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The 10 Best Far Cry 3 Mods

Published

9 months ago

August 3, 2023

Shawna Schofield

What are the best Far Cry 3 Mods:

Far Cry 3 was released in 2012, but it remains a fan favorite and one of the best games in the series.

Despite its age, the modding community hasn’t left this game behind, and they’ve created some truly amazing mods that make this game worth replaying.

Today, we’re looking at the best Far Cry 3 mods Nexus and highlighting the ones that bring new life to this classic game.

The 10 Best Far Cry 3 Mods

There are hundreds of mods for Far Cry 3, but not all of them improve gameplay in a meaningful way.

The mods we’ve chosen have been selected based on their stability, their endorsements, and how much they improve the game.

So, before you venture back to the Rook Islands, take a moment to read our list of the 10 best Far Cry 3 mods:

10. Welcome To Wonderland

Have you ever wanted to play through Far Cry 3 as the bad guy? If so, you’re going to love Welcome to Wonderland!

This mod completely turns Far Cry 3 on its head and swaps around the characters so that you play as a pirate trying to recapture Rook Island from Jason and his pals.

Along with changing the characters and story, this mod also adds a number of other gameplay changes that we love.

There are tons of new graphics, increased chances of rainfall, and a rebalanced combat system that makes weapons much more deadly.

Moreover, all weapons and skills are open from the start, though you will still have to purchase weapons, so you can’t just immediately access them.

Likewise, some of the weaker skills have been buffed to make them more interesting and worth trying out.

While all of these gameplay changes are great, it is the completely wacky story that we love the most, and it will have you literally laughing your ass off.

Seriously, having to rescue your pirate pals from Jason and the Rakyat is incredibly bizarre but so fun to play.

Welcome to Wonderland is one of the best joke mods for Far Cry 3, and we highly recommend giving it a try for yourself!

9. Immersive Sounds

When you compare the sound design of the best open-world PS5 games to Far Cry 3, you’ll clearly see that the former could be improved.

Well, mod creator CovertKish has taken it upon themselves to improve the sounds in the game so that they are more immersive and realistic.

This mod removes all of the intrusive UI sounds, such as the humming FX in the menu and the FX sound when opening the menu.

It also removes all of the little sounds that play when you use the weapon wheel, interact with something, or get a popup message.

Now, you can actually hear the wildlife, enemies, and prey around you when you’re stealthing through the jungle.

What we like about this mod is that it stays faithful to the vanilla sounds but enhances them for a more immersive experience.

So, no more will you have annoying sound effects playing when literally anything happens, taking you out of the story.

While this is a relatively simple mod, it does wonders when it comes to making Far Cry 3 feel more realistic!

8. FASTLoot_Heal

Looting and skinning animals is fun at the beginning of the game, but pretty soon, the long animation starts to wear out its welcome.

Like how some of the best Red Dead Redemption 2 mods remove the long animations, so too does this creation by Stillmatic07.

This mod replaces the animations for looting and skinning animals with a quick crouch-and-grab animation that saves so much time.

The animations for healing and using syringes have also been replaced with blank animation files so that they take no time at all.

Now, this does remove some of the realism and immersion from the game, but we feel it’s a decent trade-off for not having to watch the same animations over and over.

Of course, you can choose to download all of these changes together or just the looting animation replacer if you’d prefer to keep slow healing.

7. Mud’s Mod – Ultra HD Texture Pack

If you want to make Far Cry 3 look like one of the most graphically demanding PC games, Mud’s Mod is for you!

This Ultra HD Texture Pack adds next-gen graphics to the game, complete with reflective textures for both characters and the environment.

There are also new textures for clouds and blood, as well as new raindrop effects and skins for your jeeps.

Weapons weren’t left out either, and they all have new finishes, along with precision and peripheral scopes for a variety of rifles.

However, textures aren’t the only thing this mod changes. It also adds a number of gameplay improvements!

For example, enemies can now spawn in liberated areas, they’ll chase you for longer, and animal spawns have been decreased.

Similarly, bears and tigers have been made much rarer, so if you’re on the hunt for them, it can take you some time to find them.

Overall, this mod provides a ton of reasons to replay this game while waiting for Far Cry 7, which is still a long way off!

6. Realistic Lighting

Once you’ve updated the game’s graphics with Mud’s Mod, you’re going to need to think about the lighting.

Well, if you want the best lighting overhaul on the Nexus, look no further than the Realistic Lighting mod by r6angel.

This lighting mod is incredibly impressive, and it does a lot to help Far Cry 3 look a lot more modern, especially when coupled with Mud’s Mod.

Rook looks fantastic with these lighting enhancements, but what we really love is that they’re not overdone.

