Far Cry

Far Cry 5’s trailer made me stop and think about what from that series excites me exactly. Is it those amazing trailers? Or how about how you can just get lost doing nothing for 4 hours? Maybe it’s how great the characters are? It’s all of the above and more! A lot of people might hate the games as being repetitive or unimaginative. I would be satisfied by the same game with a different story. I can’t talk about 1 and 2 as I’ve played them long ago and I have no real memories of them and obviously, spoilers ahead.

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Trailers

I get it, it’s cool to hate on Ubisoft because of some of the bad decisions they’ve made over the years. Something they can’t really be faulted on though is how amazing their trailers are. Go back and watch all of the Far Cry 3 and 4 videos and you’ll see how hype you get.

Everything ranging from the music to the story told in those previews is great. The music chosen is easy to the ear and fits the chosen scenes splendidly. The images, in turn, match the song and are telling without spoiling much. The story told is minimal but interesting enough to lure you in for more.

What else could you want out of a trailer? There’s literally nothing else you could do to make them better.

In an age where trailers can ruin movies, video games, or any other form of entertainment, the person or group of people in charge of these trailers is a godsend.

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The trailer for 5 was lackluster, but only because it was the introduction, I have no doubt that the upcoming ones are all going to be better than what 3 and 4 put out.

Gameplay

A lot of games are open world but end up lacking anything of substance to fill up the world with. Examples of games with wasted environments are Yooka Laylee, Watch Dogs, or Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Far Cry games are packed to the brim full of things to do. You can capture camps, climb radio towers, look for masks or posters, and if all of that isn’t interesting enough you can just go to Shangri-La or take some magic beans to revisit the moments before your life went sideways.

It never really feels like a chore to go around the map and you always find things to side track you.

I remember the fun times in 3 going around hunting animals or liberating them from their cages so they would cause chaos in a camp. Hunting ferocious beasts or enemies alike with a bow was the best.

Far Cry 4 had me intrigued with all of the backstories for the Golden Path, and the Shangri-La missions. The whole game is just so colorful and is always pleasant to navigate through.

One thing I haven’t seen many games do is that every weapon can be gained for free if you just explore the radio towers.

“Oh but this game is the same as the previous one” I hear you say. My answer is: So? Who cares? When something is as entertaining as this, why change so much it becomes something like Halo 5? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it am I right? Leave reinventing the wheel to indie games.

Characters

I never really liked the heroes as they were often too whiny or too extremist in their methods. It wouldn’t bother me if only they weren’t so hypocritical in how they went about their lives. Dennis Rogers was a pretty cool dude though. His dialogue was some of the most entertaining and what I looked forward to when playing 3.

Plus siding with them all turn out giving you worse outcomes than if you had joined the enemy team.

Main villains

In my eyes, the best stories are often the ones with great villains. The Far Cry games encompass that statement so very well.

Vaas had the tragic story of once being in your shoes. He was a youth from the island that was torn from loyalties for his sister Citra and the great destiny that supposedly awaited him. Hoyt and drugs eventually taking away his choice in the matter were just so great. He was the type of villain that was loud and crazy. Seeing him was always a treat as his craziness could be felt in the air. Michael Mando’s acting as Vaas is still one of the best I’ve ever seen in television, movies, or video games.

Hoyt was okay, he came off as a last minute addition in my eyes. It was really cool though how he represented the corruption of civilized society.

Pagan Min being Ajay’s stepfather was so out of nowhere if you didn’t pay attention to the way he treated him throughout the game. Playing 4, I never really felt like Ajay belonged with the Golden Path and he should’ve just ruled alongside Pagan as his heir. I liked Pagan so much I never finished the game as I knew what awaited me; a game without his guidance isn’t meant to ever be finished, you know? I enjoyed the fact that while similar to Vaas, he was also completely different. He dressed better and was more refined in his violence.

Side villains

The first game (3) didn’t have much in terms of interesting antagonists apart from Vaas and Hoyt. The second game though? It had everything.

Paul “De Pleur” Harmon, Noore Najjar, and Yuma Lau are some very varied characters. Each one is a general to Pagan Min and has different specialties and different reasons to serve him.

Paul is some old man unwilling to work at a desk and instead of wanting to live a little. The solution he came up with bad news to everyone in Kyrat. His character represents that when bored, humans can do some scary things. Some great dialogue could be heard from him when he would call his wife and daughter while acting like a completely different person. Having different masks for different people was well shown with him.

Noore’s story was more tragic than the tragedy of Darth Plagueis. Having your family taken captive and later finding out that they were killed would break anyone. What’s worse is that she did countless bad things to the people of Kyrat with the hope that she would get to see them again. It’s no surprise that her story ended with suicide. It’s almost like putting a bullet to the back of her head was more merciful.

Yuma was the craziest of the bunch. In a way, she’s what comes out of encouraging the bad things in people. Had Pagan shown restraint when helping with her upbringing, she might’ve not ended up being insane and craving power at all costs. Min raised a power hungry monster and then showed weakness to her. Her story ending that way is no surprise. It was also kind of hilarious that she doesn’t really get any last words.

The bad

The game needs to stop the drug-fueled boss battles. I want to be able to truly see a villain’s final moments instead of hallucinating the whole thing. How anticlimactic was it to kill Buck, Vaas, Hoyt, or Yuma? They spent the whole game messing with us and they go out in a hazy dream. Nice, Ubisoft, just nice.

The future

Look, I wrote this because of how excited I am for Far Cry 5. It triggered memories I hadn’t thought of in forever and I need the game to be good. I’m excited for all the trailers to come and can’t wait to get my hands on it. By then I hope that the main villain is going to be developed a bit more because I’m not a fan of the whole calm whispering thing he’s got going on in the trailer. In the meantime, I’m going to revisit 3 and finally see 4 to its end.