Far Cry 5 Review

Far Cry 5 (Ubisoft) drops you into the fictional setting of Hope County, Montana and places you in the crosshairs of a crazy religious cult and their eccentric, dangerous leader Joseph Seed and his three sibling prodigies. Dense forests, streams, and wildlife await players wanting to roam and complete the side content, and every step of the way you’ll feel the cult (and their main drug of choice, Bliss) influence.

As a game, Far Cry 5 is quite fun. The world is large and beautiful, the setting is a bit more standard (as opposed to the mountains of Kyrat or the Rook Islands from previous games), and the gameplay is familiar to anyone who has played a Far Cry game in the last 10+ years. The issues I have with Far Cry 5 are not based around any of that, but more the narrative and depth of content within the game.

The story follows your character (the Deputy) as you initially try to arrest Hope County’s doomsday cult (Eden’s Gate) leader Joseph Seed, with the help of the area’s Sheriff and a U.S. Marshall. As usual, things don’t go well and soon after you are dropped into Hope County with the Sheriff missing, the Marshall and your other team members captured, and nothing to go on until you meet your first contact and rescuer who shows you the ropes. The main narrative pull of Far Cry 5 (and the gameplay itself) has you going after Joseph’s three siblings Jacob (the Solider), John (the Baptist), and Faith (the Siren). Each sibling controls one section of the map, and to get to Joseph you need to kill each of them.

My main issue is that the story itself is pretty basic and deviants from being too controversial either politically or religiously. The three siblings are interesting enough, but there isn’t much depth there, and Joseph’s motivations aren’t realized. Also, there doesn’t quite seem to be as much to do as Far Cry 4, which is odd given how much content was packed into the exceptional Assassin’s Creed Origins last year. There are no more towers to climb (as the game points out jokingly) and each area has a few bases or shrines to get rid of, some hunting you can do, and a few other activities, but coming off of AC Origins I was expecting a lot more. Aside from those two issues, the gameplay itself (along with weapons, perks, upgrades, etc.) is quite fun and feels great. You can stealth nearly every encounter, you have a parachute and wingsuit that come in very handy and you can pay to spawn boats, cars, choppers, and planes at each of your bases. You also have access to a bunch of perks and items for buying or upgrading. This gives you a fun sandbox to play in as a whole, despite the lower amount of set activities.

Far Cry 5 Review Final Thoughts:

Overall Far Cry 5 is a mix of great and mediocre. The world, gameplay, and combat are all great but the narrative is mediocre and could be much better. There also needs to be more content overall. The Seed family feel like potentially great antagonists that don’t nearly go far enough, and thus leave you wishing for more story content from each of them. As an overall package, the game delivers a good amount of content with the addition of the multiplayer mode (Far Cry Arcade – very solid and still has one of the best map editors out). With this addition, the package is a bit more enticing if multiplayer is your thing. If you’re in the mood for an open world sandbox that is fun to explore and play in, for sure give Far Cry 5 a try. If you’re only looking for a really strong narrative-driven game, you might want to pass until a price drop. Knowing Ubisoft, there does seem to be good DLC down the pipeline, so some may wait for a price drop on the big bundle with the season pass as well. Far Cry 5 is a strong open world game only marred by a so-so narrative and a drop off in content compared to other Ubisoft titles and previous Far Cry games.