Far Cry 5
It’s a risky venture to take an open world game franchise that has always kept itself distant from reality by being set in exotic locations, and bring it home (so to speak) to the good old United States. Even braver when you have a religious cult in your sights and bring up hot topics like gun control and an unpopular government.
But that’s just what UbiSoft did, and they’re probably lucky that Trump got elected because he just adds a whole dollop of reality to this otherwise fictional game, making it seem a whole lot more believable than if say, Obama was still in the Whitehouse.
Anyway, back to the game. The set up is that a religious cult has set up shop in the fictional Montana local of Hope County, and has been terrorizing the locals and building a significant militia. Enough for the government to send in the U.S. Marshals to arrest cult leader Joseph Seed. Of course in true Black Hawk Down style, the Marshals think a team of 5 flying in by helicopter can get the job done.
Of course, things go shit side up pretty damn quickly, and you’re soon fleeing through the moonlit Montana woods, with nothing but the clothes on your back.
You are of course a rookie U.S. Marshal, with the nickname Rook, which is handy because you get to choose not only what you look like, but also what gender you want to be.
Back to the game, it’s your usual Far Cry gameplay, with the exception of having to climb towers to uncover the map, rather the map is split up essentially into three zones, all of which can be explored when every you damn well like, and the way you find things on the map is by exploring the area. I know, radical right.
The three areas are controlled by three of Joseph’s siblings, and whilst you are directed to a location to start the business of cult eradication, you can start in any one of the three areas that you want, or indeed, all of them.
The goal is to get enough Resistance Points by liberating outposts, destroying things, completing missions and generally causing mayhem to unlock the region boss, and then take them down. Kill all three bosses and it’s time for Joseph Smith.
Of course Far Cry 5 is a bit of a chaos simulator, where by the game throws distractions at you, often. You might be on your way to a story mission when you see cult members about to execute some civilians on the side of the road, so you slam on the breaks, hop out of the car and kill the cultists, free the civs and decide to talk to them. They then might tell you about something interesting that you just want to go and investigate. Whilst snooping around you might just get attacked by a wild bear, or run into a cult roadblock, or find a cave system to explore. A couple of hours later you’ll remember you were supposed to be heading towards a story mission.
Or you could go fishing, hunting, base jumping or just exploring the massive fucking open world around you.
It’s just so easy to loose track of time whilst playing Far Cry 5 as the game literally draws you so far in, that the real world around you basically disappears.
The missions are all so varied and interesting that other than liberating cult outposts, no two missions really feel the same. Hell, you’ll even get to liberate a bear called cheeseburger who can then become a companion.
I could rave all night about Far Cry 5, but by now you’ve probably got the impression that it’s a game that I absolutely love. In fact I’ll go as far as to say it is the best Far Cry game ever, and probably one of the best games of 2018.
Rating: R16 Violence, offensive language & content that may disturb.
GAMEGUIDE rating:
