I have not played a Far Cry game since the first one, and I really don’t remember much about it, I think I might have been too young to really understand it so I can’t have got too far before giving up. My experience with the first one probably explains why I never touched the second one, but I skipped 3 and 4 because I had kind of checked out of the last half of the PS3 generation of consoles, while I was at university.
So I bought Far Cry 5 because the reviews were pretty decent and I generally like Ubisoft games. So after completing just over two thirds of the game, and playing in the region of 25-30 hours of it, I gave up and sold it. I just got bored of it, I’ll go into more details in my review and conclusion, but the game is good and that just about sums it up.
The good:
Plenty of content
In typical Ubisoft fashion, Far cry 5s open world is souped up with a ton of content, ranging from story missions, side missions and mini game challenges that usually involve different kinds of vehicles. The map consists of three regions, all with their own boss to defeat, and you have the freedom to do this in any way you wish right from the get go. The good thing about this is that the map feels like a big open world playground you can mess around with, without being too overwhelming at the same time. Which in my opinion can't be said for a lot of Ubisoft's titles, I’m looking at you Ghost Recon: Wildlands.
At its best, it’s a whole heap of fun
The general gameplay loop is fun and the first person gunplay is really intuitive. The shooting is basic but not too casual, and the sound effects of the bullets you fire are weighty and feel realistic. With the variety of weapons on offer and the skills tree you have, you can either play as an assassin or balls to the wall action hero, you really can tailor your character in the style that you really want to play the game. I personally played the game with the intent of going all guns blazing, I really struggle with stealth gameplay from a first person perspective, and I just felt the tools you gain during the game were best utilized in this way.
Driving vehicles is also near perfect once you get the hang of them, the car chases can be frantic but in a good way, which is not what you can say about a lot of open world games.
VIsually immersive
The game’s setting is beautiful, the scope of the landscape is breathtaking, the textures aren’t always great on closer inspection. But the overall look of the Montanna locale is impressive, from the architecture to the topography of the landscape, it’s something we’ve not seen too much of in a videogame before.
Supporting cast are great, and create an interesting premise
The premise of taking down a religious cult is a good idea to take on in itself, you can create a clear antagonists, and you can then create a setting around that foundation. Far Cry 5 achieves this in most aspects, as someone who has travelled across what you might call ‘Fly over country’, Hope County feels like a real place, but one that is kind of cut off from the outside world.
The supporting characters, whether they are good or bad, add to the setting. The villains are intriguing and their motives are understandable, Joseph Seed is brilliantly set up from the opening sequence, and he lurks in the background narrative even if he disappears for large chunks of the game.
The bad:
Good premise, but the story narrative is almost non existent
The story massively lets down the premise and the setting, if you take out the boss battles at the end of each region, there is no narrative that threads everything together. This is best illustrated with the fact that there isn’t really a protagonist, from the moment you start you get to choose the gender of your main character and customise the way they look, but they are speechless throughout the whole game, and often you are just referred to as the ‘rook’.
This is a problem because it takes away any emotional attachment to the events unfolding around you, which in turn makes the story feel a little less immersive. This does in a way make the setting and the supporting characters feel a bit more meaningful, but it comes at the expense of any connection to the story.
The formula is repetitive and we’ve seen it all before
If you have played any Ubisoft game of the last five or so years, then nothing in Far Cry 5 will surprise you. It has every ounce of your typical open world game formula, wide ranging side missions, story missions, dotted pieces of monuments or buildings on the map to destroy, etc etc. Despite the game’s freedom to choose your own path from the beginning, it is still checkpoint gaming.
Glitches
This is a minor gripe but one that was frustrating at certain points, I suffered a few animation locks during the game, but the biggest issue I had was with the menu map. There were times when for a brief moment none of the markers on the map would appear for no apparent reason. There other instances of glitches that I won’t mention, but as I said this was not game breaking, it’s just an annoyance that I wished I hadn’t come across.
Verdict:
Far Cry 5 is decent, if you liked the other games in the series I think you’ll enjoy this one, otherwise I really can’t recommend the game to be honest. The fun but tedious gameplay just can’t compensate for a lack of story, however I did get a solid 25-30 hours game time so my time wasn’t wasted. If you are going into this game cold I’d suggest you wait for a sale before purchasing.
6/10
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