Far Cry 5 Guide
You can also count the number of unique cultist goon faces on one hand, so expect to be shooting the same faces over and over. Rounding out my technical complaints would be long load times upwards of 60 seconds on both PS4 and PS4 Pro, a couple glitched missions I had to restart, and the one time Far Cry 5 completely froze on me. This dark corner of Montana is controlled by a man named Joseph Seed, a zealot leader who hasn’t left quite the same impression on me that Vaas or Pagan Min did in the previous two Far Cry games. He doesn’t have any particularly memorable lines, and his motivation for wanting to end the world is murky. But the story ends up in an unforgettable place, making this an open-world adventure that is worth seeing through to completion.That story takes place on an open-world map that, in true Ubisoft fashion, is packed with so much to find and so much happening at any given time it’s easy to get distracted from the mission at hand. That’s not a complaint – I like games with big possibility spaces. One of my funniest moments was when I rescued a woman being held hostage by the cult and, just as she was thanking me, a wolverine jumped on her face out of nowhere and mauled her to death.To complement the combat, some light environmental puzzle solving is required to find lucrative treasure stashes. On one of these sidequests, called Long Shot Lockpick, the goods are locked away in a shed high up on stilts overlooking a lake. The name of the quest is the clue, and after swimming to the other side of the lake you’ll find a sniper perch placed just right for peering through a back window in the shed at the lock which can be shot off, providing you access. It’s not The Witness, but these simple challenges allow for quiet moments of thought amidst all the chaos.
Far Cry 5 is also a less restrictive playground than its predecessors. After a short introduction, you can go to every corner of its world map and take on most of its content. You can go where you want and do what you want. You can hike to a remote spot in the woods and go fishing. You can ignore the game’s story and simply blow shit up. These two halves are at odds. Far Cry 5 is a story-driven experience with something to say about the human condition. It’s also a game where you can steal a monster truck with guns on it, or take breaks from saving lives to do stunts that would make Evel Knievel jealous.In Far Cry 5, you control “the deputy,” a rookie sheriff’s deputy in Hope County, Montana. (Unlike past Far Cry games, you get to choose your character’s gender, race, and appearance). At the game’s outset your posse, including the Sheriff, your two fellow deputies, and a U.S. Marshall, fly out to the compound for “the Project at Eden’s Gate,” a Christian-style cult that has earned a reputation for secrecy and brutality. You are there to arrest its leader, Joseph Seed — A.K.A. The Father.The exact reason seems to be irrelevant, but the game makes Seed’s villainy crystal clear. Also, as you’re told in no uncertain terms, you are on a suicide mission. The group of religious zealots, thousands strong, isn’t just going to let five people take their leader away. Why is law enforcement sending five guys to arrest thousands? The game doesn’t say, but the (lack) of logic is lost in the intensity of the moment. It’s a tense, effective introduction. After your predictable failure to arrest him, The Father initiates “the reaping,” giving his followers carte blanche to start kidnapping the people of Hope County to “save” them from “the collapse,” their coded term for the end of the world. Effectively, the cult has invaded the land and become an occupying force. You must rally the people who have survived to fight, and free the forcibly converted masses. The three regions each have their own story arc, the tale of your struggle with each of the Seeds. Everything you do in the region earns points that fill your “resistance meter,” from completing essential story missions to smaller, unstructured encounters, like saving a civilian from a roadside execution. At various points, as the Resistance meter fills, the game interjects with new cutscenes and essential story missions to paint a picture of the Seeds and their work. This system means there’s no single mission you must complete to advance a regional story, and thus complete the game. It also gives you the freedom to bounce from one region to another. Tired of fending off drug-induced cult zombies in Faith’s domain? Head over to Jacob Seed’s para-military zone to fight more hunters and packs of overgrown wolves. Though characters often suggest that their goals are urgent, there’s almost always time to change gears.
Far Cry 5 feels nearly identical to its predecessors in each moment. Like many large, open-world games, the game offers a wide variety of passable experiences, none of which feel as tight or refined as more specialized titles. The gunplay never let us down, but we were never excited to try new guns or fight new enemies, either. Driving gets you from point a to point b, but the steering feels loose, which makes racing a struggle.The largest, and only novel, change is the game’s increased emphasis on collaborating with AI partners. The Deputy can recruit people he or she saves as “guns for hire,” who will follow you around and back you up in combat. (The name, an archaic term brought over from past Far Cry games, is misleading you never pay for their help.) Each member fits a class and playstyle based on their primary weapon many use the standard assault rifle, but there are stealthy squaddies who use a bow and arrow or sniper rifle, demolitions experts carrying rocket launchers, and so on.There are changes afoot in the wider structure, too.
