Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as "FC2") is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate "The Jackal", a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is a sequel to the original Far Cry. The game features an open-ended experience. Players are able to ally with one or multiple factions, and to progress through the game world and missions as they see fit, resulting in a nonlinear style of gameplay commonly referred to as sandbox mode that allows the story to progress at their speed and in the order they choose. Players can utilize a range of vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats and hang gliders, to travel within the 50 km2 (19.3 sq miles) gameplay area. The playing styles range from head-on assaults to stealthy infiltrations and assassinations. The game takes place in a sprawling African landscape, with terrain ranging from desert to savannah to jungle.

Various factions and vehicles are featured; enemies include human mercenaries, but sci-fi creatures such as the Trigens from Far Cry are not featured. Furthermore, the player's feral abilities introduced in Far Cry Instincts and its expansions do not return in Far Cry 2. There is also a dynamic weather system that has a day-night cycle and different weather conditions such as storms and strong winds. The time of day also affects the behavior of AI, in terms of enemy alertness and aggressiveness; for example, an enemy might have a slightly heightened awareness at night, but be unable to see the player in hiding, while during the hot part of the day the enemies might be sitting in the shade in groups but easily spot the player from a distance.

The health bar represents the health of the protagonist that is divided into five segments, each of which automatically refills if it is not depleted and the player finds cover for a few seconds. Players carry a limited supply of syrettes which can be used at any time to fully replenish the health bar, and are obtainable from first aid boxes located throughout the game world. When nearing death (only one health bar remaining), the character automatically performs first aid on itself; for example, the character remove bullets from its body when shot, pat itself down if on fire or crack certain bones back into place.

An arsenal of real-world weapons is accessible, including battle rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, handguns and light machine guns. The game categorizes these weapons into inventory slots, each with a specific list of weapons assigned to it. If players pick up a new weapon, it will replace the weapon of the same category:

In addition to the three selectable types of weapons, a machete is carried at all times, and hand grenades and molotov cocktails are usable.

Weapons degrade their reliability over time. Weapons become dirty and prone to jamming, and eventually become completely unusable. The replacement of poor conditioned weapons with better conditioned weapons avoid frequent weapon jams during gun battles.

The game has realistic features such as weapon degradation and the dynamic weather system. Also, the player needs to hold a physical map and use a handheld navigation system (which highly resembles a military-type GPS, the PLGR+ 96 by Rockwell Collins except for the display which is a color graphics LCD where the PLGR has a mono dot matrix display) to get around, but they are automatically updated as the player travels through the environment. The player is able to tag certain objects and locations such as cars, sniper towers, ammo pickups and buildings, so that they are able to monitor them on their map. When vehicles are damaged the player must perform a short repair animation, involving the tightening of one of the bolts on the radiator (assault trucks), headers (buggy) or other interior part with a ratchet. The player also must deal with malaria. Every 30 to 40 minutes in real time, the player must take a pill in order to combat the effects of the illness.

The Dunia Engine allows complex sequences and run-events during gameplay; the game features a day-and-night cycle, as well as tree and vegetation regeneration. A unique fire propagation mechanism, which allows a small fire to spread and eventually cause large brush fires, may be used either to the player's advantage during combat or against the player. The behavior of fire is dependent on factors such as wind speed, wind direction, rain, and vegetation type. For example, a fire may not spread as easily in a lush, moist jungle environment compared to dry, grassy plains and savannahs.