades.
Here are those maps:
Signature Weapons
Signature Weapons are special versions of existing weapons in Far Cry 3, with a unique name, upped specs, and even custom paint jobs:
AMR — Z93 with extended magazine, high powered scope, explosive rounds and custom paint. (Sniper Rifle)
Bull — M133 with RDS, extended magazine and custom paint. (Shotgun)
Bushman — P416 with marksman scope, extended magazine, suppressor and custom paint. (Assault Rifle)
Cannon — .44 Magnum with extended barrel, optical sight, 6 round chamber and custom paint. (Pistol — Revolver)
Ripper — MKG with optical scope, extended magazine, and custom paint. (LMG)
Shadow — 1911 with RDS, extended magazine, suppressor and custom paint. (Pistol — Semi-automatic)
Shredder — Vector .45 ACP with optical scope, suppressor, extended magazine and custom paint. (SMG)
Japanese Tanto — Custom Machete.
These awesome weapons are only unlockable through special objectives.
AMR – Unlocked after finding 20 Relics
Bull – Unlocked after finding 10 Relics
Bushman – Unlocked after freeing all 18 radio towers
Cannon – Unlocked via Uplay for some Uplay points (really cheap, easy to get, so don’t worry)
Ripper – Unlocked after 6 Trials of the Rakyat
Shadow – Unlocked after 17 Outpost Liberations
Shredder – Unlocked after finding 10 Memory Cards
Japanese Tanto – Unlocked after finding 6 Lost Letters
These weapons are really kick ass and are super rewarding to get after hours of play. The best are the Bull, Ripper, Shredder, Japanese Tanto, Shadow, and Bushman. The rest are all good, but I just don’t prefer them over their regular counterpart 
Conclusion
Well, I hope that helped you a little bit. Probably didn’t but whatever. Anyways, thanks to Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal, the Far Cry wiki, and Google. BRERB….