What am I missing out on by not clearing outposts in Far Cry 3

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The problem with open world sandbox games is that the more you win, the more boring the world gets. (I think I'm the only person in the world that really enjoyed Far Cry 2's respawning outposts).

The first time I played InFamous, I did every side mission. By the end of it, I had all these totally super sweet powers…and nobody to use them on! Saints Row, same thing! By the time you get the cool guns, you've cleared half the map and there's nobody to do drive-by RPG'ings at.

I told myself this wouldn't happen with Far Cry 3. As soon as I figured out that clearing outposts prevented enemies from spawning, I stopped doing it. Here's a quick graphic of my progress so far:

Rook Island

And it's working! When I travel from mission to mission, I actually have to be on my guard! Random encounters happen! I get to continuously murder people with bullets. I am 100% ok with this.

But…whenever I run out of murdering ammo, I have to trek halfway across the continent to find a friendly gun store. And God forbid I die…respawning sets me so far back from my goal it's like I'm playing EVE Online. I just feel like I've traded one drudge for another. Also, I'm worried that there might be in-game rewards (such as the radio towers = free guns) for clearing outposts that I'm not getting.

Am I missing out on anything important by not clearing outposts and radio towers?

Best Answer

You really ought to be clearing radio towers; they reveal the minimap in the area, give you free guns, and provide a nearby respawn point (though you can't fast-travel to them). The latter benefit isn't that useful if you're on PC - even though it's not listed in the controls, F9 will quicksave and F11 will quickload, unless you're currently in a mission area in which case the game seems determined to become Call of Far Cry.

Clearing outposts is a take it or leave it sort of thing - as I'm sure you're aware, every cleared outpost becomes a fast travel location which can make getting around the island significantly easier, and provides you with an automated store for ammo refills. Some outposts have collectibles in them, if you're in to that sort of thing.

One less-obvious benefit of clearing outposts is that doing so usually unlocks some local quests. Normally, these are the "go here, stab man with knife" sort of things, or random local color; usually not the sort of thing that's gamebreaking to miss.

However, the big thing you're missing by not clearing outposts are the rare Path of the Hunter quests. A significant number of them have you hunt down rare, adjectival beasts that are impossible to find otherwise; those beasties are used to craft top-tier equipment like ammo pouches or loot rucksacks. If you want to have the biggest bags of all (and really, who doesn't?) you're going to need to clear outposts.

So, that being said, in your situation I would recommend the following:

  1. Activate all radio towers, unless for some reason you object to seeing the minimap in which case you should become friends with quicksave/quickreload.
  2. Use a list of Path of the Hunter quests to figure out which outposts to liberate; the ones for {adjective} {animal} are for rare animals you won't find outside of these quests (e.g, Black Panther, One-Horn Buffalo). Liberating these outposts should also give you a smattering of fast-travel points in useful areas on the northern island, though there aren't as many on the southern island so you'll probably want to grab a few extra there.
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