Far Cry 5: My Worst Enemy
Preface
Have you ever had a game that sat in the back of your mind as the “worst game you’ve ever played?” Was there ever a title that if asked that question you could reliably fall back to as an example? A game that wasn’t inherently unplayable by design, but a game that was created especially for you, in the worst way possible? If what I’m saying is familiar, then you’ll understand greatly my relationship with Far Cry 5.
I played Far Cry 5 on release, and was incredibly eager to get my hands on it leading up to the day it launched. I had only just entered the series with Far Cry 4, which blew my mind with its blend of satisfying sandbox variability, as well as its devotion to its setting: the fictional country of Kyrat, based off of the real world country of Nepal. While far from an educational experience, Far Cry 4’s setting has some genuine detail when it comes to the cultures they take inspiration from. Domestic elephants are painted ceremonially, Buddhist prayer flags fly on vast lines across houses and temples, signifying the elements of Earth. Far Cry 4 felt like it nailed its purpose: provide a fun and engaging way to introduce an audience to a culture they may not be familiar with, and to genuinely represent that culture with a story that is either directly inspired by real events, or are fictitious consequences to real events, which in this case alludes to the Maoist revolution in Nepal.
So when I heard that Far Cry 5 was taking place in modern America, I was sceptical as to what this would mean for that authentic inspiration that lingered behind the scenes of Far Cry 4. Nepal had gone through a civil war, and Far Cry 4 reflected that, in both its gameplay and the way it portrayed its characters. But Far Cry 5 was supposed to take place in a Montana county taken over by a Christian cult, so what would the inspiration look like, and how accurately would Far Cry 5 portray Montana and the psychology of cults, without a specific historical event to draw inspiration from? Upon my initial playthrough, in 2018, I came to the conclusion that it failed in this regard, and worse, barely even tried. I beat Far Cry 5 first with a partner, and again alone, and both times I felt like the world was empty. I remember using the description “Dead World” to describe Far Cry 5’s setting. A world where none of the characters were alive, just there to repeat a few lines of dialogue, or tell you to kill a boar or a standard enemy with more health. Something about the game made me feel ‘off.’ I could have just been my early teen hormones winning over me at the time, but I remember that when I left Far Cry 5 I carried more than disappointment. I didn’t just move on to play other games, I actively avoided Far Cry 5, and wished I’d never played it. Something about it transcended beyond being just a bad game for me, and it made me genuinely feel sick.
Years have past since then, and recently I decided to replay Far Cry 5, for a few reasons. The first being that my ongoing holistic study of anthropology led me to research cults, and how they affect the human brain, and I was curious to see how faithful Far Cry 5 was to this very real human phenomenon. The second is actually more grim, and I will warn the reader now a lot of what I’m about to talk about will only be revisited later in the article: I wanted to see how Far Cry 5 tackled religious extremism, gun control, mass hysteria, and phobias surrounding societal collapse. I was born in America, and have lived here all my life, and I can say that the things I have just previously listed are all things I have seen in my life. Religiously motivated shootings, like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, are a byproduct of America’s lax gun laws and its deep roots in religious intolerance. At the time of this article two more recent shootings are circulating through the headlines and minds of the people: the racially motivated Buffalo Tops shooting, and the Uvalde shooting, which took place in an elementary school. Here in America, its not uncommon to have a rambling homeless person try to convince you the world is about to end on your way into a Wal-Mart. Recently, on a beach vacation with my family, I discovered a 20 page colour-printed booklet that was being circulated through various postal stands that cited the new and old testament as it prophesied the collapse of all human society at the hands of nuclear warfare, which would come as an effect of the ongoing russo-ukrainian war. The booklet and its author, which will stay unnamed to prevent the spread of misinformation, talked about everything from microchips in our food, to scapegoating, to how to (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘secure firearms as fast and easy as possible’, as well as how to build a doomsday shelter. It even went on to argue that when this event happened (because there was no longer an if, according to the author) that it would be going against the will of God to save those who failed to prepare, as this (and I’m lightly paraphrasing here again) ‘... is the Rapture, and those who did not prepare are fated to be reaped by God.’
