Crafting huge sandbox open worlds poses a challenge for developers – not only do you have to create flexible mechanics that allow the player to explore the space you’ve created but you’ve also got to fill it with enduring gameplay, and without it your world feels sterile.

That was arguably the flaw in Just Cause, from Swedish developer Avalanche Studios. While it was hard not to love its character-filled Caribbean island setting and the high-flying stunts of swarthy CIA Black Ops protagonist Rico Rodriguez, Just Cause was plagued by vast swathes of nothingness between your missions to overthrow the dictatorship of Salvador Mendoza.

But Just Cause was arguably hamstrung by its last-generation origins. “The first game was made for PS2 and ported to the Xbox 360 and PC – so those were its limitations. It was designed around that memory and those graphics cards,” admitted George Wright, associate producer at Avalanche Studios, during our recent hands-on with Just Cause 2. But there are no such limitations with the sequel, Wright promises, and from what we’ve seen Just Cause 2 is all about breaking limits, technical and otherwise.

This time Rico’s mission, on the 400+ square-mile fictional Pacific island of Panau, is to aid revolutionaries trying to topple evil dictator ‘Baby’ Panay. With its sprawling landscapes, mountains and seemingly endless vistas, Panau is a huge open world, all stunningly rendered by the new Avalanche 2.0 engine. It’s filled with revolutionary faction and story missions and the developer promises you’ll never be at a loss for things to do. “In Just Cause you just had liberations and the main Agency missions,” Wright says, “but in this one you can take out competing settlements, remove military propaganda and pull down statues and communication towers.” Destruction is a core aim in Just Cause 2, with a Chaos system rewarding you for destroying Panay’s military infrastructure.

The stunts that were the high point of Just Cause return with much greater flair, and as well as being able to hijack various cars and aircraft with it, Rico’s new grapple and parachute combination let’s you glide and pull yourself all over the map. You can traverse mountains or go up buildings, zipping around like a gun-toting Spider-Man. We used it to great effect clambering up two soaring towers modelled on the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, before planting a bomb and base jumping off. The enhanced grapple system opens up a whole world of tricks as you can even grapple enemies onto each other. One of our favourite ploys was grappling soldiers and ‘bullet juggling’ them or tethering them to explosive gas canisters that rocketed them into the air. “That’s the beauty of the grapple system”, claims Wright, “people at first don’t realise just how much they can do and it’s awesome to watch them learn.”

With a far richer world and the true sandbox play afforded by its intuitive grapple system, Just Cause 2 promises to elevate the adventures of Rico Rodriguez to a whole new level, and we’ll be bringing you more details on it very soon.