Far Cry 5:
How Sweet the Sound -
Score: 8.5/10
The Far Cry series is always packed full of crazy concepts. We’ve been to the Pacific to fight mutants, Africa to hunt down an arms dealer, the Chinese tropics to fight pirates, and to the Himalayas to enjoy the crab rangoon. There was also that time we were a cave-man, but we can ignore that one. All these settings provide a perfect back-drop for horrible things happening to somewhat good people. Now, what place on Earth could even come close the hostility associated with these other settings? Oh right, America.
That’s right; Far Cry 5 comes home to Montana. Where the fishing is great, and Pabst is on level with fine wine. This time around Joseph Seed and his cult of murdering doomsayers have taken over Hope County to prepare for what Joe calls “The Collapse.” You play as a mute, nameless rookie U.S Marshal Deputy tasked with taking Father Joe into custody. Sadly, everything goes wrong and our dear Deputy becomes separated from his team.
Far Cry 5 follows the same basic outline established in every Far Cry thus far. Your character starts out as a big ol’ puss and slowly gains perks and cash for better weapons. By the time the final showdown comes, you’re taking down Joseph Seed armed with twenty-five rocket launchers, a pet bear, and a smile. To take back Hope County, you take over Outposts, destroy Cult property, and in general be a thorn in the paw of the Cult. These actions lead to the regions you explore to become safer, and eventually liberated from the Seed family. Far Cry veterans know the drill here. Yet, where the game may trip up even hardened players is the progression, crafting system, and map exploration.
Ubisoft took the time to make subtle but large changes to how you progress through the game. While these changes are jarring at first, I felt they were changes for the better by the end of my first run. Your character doesn't have a level or an experience bar. Perks, such as holding more ammo or health increases, are unlocked using ‘Perk Points.’ Taking on challenges such as, ‘Skin 10 moose’ or ‘Kill 5 black bears with a shovel.’ earn you these points. Actually, the latter is fake. If it were real, though, I would have maxed out in the first 3 hours of the game. Another way to gain points is through the completion of ‘Prepper Stashes.’ Prepper Stashes are environmental puzzles that take place in a mountain obstacle course or a flooded bunker. After a while, I found myself getting the vast majority of my perks through this method. The repetition was very low, and an additional chunk of cash at the end made them very worth the risk.
Another big change is the crafting system. Or rather, the lack of one. Bigger holsters or bigger quivers are earned from perks rather than the skin of your furry enemies. Though collecting them isn’t as necessary for crafting, animal skins are completely used for cash and the satisfaction of knowing you killed a skunk with a grenade. What crafting does exist is crafting explosives. This is easily done in the weapon wheel on the fly. Taking out the need to craft in the pause screen is a welcome change, but it took me a while to remember I did not have to do that anymore, leading to many a death when explosives could have been useful.
Possibly my favorite change to the Far Cry formula is exploration. The days of climbing up radio towers to uncover large chunks of the map are gone. Now uncovering up the map is left completely up to you. When you jump into the game, the entire map is covered in a purple fog. As you walk around and discover hidden locations, the fog disappears. Occasionally you’ll find characters that tell you to go check out a location, leading you down a path of discovery. This makes the adventure feel a more personal, and uncovering an untold story deep in the woods became one of my favorite things to do. Fans of the Dark Souls style of context speculative storytelling will be pleased with this change.
If all of these changes seem tedious, at least the game looks and sounds great while you do it all. Hope County is painstakingly crafted to look as lifelike as possible. The water is wet; the trees are tall, and the mountains even taller. More than once I found myself stopping atop hills and radio towers to watch the beautiful world come to life. Until a bald eagle swooped down and knocked me down, mangling my face. I’m sure there's a metaphor in there about Trump’s America, but let’s move on. On top of that, the use of the banjo in the soundtrack is its own reward. Call me old-fashioned, but I am a firm believer that if God knows any instrument it’s the banjo. The music and visuals together make for a stunning venture, even if you do no missions at all.
While exploring, you meet a myriad of characters with their own little stories to tell. Some will even join up with you as Guns for Hire. The GfH system features nine characters to fight alongside you, each with their own gimmick attributed to a different play style. While each member has their own useful way of fighting, I more often than not picked Cheeseburger the Bear or Peaches the Cougar as my partner. Partly, because they didn’t repeat the same three joke over and over again. From Guns for Hire, there are many side missions to keep you busy. Most feature fleshed out, often hilarious interactions with unique characters spread all over the map. There are so many side missions, ranging from cooking Rocky Mountain oysters to trying to talk to aliens. Spacemen and Testicles, exactly how I like my open world games.
As great as the world and characters Far Cry 5 present to you are, I never became overly attached to The Deputy. As you progress through the story, The Deputy continuously gets kidnapped by one of the three Seed siblings acting as Joseph’s generals. Often times, it seems he goes willingly into these situations. There also seems to always be some convenient reasons for the siblings not killing you on the spot. For me, I took the basic character creation before the start of the game to mean that Ubisoft wanted the Deputy to feel like an extension of ourselves. Being so willingly put down by the siblings over and over again just took me out of that mindset. Instead, it just made me feel like I was embodying this wimpy mute who keeps getting lucky until he reads enough hunting magazines to stop getting killed so much. The only Seed that even remotely left me scared for my life was Jacob himself. This is mostly due to the fact he never stopped my forward progress through the game to brainwash me with 70’s love songs or pump me full of drugs. Most encounters with him are rightfully terrifying and the final showdown is worthy of a Dragonball-Z narrator. All this leads to probably the most buck-wild ending to a Far Cry game to date depending on the ending you choose (there are two).
Far Cry 5 offers a well fleshed out multiplayer component as well. It was a blast playing with a friend for a campaign mission or just running around goofing off. So many fun activities are open to you when you play with a friend. Blowing up their car, blowing up their plane, blowing up the bear they were hunting, and hitting them repeatedly with a shovel are among a few of my favorites. If story co-op doesn't butter your buns, you can hop into Far Cry 5 Arcade. This mode allows you to build your own multiplayer maps, using a very simple, yet well-made map editor. Assets from various Ubisoft games are available to you for all your Ubisoft inspired fan-fic scenarios. The modes offered are limited to simple game modes such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Assault. They work like they would in any other online shooter, but the randomness of the maps keeps each game fresh.
Far Cry 5 is a solid entry to the franchise. It follows the Far Cry formula set years ago. While some people complain that makes it dull, I feel this entry brings enough to the table to keep the style relevant. The game is easily the most beautiful looking entry by far and it keeps the tradition of fun and terrifying characters. The story stands out on its own, but certain aspects stop it from reaching the heights of its predecessors. The mechanics new and old can be frustrating at first, but allow you to get into the swing of playing within a few hours. Overall, I enjoyed my time in Hope County. Go Cougars!
Final Note: If it is indeed time for Far Cry to change up the system a bit, why not take the series to the Outback? Boomerangs and digeridoos only. It could work. Koalas are terrifying.
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