Now you might be saying to yourself, ‘I thought I was reading a Far Cry 5 article, what the hell is all this about?’ and my answer to that question is this: “Context.” This is the context of Far Cry 5’s setting. Because all of what I have just described to you is what happens in America; and that is the setting that Ubisoft chose for their game. And not just in the geographical sense, but in the political sense as well. Far Cry 5 doesn’t just take place in America but in our America, and because of that, it takes a lot of the things I just described to you and implements it into its story. Far Cry 5 doesn’t just have these elements for fun, it has them because they come with America. They are tied to this country’s culture and history, and should therefore be understood before getting into the game. Speaking of game, let's get to that.
Intro and Intent
Set in a fictional region of Montana called Hope County, Far Cry 5 begins with the introduction of a cult called Project Eden’s Gate in the form of an interview driven documentary (which becomes problematic, but we’ll talk about that later) given by characters you’ll eventually meet in game. The cult is established immediately as powerful, and it is explained that they’re violent, militant, and numerous right off the bat. It’s all pretty heavy handed and brief. Nick Rye, a character you meet later, explicitly says “Ain’t no one coming to help us, government can’t do shit, we’re on our own.” No further elaboration. We then see the game’s antagonist, Joseph Seed, thumbs out somebody’s eyes during one of his sermons, and moments later we’re thrown in the game as a deputy travelling with their team to arrest him. This attempt goes awry when you find out your police station is in cahoots with Joseph, your team is split up, and then on out it’s the classic formula of ‘build a resistance and take down the big baddie.’
The game definitely has you suspend a lot of belief when it comes to its setting, and it asks you to do it more than other Far Cry games. I’ve noticed that initially a lot of people get hung up on this, but I have to disagree with the sentiment that just because this scenario would be unlikely to happen that it should be completely written off as something implausible, or completely unfounded. As a piece of speculative fiction, I think it’s redundant to say that it couldn’t happen, because that’s not the important part of the conversation: the conversation starts when you compare this fictional world to reality and consider the parallels between the two. It’s not about how the fictional world can’t happen, it’s about finding just how close, in a sense, this fictional world is to ours. Finding that figurative distance, or the lack thereof, between our world and the fictional one that Far Cry 5 sets up, was the primary goal of my most recent playthrough. But I was also curious to see just what kind of game Far Cry 5 aged to be. At the time of this article, Far Cry 6 has been released to middling reviews and what appears to be collective disappointment. I haven’t played it, so I can’t comment on it personally, but as we near the ninth month after its release, it regularly goes on sale for $20 USD or less, and not one of its DLC’s have garnered any real news coverage. Players cite that the game is too similar to past entries, like Far Cry 5, so I felt that since I was already returning, I could see just exactly what that means, and maybe ponder some interesting ways that the series could improve in future iterations. Overall, I came to the conclusion while playing that I wanted to cover Far Cry 5 almost in its entirety, considering everything from the way it tells its narrative, to how it constructs its environments, to how its gameplay systems and functions hold up.
