With the release of Just Cause 3 this month, the franchise is attracting more attention
than ever before. But the Just Cause franchise has already earned quite the following after
almost ten years, as its blend of espionage open-world action and strange sense of humor
continues to get more interesting with each installment. But you may be thinking “Wait...Just
Cause? What possible hidden inspiration could there be in JUST CAUSE?” Well shut up hypothetical
person because I’m about to tell you. When designing the protagonist of the series,
Rico Rodriguez, Schlappi said that they first pictured “a romanticized Che Guevara”.
Che Guevara was a famous Marxist revolutionary who, along with Fidel Castro, lead a revolution
to overthrow the Cuban government. This parallels Rico’s story in which he helped overthrow
a corrupt government regime in Just Cause 1. This parallel is made even stronger by
the fact that the island nation of Panau’s flag is designed to look very similar to that
of Cuba. But of course, Che Guevara is most well known in the United States for the iconic
“Guerrillero Heroico” photograph, which has been turned into a popular poster found
in dorm rooms everywhere. This image of Che served as the inspiration behind the cover
of the first Just Cause game. Che Guevara was not the only inspiration in
the creation though. Rico’s nickname “Scorpio” is thought by many fans to be a reference
to the Mortal Kombat character Scorpion, a theory supported by the fact that both characters
sport a chain weapon. Another huge influence was Johnny Depp’s character Sheldon Sands
in the 2003 movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Not only do Rico and Sheldon share very similar
looks in the first game, but they also both work at government spy agencies. And like
Rico and Che, Sheldon Sands took part in a coup, though in very different roles. As a
nod to this, Rico’s boss at The Agency, Tom Sheldon, is named after the character.
Rico himself shares his last name “Rodriguez” with the director of Once Upon a Time in Mexico,
the well-known low budget filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez.
Oh and speaking of Tom Sheldon, the character’s stereotypical southern personality is thought
by many to be based on the character Jack Wade, James Bond’s Texan CIA buddy introduced
in 1995’s Goldeneye. The comparison is obvious, as both characters share a love of loud Hawaiian
shirts and cowboy hats.
As with many spy stories, the developers at Avalanche Studios were inspired
by the 007 films during the creation of the game, but art director Zach Schlappi also
told the team what they DIDN’T want to see in the story, saying: “We [wanted] just
a touch of that James Bond agency feel without going too far into the goofy and outlandish
like Triple X”. All apologies to Vin Diesel I’m sure. When designing the gadgets and
weaponry of the game, Schlappi said he was aiming for a more modern, realistic look,
asking himself "If Jony Ive was doing weapon design what would that look like?" Jony Ive
is a British designer responsible for the look of a few products you may of heard of,
including the iPod, iPhone, Macbook Pro, and pretty much every other modern Apple piece
of technology. Players of Just Cause 3 will be familiar with
Medici, the fictional nation that serves as the setting of the new game and the home of
Rico Rodriguez. The country takes its name from the House of Medici, a powerful family
that controlled a large amount of banks, and eventually a large amount of Italy, in the
14th century. This decision was likely made since, according to Zach Schlappi, a lot of
the nation of Medici was designed to look like Southern Italy and Sicily. Not only that,
but Medici’s many ancient aqueducts found throughout the game hint at its ancient Roman
past. The flag of Medici also has a color scheme that is almost exactly like that of
Italy’s, minus a little yellow of course. Well that’s all for this week, we hope you
liked this episode of Just Cause Hidden History. Please like and subscribe and all that good
stuff! That way we can make more! Alright so last week we asked you what American sitcom
the Fallout character Phillip Lem was a reference to, and the answer was “D. Better Off Ted”.
Go watch that show by the way! Cancelled too soon. So anyway, this week we have a Just
Cause question for you: In Just Cause 2 there is a large area in the northern part of the
map that contains a bunch of references to what TV show?
A. Lost B. Heroes
C. The X-Files D. Star Trek: The Next Generation
By the way, be sure to be here next week, when we finally dig into Fallout 4 for the
first time since its release, ooooh teasers.