The tweaks are just enough to make the game look modernized without feeling heavy-handed or too dramatic.

It also has barely any impact on FPS, which is always a benefit, especially if you’re playing on an older computer!

5. 30 Days

If you want to make Far Cry 3 more like one of the best single-player PS5 games while still staying faithful to the vanilla game, 30 Days is the perfect mod.

This mod has a ton of features that you can mix and match to create your own unique playthrough, which is something we absolutely love.

There are three types of minimaps to choose from; a compass, an alternate compass, or no minimap at all.

You can also choose from two gun variants, Legit Guns or Gun Realism, which provide different types of gameplay.

For example, Gun Realism uses damage based on real weapon ballistics testing, whereas Legit Guns have been rebalanced to only have a bit more realism.

Additionally, there is an optional HD texture option with this mod that optimizes many of the vanilla textures to make them look much more modern.

We love how versatile this mod is, and the changes it makes really enhance the gameplay to make it feel a lot more immersive.

4. Far Cry 3 REBORN

Far Cry 3 Reborn is a complete overhaul and rebalance of the game that aims to emphasize immersion and exploration.

If you felt like the vanilla game was lacking a bit of challenge, you will really love this mod because it certainly makes things more difficult!

With this mod, all weapons have been overhauled to resemble their real-life counterparts, and they all have their real names and descriptions to boot.

New weapon skins and sights have also been added, and the auto-reload has been disabled, so you’ll have to watch when you run out of ammo.

Additionally, there is no intro, looting mimics the FASTLoot_Heal mod, and all skills are unlocked from the start.

If that wasn’t enough, object distance has been increased, the UI has been minimalized, and blood physics from bullet impacts has been added.

Now, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything this mod does, and there are even different versions, including Casual, Regular, Hardcore, and Insanity.

While all of the Far Cry games are fun to play, this mod really makes Far Cry 3 stand out as one of the best in the series!

3. Swartz Mod Compilation

The Swartz Mod Compilation is meant to be a New Game Plus of sorts, which is something fans have long been wanting.

While Far Cry 5 has New Game Plus and 6 received it from a patch, no other game in the series has received the same treatment.

Fortunately, this mod is a great alternative, and it works perfectly for those who want a challenging experience with some unique perks.

With this mod, all weapons, silencers, crafting recipes, skills, and weapons are unlocked at the start, as is the second island.

Likewise, weapons have been tweaked to be more realistic, and better sights have been included for more precise aiming.

This mod gives you a ton of freedom at the beginning of the game to set yourself up however you want, and we really like all of the changes it makes.

Although most of what this mod does can be found separately from the mods in this compilation, we like being able to grab all of these features with one download!

2. FarCry 3 Rebalanced

Far Cry 3 may be one of the best Far Cry games, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel hard enough for those looking for a challenge.

If you’re after making Far Cry 3 as difficult as possible without a lot of bells and whistles, this rebalance is for you.

This mod sticks to the vanilla game so closely that it could even be used for a first playthrough, which is definitely a plus.

While it makes the game harder and more realistic, it keeps its tweaks lore-friendly so that it doesn’t compromise any of the story.

In terms of weapon changes, the accuracy, damage, and recoil have been changed to mimic real-world physics, while enemies now do the same damage as players.

NPCs have also been overhauled to be more varied, and they have an increased spawn rate and improved AI to make them more difficult to deal with.

Some general game changes include all abilities being available from the being, increased bag capacity, and a redesigned minimap and compass.

Best of all, this mod is designed to work with Immersive Sounds to make the gameplay a little more realistic.

Moreover, this file can be turned on and off with any save file without creating problems, so if you try it out and don’t like it, you can remove it without hassle!

1. Ziggy’s Mod

Taking our number one spot is, by far, the biggest mod for Far Cry 3 that has ever been made, and it is amazing.

Ziggy’s Mod does literally everything; it adds realism, enhances the UI, rebalances gameplay, and gives players complete freedom.

With this mod, all skills, weapons, syringes, and weapon attachments are unlocked from the start, and signature weapons can be customized.

There are also new reticle color options, new melee weapons, new attachments, new unique signature weapon effects, and more weapon stats.

This mod even overhauls the audio to be more immersive, while unnecessary popups have been removed from the UI in favor of a more streamlined design.

Making this mod even better is that there are three mods to choose from; Casual, Regular, and Hardcore.

Hardcore has all the same features as the regular version, but your ammo count isn’t displayed, weapon slots are reduced, and skill points require more XP.

Now, that’s just the gist of everything this mod does, as it’s basically a complete rebalancing of everything in the entire game!

Ziggy’s Mod is seriously the best and most thorough overhaul for Far Cry 3, and we highly recommend trying it out for yourself!