Gameplay, Environment, Sandbox
I’ve grouped these together because they all affect one another. You can’t have gameplay without a working sandbox. You can’t have a believable environment without a sandbox either. And you’re left with nothing but an engine if all you have is the ability to create physics and spawn objects, without anything to do with them or anywhere to do it. In terms of achievement I believe Far Cry 5 stands tallest in terms of its sandbox and gameplay. More so than anything else I mention in this article, Far Cry 5 nails its moment-to-moment gameplay and sandbox. So much so that just like Far Cry 4, the game includes a map editor and browser, in which you can play, create, and share custom-made environments and scenarios online, as well as play them cooperatively. Shooting strikes a good balance between being heavy but satisfying and controllable, and the different firearm types feel unique enough to warrant having different ammo types. Light machine guns, rocket launchers, and heavy snipers will weigh your character down and decrease your move speed. SMG’s and the light AR-C, a cheaply made civilian assault rifle chambered in 5.56, are snappier and aim faster to accommodate for their lighter frames, but kick more as a result. Far Cry 5 sports good short term gameplay: which is to say that your moment to moment interactions with the game often are nice. The guns that you pick up and fire have good enough gunplay to sustain the enjoyment of the game in those moments, and the vehicles follow this pattern as well. Great driving mechanics, good underlying physics, and a variety of vehicles to start with make for an enjoyable experience when you decide to give your character’s legs a rest. But while Far Cry 5 excels in the short term, I can’t help but feel that it peters out once the gameplay is tested with long term systems, as well as objective structures. For a good example, take Far Cry 5’s weapon count into consideration. On release, there were only four assault rifles in the game to choose from. A semi-auto, a lever action, the AK-47 and the AR-C. And what’s worse, I’m counting the guns that are actually different from one another; there are a ton of guns in Far Cry 5 that not only share similar if not the same models, but are quite literally the same gun. For example, there are four revolver sidearms in the game, and three of them are statistically identical. The only difference with the fourth is that its range and mobility stats are flipped to reflect the fact that it has a shorter barrel. There are also three variations of the MP5 in the game, the MP5, MP5SD, and the MP5K. The MP5 and MP5SD are identical, since a suppressor can be added to the MP5, and the MP5K is just plain better than both of those because not only can it hold a suppressor as well, but it also comes with another point of handling; with no drawback (though this one had to be purchased on Ubisoft’s 3rd party app using the app’s reward currency: fun). There are four variations of the AK, and three of them are statistically identical, while the last trades a point of accuracy for a point of mobility. There are four variations of the AR-C, and all are identical. I will make sure to add as well, that these weapon variations aren’t skins; weapons already have paint jobs that you can apply to them, these are listed as actual guns that are different from one another in the game’s shop, and take a considerable amount of in-game money to purchase.
This wouldn't be nearly as bad if this was alleviated as the game continues, but it isn’t. The first gun I bought and used was the 45/70 lever action rifle. I used it from the second I bought it, all the way to the end of the game. For 40 straight hours. I bought some attachments for it, but that was it. Now, personally, I didn’t mind. It was a fun gun to use, and as a lever action I understand it’s a bit of a niche weapon, so having another gun that functions the same but better would be redundant. However, if you primarily used the AR-C, you were in a similar position as me, which is really odd given that it’s such a generic firearm. You get the AK-47 around a third through the game, but in terms of fully automatic rifles that’s all you get. The only other assault rifle that is similar to those two guns is the BP2, which was added months after release (for some reason, Far Cry 5 tried to to be a live-service game), and it has not one stat that’s better than the AR-C: the first assault rifle you find in the game. There is almost no progression in terms of firearms, and the game doesn’t even attempt to provide variety between the few firearms it has. With so many options in Far Cry 5’s modern setting, it’s odd that the LMG’s, SMG’s and AR’s all have such similar firerates and functionality. I was prepped for it this time around, but I remember that during my first playthrough I was just waiting for that moment when the game added more weapons into the mix. But unlike Far Cry 4, there are no vendor refreshes as the game progresses. There aren’t any surprise additions, or “signature weapons” as they’re called in previous games: variants of weapons in the game that had unique attachments and traits. The weapons that are there are what you get, and to me there just isn’t variation. Because of systems like this, that short term gameplay has no room to grow or change, and soon what was fun becomes done and fatigue sets in; and for good reason. How many times can you shoot the same enemy with the same gun before it gets boring? And sadly, that repetition spreads to other elements of the game as well. Vehicles and enemy design fall into similar categories. The only vehicles that get stronger are the aerial ones, because they go from not having guns to being armed, and the only new enemies the game adds come in the last 3rd of the game, and they are just guys that can sustain more damage to the body, and sometimes they have bows. My 45/70 one-shot them all the same, and every other gun will perform against them the same as long as you hit them in the head. Just like the different MP5’s the game kept telling me were “new” to the shop, the “new” enemies that wanted me dead were texture changes at best. Also, the amount of enemies decreases as the game continues. This makes sense from a story perspective, as you’re slowly liberating this county from the hands of Eden’s Gate, but it feels boring from a gameplay perspective. Even with few firearms in the game, there are still plenty of ways to increase the power of your character. Skill points increase the amount of ammo you can hold, decrease the amount of damage you take from certain sources, and generally increase your health by up to three times its original. So as the game’s difficulty decreases as your character’s power increases, you’re eventually left with a game where you’re given a bunch of power but nothing to test it on.
