Far Cry 5
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: March 27, 2018
Platforms: PS4, PC, Xbox One
Rating: Mature
Genre: FIrst-Person Shooter
NOT FAR ENOUGH
Written by Joshua David Anderson
The Far Cry series has always trafficked in the exotic, using remote locales to offer up open world hijinks. From the mountains of Nepal to tropical islands, from Africa to prehistory, past Far Cry games would give Western audiences a look into a location that was unfamiliar to them. With the announcement and release of Far Cry 5, Ubisoft decided to take the series to America’s heartland, allowing players to explore and rampage through a fictional town in Montana. Does this change of scenery alter the Far Cry formula significantly, or is it more of the same?
Far Cry 5 takes place in Hope County, a fictional area found in Montana. With this being the first in the series set in the United States, Ubisoft wanted to go bigger with the story and also tap into some of the real fears that Americans have today. So, Far Cry 5 is about a doomsday prepper cult of religious militants who believe the end of the world is nigh, and have commandeered the small county. The cult, called Project Eden’s Gate, are led by a ruthless pastor named Joseph Seed who considers himself a prophet. As the player, you control a nameless Sheriff’s Deputy who goes up against Seed and his family of religious stereotypes, who are all characterized about as much as their descriptions. There is the self help guru, the magical girl who uses hallucinogenic drugs to control people, and the military-obsessed trope who has the biggest guns. All of this plays out in a story that honestly doesn’t spend any time making you know or care about anyone involved.
The game itself follows Ubisoft’s tried and true open world formula fairly closely, while making some smart and welcome changes. Hope County is a large map, with lots of distinct area to explore. Series mainstays like outposts to take over and objects to destroy return with little changes, and collectables to be found are plenty. Something new Far Cry 5 introduces is “Prepper Stashes:” bunkers or locked rooms that are filled with upgrade points, weapons, ammo, and money. Each stash is a little puzzle, requiring different conditions to open them, which are all unique and are consistently a joy to find and complete.
Far Cry 5 also smartly changes the way you explore and the way you unlock new side quests and activities. Gone are the old towers you would climb that would then dump a bunch of icons on your map. Now, anything that is put on your map is discovered dynamically and naturally by speaking to people you save, or reading it from a note, or by simply walking across it. This makes going into a new area much more exciting and feels like an organic way to discover content. Having an NPC you rescued from a roadside execution tell you about a prepper stash just down the road feels much better than just having it filled out on your map.
While Far Cry 5 makes some good changes to the open world design, the combat and upgrading systems don’t feel nearly as fresh. In fact, they feel directly taken from prior games and yet somehow still feel more restricted. Weapons are largely exactly what you have played before and the upgrade process is arguably much worse. There is no crafting of perks or weapons, so you simply get upgrade points and spend them on things like a wingsuit or an extra holster. It’s all technically fine, but certainly ho-hum. There is also a new Companion system, which is neat but not terribly useful. You will always be better at shooting all the bad guys than your AI teammate. There is also the game’s annoying habit of forcing your character into cutscenes with the story villains through arbitrary, unavoidable kidnapping sections. This isn’t a bad idea once, but the game does it to you two or three times PER VILLAIN. It becomes so canned and jarring that any good immersion the game has garnered goes out the window.
Far Cry 5 is absolutely more of the same Far Cry blueprint. If you loved the prior games or haven’t played them since they came out, then Far Cry 5 might be just what you are waiting for. But if you are even a little bit tired of the formula or if you are looking for something new and fresh with a compelling story with strong, fleshed out antagonists, you are probably better off looking elsewhere.