Far Cry 5

I’m a fan of the Far Cry games even though it’s Ubisoft and you have to turn your brain off in order to enjoy yourself to the fullest. This time the game is set in Hope County Montana and you find yourself having to combat a religious cult who’s convinced that the world will end and they must prepare for the collapse. You start the game off as a deputy who’s gender is up to you (though it makes literally no difference in the game whether you're a man or a women) and you’re part of a law enforcement team tasked with infiltrating this cult’s compound and apprehending their leader. The plan fails, the cult puts the county on lockdown, and your law enforcement friends get scattered throughout the game’s three regions.

Helming the position of the main villain is Joseph Seed, the father of the cult and the one trying to inject a sense of moral conflict for your character. He’s not quite as interesting or flamboyant as previous villains in the franchise but he suits the plot well enough. Joseph’s siblings are in charge of the three main regions in Hope County, the most interesting of them being his sister Faith who uses drugs and hallucinogens to manipulate you and her victims, creating some interesting gameplay sequences. The Seed siblings have similar personalities to Joseph which was a bit of a put off, but each of them differ in their moral structure often contradicting one another and even Joseph’s teachings at times. One of the most obvious suspensions of disbelief is how nobody’s able to escape the country and contact the National Guard. I mean sure they’ve blocked off the roads, but as you gain access to planes and helicopters it seems far more nonsensical to liberate the county without contacting any outside help.

The game’s design is fairly similar to that of previous Far Cry games, except this time the story progression isn’t linear and you can tackle the game’s regions in any order you want. Side quests are also a bit more diverse and you’re sometimes asked to complete really silly objectives like throwing rocks at cows or securing Donald Trump’s infamous pee tape. I liked how the cult would pursue you more aggressively in a region depending on how far along you are to killing a Seed sibling. The game also introduces dog fighting in air planes and a buddy system similar to that in MGSV where you can either hire resistance fighters to fight alongside you or unlock specialists who have unique skills. There’s specialists like Nick Rye who pilots a combat plane, Grace Armstrong who is a pro sniper, a dog named Boomer who sniffs out enemy locations for you, and even a giant grizzly bear named Cheeseburger who has diabetes and mulls enemies to death.

Aside from these key features there’s sadly little else that this game introduces that previous Far Cry games didn’t have. The game uses an identical crafting and perk system to previous games, and liberating outposts is about as samey samey as ever. AI is still a bit of a problem with this game as they frequently glitch out, act erratically, or spawn into areas in a frustrating fashion. Something that the Far Cry team has always done well though is their general world design; Hope County is a surprisingly beautiful and detailed world with lots to explore and discover, probably more so here than in the previous two Far Cry games. The game also sports an interesting soundtrack direction showcasing a lot of humorous choir music and Americana that juxtaposes itself well with the game’s violence and themes. The game’s co-op features are about as tight as they’ve ever been although I didn’t experience too much of it myself, pretty much the whole game can be experienced with a friend.

Overall Far Cry 5 is a perfectly fine open world shooter. As long as you’re able to shut your brain off with regard to the game’s outrageous and messy storytelling as well as the stark familiarity to previous game’s and the occasional occurrence of bugs and glitches. The game’s world is really well crafted and looks gorgeous on PS4, plus the abundance of unpredictable action and the freedom that the game lends you to approach missions anyway you want makes this a brilliant time waster. Some of the new features like the “Guns for Hire” system and air combat were very welcome additions. As mindless as it might be it’s still pretty hard not to have fun playing this game and just completely losing track of time, although gamers who are looking for something a little more serious may wanna skip out on this one entirely.