Objective Structure & Exploration
Moving past the tools at your disposal and the obstacles you face, I can’t help but feel that Far Cry 5’s general objectives, as well as its mission structure, need to be reevaluated. So many of the missions feel the same; and while there’s the stereotype that many open world games cheap out when it comes to the stories adjacent to the main conflict, Far Cry 5 finds ways to cut corners in its main story too. It pains me to say it, because there are some really cool setpieces and moments in the game’s story, but there are some decisions in the game that are just uncalled for. For instance, progressing the main story is done by reputation grinds, three of them in fact: one for each of the three sub-antagonist. To progress in the game, you have to destroy structures plotted around in each of the game’s three regions, kill enemies in randomly spawning gunfights, and do missions dubiously called “main missions” that are optional and range from decent to pitiful. However, because the game is based off of a rep grind all of the missions are optional. The only missions that further the game’s plot are triggered when you reach different reputation levels, and these are close to what main-story missions were in past Far Cry games . When it comes to these other “main” missions and their quality, I’ll set the tone by highlighting this fact: there are four “main” missions in this game where four different characters ask you to retrieve their respective stolen vehicles and give it back to them. I’ll get into why this is bad for the story later, but from a pure gameplay perspective these are awful. They all go like this: Stealth into a facility where a vehicle is kept/being operated, kill people, get the vehicle, drive it back/initiate and survive the chase sequence. It’s so crazy to me that there are so many of these, and that the developers attempted to pass these off as “main” story missions at all. How were four missions that have you drive/fly thousands of kilometers to a position only to do the same all the way back, greenlit?
Side quests aren’t in any better shape, with 90% of them are stunt courses, forgettable tasks given to you by unnamed characters, or collectible hunts given to you by characters that don’t even know you. Some quests in this game can take literal seconds, others hours, and the rewards for both will be the same. There’s one side quest in particular that has you kill a group of bears in a cave next to an outpost you liberate: I was able to leave the outpost, make it to the cave, and kill every bear inside and complete the quest in under 30 seconds. There’s another quest you can get from a liberated outpost that has you ambush a couple of delivery trucks running routine deliveries, unbeknownst that you are in control of the settlement now, and not the cult. I waited around a minute for the game to spawn the trucks, and when they did a single rocket-propelled grenade set off a chain reaction and detonated every truck before the AI even parked. Some have you fight boss versions of some animals, that have the ability to create illusionary copies of themselves (yeah, more on what that means when I get to the story), though I did one of these and it took 3 minutes to fly there with a helicopter and about 15 seconds to kill it with a couple of missile salvos. For all of these you get either in-game money or an ammo refill. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are collectible quests in the game that take hours to complete, despite not offering anything unique in terms of gameplay or locations. There are six types of collectibles in this game: Records, Comic Books, Lighters, Bobble-heads, Whiskey Casks, and Baseball Cards. Not one of these is designed to be fun to chase, and the locations for all can be purchased directly from the store using in-game money, though the map will always be more expensive than the reward money you get. And that is all you will get. The rewards for these are t-shirts for your character, money (if you didn’t get the maps) and ammo refills. No unique guns or vehicles. You essentially get the rewards of one of those 30 second quests, but this time it takes 480 times longer. It’s a shame, because there were two side quest lines that in their entirety were fun side stories, but there really isn't anything beyond this. If only they were able to sacrifice all of the other junk they made to make even just one or two more side quest lines I’d be singing a different tune.