Where the previous two Far Cry games have been cat-and-mouse battles against the forces of one major antagonist, Far Cry 5 gives us three villains John, Faith and Jacob Seed spread across three regions of Hope County, with the fourth, Joseph, steadily coming into play. Joseph Seed might be the game’s central villain, but don’t dismiss his three heralds out of hand. They’re not just bosses to be battled, each defines a region and the events and forces you’ll encounter. Each of their homelands has its own personality, its own landmarks and its own signature enemies, and your fight against each herald runs through several interesting arcs before a cathartic final encounter. You’re free to focus in on one or keep switching between two or three ongoing dramas – the choice is yours – giving Far Cry 5 a variety that the series hasn’t always had before.There’s also a lot of fun to be had with vehicles, with the usual jeeps and ATVs joined by muscle cars, machine-gun toting juggernauts, weaponised tractors and a whole lot more. There are some brilliant stunt-racing challenges squirreled away as well, and Far Cry 5 still finds time for the grapple, parachute and wingsuit, so all those helicopters and radio towers won’t go to waste. By any standards, this is a fantastic sandbox shooter the most engaging and absorbing in an always stellar series. Yet it’s no coincidence that it’s at its best when the Seeds themselves enter the fray. Where Joseph is an unsettling, quietly enigmatic presence for much of the game, his three heralds punctuate the action with regular shots of pure craziness, and it’s here where Far Cry 5 cuts loose with its most disruptive, subversive passages. Where John pushes you through increasingly gruesome confrontations, Jacob hits you with surreal, brainwashing training challenges and Faith tempts you away from your hero’s journey with soft talk that leads you into madness. While some scenes of violence and torture grow excessive I sometimes wondered how much brutality as entertainment I could stomach these sequences do a fantastic job of focusing the action and driving you forwards. In fact, you could argue that they do it too well.
Though you can find generic squad mates at nearly every turn, you will likely spend most of your time using the nine “specialist” teammates special characters with a backstory, personality, and special skills. While some are simply the best version of the generic class, many of the specialists also fall into unique classes. Nick Rye, a pilot, supports you with bombing runs and anti-air support. My favorite is Cheeseburger, a pet Grizzly bear that can take down anything on two legs and soaks up enemy gunfire like a sponge. No matter who you choose, your squadmates act more like an extension of your arsenal than an actual teammate. You can select targets for them to take out by pointing at an enemy and pressing left on the d-pad (and right, once you earn the perk that lets you bring two teammates along at once).
Outside of specific, directed use, they mostly work as good distractions for your enemies. The AI isn’t great, but it’s easier to win battles if some of the guns are pointed away from you. You’ll have your favorites, but once you start switching them out for different missions the game opens up immensely. Especially when you unlock a 'Leadership' perk that lets you have two companions at once. At that point Far Cry 5 becomes a different game as you move from lone gun to leader of a (small) army. Not bothered about stealth and just need to blow shit up? Call in Adelaide's chaingun-armed chopper and Hurk with his rocket launcher. Need to save hostages without setting off alarms? Get Jess in with her bow and Peaches to despatch bad guys without a whisper. The commands are simple - go there, kill this - but when you coordinate an attack and pull if off, it feels amazing. Perhaps the only thing I didn't really click with was a maybe an over reliance on hostage rescue to balance the otherwise repercussion free carnage, and some largely flat villains. I just didn’t feel much for the cult leaders - the defeat of which the entire game hinges on. In a series that’s seen star turns from Vaas and Pagan Min, Joseph Seed and his clan don’t quite have the same pop. Which is odd when the world and everything in it is full of character, and the tone is often darker and more sinister than before (the opening is an amazingly tense sequence). There are serious horror/crime thriller vibes in places, with environmental and incidental storytelling creating a grimer and less fanciful take on the usual Far Cry narrative. Far Cry 5 is a continuation of everything you remember about the series, but an instalment that’s taken a good look at itself, and what it does, to work out the best possible way of doing it. The compact, more streamlined design never feels small and instead comes across as more achievable and event filled. How often have you finished a Far Cry with a ton of missions and bits you never got around to doing? That’s that stuff that’s been paired back. What remains are the best bits - the pure, distilled chaos of the series more manageably portioned and packaged.
