After all their adventures with scary animals with big teeth, though, it is a minor disappointment to discover that the Africa of Far Cry 2 will feature far less of its usual circle of life. There won’t be any predators - we’re not talking about a game with a STALKER-esque living, breathing ecosystem. All the large animals in the game will be grazing herbivores, featuring star turns from zebras, wildebeest, gazelle, buffalo, impalas, oryx and the like.

“The reason we decided to stay away from predators was because our animal AI is a subset of our human AI,” explains Hocking when confronted by the lack of big cat diaries. “They really live in the world; in the morning, for example, gazelle will come up from the flatlands into terrain that’s hillier to find a watering hole. In these groups of 20 or 30 they’ll come in, find a watering hole, drink, move back out into flatter lands where they can see out over the plains and then graze there. They live in the world following these rules. The problem was, if we wanted to put predators into that ecosystem we would have to balance it to make sure the lions didn’t eat all the gazelles and then all starve to death.”

With a true go-anywhere mentality, and the all-important presence of a hang-glider, this is a game leading the charge of a new, exciting breed of shooter. And, as we all now know, it’s authentic too. But do you know what the biggest change that was heralded by the Ubisoft fact-finding mission? Shit.

“The first thing we noticed when we set foot in the African savannah is that it’s filled with shit,” says an earnest Alexandre. “There’s seriously all shapes and all sizes. We have to include it - it’s just the first thing that you notice!” So there you go. Far Cry 2 - set to be packed with only the most authentic of excrement. A gaming first if ever there was one.