Art and Story
I gave a rundown on the game’s premise earlier to explain why I was drawn back to the game, we’re gonna double down on that here. I explained earlier that the game is about a Christian doomsday cult taking over a county, so I’ll start with elaborating there. The main conflict in the game is caused by two main factions: Project Eden’s Gate (whose followers are referred to as ‘Peggies’), which believes the world is about to end and is willing to do anything to put as many people in underground bunkers as possible, and the various people that resist and refuse to cooperate. Your protagonist, a deputy of Hope County Sheriff's Department, is introduced to this conflict well after its inception, after the Peggies have taken control of the majority of Hope County. The goal of your character is to kill or apprehend the cult’s leader, Joseph Seed (also known as “The Father”), and his family, which consists of John Seed, Jacob Seed, and Faith Seed, three characters that have their own reasons for joining Project Eden’s gate.
I can’t emphasize how much I love the initial premise of this game. The intro is captivating, and the themes on display carry serious weight. In the beginning, it looks like you’re about to be subjected to some of the most mature themes possible for a game taking place in modern America. Firearm sale, religion (including race), the harm in far-right extremist values, and the vulnerability of the American government on a local scale. I don’t think that I could put it into words then, but I believe it was this aspect the most that had me regard Far Cry 5 as the worst game I’ve ever played. Far Cry 5 lies to you. It uses the worst of our real world as nothing but a backdrop for its mundane characters and world. It uses your preconceptions against you, teasing that the game is just moments away from revealing a deeper, more critical intent, though it never does. Instead, what you get is 38 (and yes, I mean this) characters with about 3-10 lines of dialogue each. You will be introduced to a character and complete their arc in less than 10 minutes, and you’ll never see them again. You will share very embarrassing ‘heartfelt’ moments with them where you resolve their greatest life issues moments after meeting them, and by doing nothing but the same stuff you’ve been doing for the last ten hours. Some of the characters that are named and mentioned by other characters don’t even have unique models, instead only having the common soldier model. There isn’t much variety in the characters, and many of them are so similar that it makes me wonder why the developers didn’t condense them. For instance, there are two psychologically unstable, paranoid, federal government hating pyromaniacs in the game that use flamethrowers. And they both serve the same purpose in the game’s narrative: comedic relief. It would be a funny gimmick if these characters met in the story and hit it off because of how similar they are, but they don’t. It feels like two direly unoriginal teams were in charge of making different characters, and neither teams communicated with one another, so you get carbon copy characters that are equally one note, instead of having one character fleshed out through different scenarios.
Characters rarely interact with one another, especially between the game’s different regions. They never talk to one another, organise operations, or anything like that. The different regions are like different worlds for every character but you, which makes the whole “build a resistance” thing feel like an absolute joke, because nobody interacts with anyone else at all. And speaking of jokes, this game has some serious tonal whiplash; enough to make me wonder if there’s some truth to my previous ‘two teams’ analogy. You’ll go from listening to a news broadcast about a mass shooting in a police station, and breaking your friend out of a torture chamber, to helping a ‘quirky’ CIA agent (who is technically a recurring character, but they’re just randomly a different type of person now, going from a calculated villain to comedic relief) recover the alleged “golden shower” tapes of former president Donald Trump. There is another side quest, where a you hunt a character that kills parents and force-feeds their remains to their children, and another where you help film a movie, but the director is a ‘comedic’ take on a stingy capitalist, filming you kill people to put in the movie so he doesn’t need to spend money on props. Now look, I’m not saying that there can’t be more lighthearted side quests in the game, but they have to have their place and time when your game is trying to cover so many serious topics. Reviewing my notes there are so many examples of this that I’m struggling to decide on how to organise them here. I’m just going to skip to, what in my opinion is the biggest offender, because to me this one was so egregious that it has to be mentioned. Definite story spoilers on this by the way. So around a third through my game I’m squaring off with my first member of the Seed family, who was Faith in this playthrough, and as I get her closer to death she starts revealing some serious information regarding herself. We already know that she’s a victim of rape and abuse who went through an alcohol problem as a result, and that she was ostracised by her community and friends. But as the fight continues she begins to add more to her original story. She talks about how she met Joseph seed when she was only 17, and that he not only supplied her with opioids (a common tactic of cult leaders, as well as pimps, to keep subjects dependent on a person of authority), but threatened her when she considered leaving. When you eventually incapacitate her, and enter the cutscene she tries to take your hand, but your character recedes. After this last rejection Faith retreats into the water, and succumbs to her wounds as if she willed it. Her story begins with rejection, false acceptance, and then ends with rejection again. It’s a sad and tragic moment, and probably the only good story beat the game has to offer. Her character exists to highlight how lonely people like her are vulnerable to substance abuse and cult recruitment tactics.
So you know what the game then does? Introduces a character called “Tweak” who has all of the stereotypical traits and mannerisms of someone who is drugged out, but instead of being concerned for this character, all of these mannerisms are played up for laughs. He stutters, twitches, rubs his nose, makes drug ‘jokes’ ect. He literally calls himself an “amateur chemist.” It feels like this game’s story is always fighting itself. Like the main team tasked with the main story made of people with some life experience under their belt, and the other team tasked with the side quests was made up of 14 year olds, and forced to sit at the kid table without any supervision over what the heck they were doing. This sentiment is echoed by the antagonist as well. Despite being the most prominent character in the story (since you as the protagonist have no personality in this title), Joseph Seed comes across as completely contradictory, and it feels at times that the team couldn’t decide on what villain they wanted. The goal of Project Eden’s gate is laid out so simply in the beginning: Save as many as possible from the impending apocalypse, even if it means sacrificing a few, and yet this is time and time again contradicted in his actions. One moment he’s attempting to save you, despite your opposition to him, by de-escalating situations so that his own people don’t kill you out of anger, claiming that even with the damage you’ve done to his people and their plans you should still get a chance at salvation (which, before you ask: no, you can’t actually choose . But then, he’ll just randomly drop the factoid that he strangled his own infant daughter to death, with no further context or information provided by the writers. And it’s not done in a seemingly clever or intentional way, it’s not like Joesph Seed has a personality disorder or bipolarism or anything, he just doesn’t have clear ambition. He jumps from wanting to save people from nuclear fallout one moment, to randomly killing people the next. It makes his character predictable, and not because you feel like you know what he would do in a given situation, but because you know he’s always going to carry out the choice that has the most ‘shock factor’ or portrays him as ‘evil.’ It’s sad honestly, that the writer’s couldn’t do better with Joseph. He has all the right makings of someone who could be a villain to your character and a hero to his people, but they instead take the elementary route, give him a couple of disagreeable character traits like dishonesty and hypocrisy and call it a day.
The other members of the family, Jacob John and Faith, are actually more believable in this sense, as they each have personality traits and quirks that they follow. John and Jacob seek validation of the trauma they experienced in their life, living lives where they carry out the terrible things they’ve endured on other people, failing to accept that they were simply unlucky and instead believing that their pain must be part of God’s plan, with the most pious option available to them being to recreate these ‘lessons’ for other people so they can get the same divine teachings they endured. Faith holds a similar mentality but with less malicious intent, as she intends to be what she believes the Father was to her: a saviour that came and made her feel accepted when she was vilified. However, Faith’s status as a villain comes from how she is stuck in an emotional limbo; where on one side she is fully aware that this new ‘family’ she’s been integrated into is the closest thing she’s had to a real family, and on the other she knows perfectly well that it is a lie, and that she was taken advantage of yet again just like the sexual abuse in her past. Unsatisfied but unable to face reality she feigns happiness without knowing what it truly is, and all of the conflicts that ensue because of her can be traced back to the fact that she is so miserable inside that she sees nothing wrong with attempting to drug the masses with a chemical called Bliss, even if a few unlucky people lose their minds forever to it. Because to her a damaged and simpler mind would only lead to less heartache. The lens at which she views and values the world is fixated on emotional pain, so things that relieve it are deemed good to her and that which stops her are deemed bad, no matter what other consequences occur. Joseph doesn’t really have a lens. He wants to save humanity from a prophesied collapse, but we never see why. He organises Project Eden’s Gate, we’re told this when we begin the game, but he doesn’t do anything else on his end to protect the goal he’s worked towards. His actions, like murdering that person on camera, are antithetical to his cause. Instead of sending propaganda out into the world to try to gain more followers, or preach and save more people, he just kills anyone who films him? He suffocated his newborn daughter to death, because ‘God told him to.’ Why exactly? We see why Faith does the morally questionable things she does, it’s because of her stunted maturity and caged frame of mind, but what reasoning does Joseph have? The more you compare him to the other villains in Far Cry 5, the weaker he feels, which is saying something because John was pretty boring too, even if he had more clear motivations.
There is also one more thing I want to bring up. I mentioned it before, a drug in the game called Bliss. This drug is such a massive crutch for the writing team. It does just about everything every other drug does plus more, so much in fact, that I’d rather just list it. Here goes. Bliss is able to act as a/an:
Stimulant
Performance enhancer
Tranquilliser
Mind Control/Hypnosis drug
Hallucinogenic
Pain Killer
It’s a weird crutch to have, and an obvious one when many of these aspects directly contradict one another. The interesting things that Bliss adds to the gameplay side of things (i.e an area where objects, creatures, and animals have the ability to mimic the appearance of one another) become very easily overshadowed by how much of the story is dictated by this single drug. By the end of your first playthrough you’ve heard the word “Bliss” so many damn times that it just feels ridiculous. The game treats it like magic.
Another crutch this game has is kidnapping, and yes, this part is where Bliss’ tranquillisation ability comes in. Every time you hit one of those checkpoints in the rep grind I mentioned earlier, you get kidnapped. Every time. It happens ten times total throughout the campaign. Sometimes you can delay the inevitable, and just continue playing in the open world until you want to progress the story, but other times you don’t have a choice. It’s a shame too, because your level in the various rep grinds determines what quests are available to you, so you can easily miss out permanently on quests by progressing your rep too fast, and getting forcibly kidnapped by the game so that it can progress. For example I had a quest to take out a helicopter convoy in one area, however, because I was collectible hunting at the time, I reached the next rep milestone. I was on my way to meet the convoy when suddenly I was getting the kidnap animation (And yes, the game doesn’t care if you’re currently piloting a helicopter). By the time I completed the accompanying story mission and was back in the open world, the convoy was gone and the quest deleted from my quest log. I never got to dogfight them because I wasn’t actively min-maxing my rep gains to make sure I didn’t progress too much too fast.
It’s honestly things like this that make the game feel off to me. It’s as if it never wanted to be made, or rather, doesn’t have a purpose. From a narrative perspective, the game does whatever it can to put you into the next gunfight, and from a gameplay perspective it does very little to challenge you, shepherding you gently to the next story beat. It’s like a game of hot potato, where neither pillar of the game’s design wants to hold the player for too long, always shovelling the burden off onto the other until eventually the experience just ends: which brings me to the ending.
Full spoilers ahead, obviously.
This game commits the cardinal sin in gaming: giving you the bad ending because you refused to put down the game. This game actively tries to make the player feel bad for things something they don’t have control over. Like Destiny 2, this game does the ‘you are a terrible person for doing all of this violence blah, blah, blah’ style of storytelling while failing to provide any alternate routes to play the game. The enemies can’t be reasoned with, the different Seed siblings can’t be spared. You are forced to kill no matter what. And then, when you do, you get ridiculed for being ‘prideful’ and ‘not walking away’ or something like that. The game gives you no ability to pursue the narrative you want, or decide things for yourself. There are only two ways to interact with this game: to play it in the only way it can be played, or to put it down; and you can bet your ass that every five seconds one character or another will make fun of you for continuing to play. It’s such a pathetic way of telling a story, and I don’t know why game companies do it. Games are one of the few medias that have the ability to react to their audience in real time, and yet this game does the complete opposite: it ignores this strength, funnels every player into one path, and then ridicules them for playing the product they bought with their own money without ever acknowledging this discrepancy.
If you’re going to try and commentate on how a player plays a game, your commentary needs to reflect how that player interacts with the game. Playing Far Cry 5 is like playing Super Mario Bros where every time Mario jumped Toad called him a sissy. If you’re going to make fun of me for using a mechanic, don’t make it mandatory.
And that’s all I got. Maybe I’ll get better at concluding these things later on as I write more, but FarCry 5 doesn’t deserve that effort from me. At least the story isn’t continued in some sort of spinoff game not even a full year later…
