It gestures, not toward violence past or present, but toward the warm commonality of human experience. It gestures, not toward violence past or present, but toward the warm commonality of human experience.īut this one mission in Far Cry 5 points in a different direction. And when they do reach to broader plains of human experience, it’s typically through that lens: meditations on the abuse of power, warnings against violence, considerations of freedom and will. The feeling of power, and the joy of discharging it. And if it doesn’t end in a climactic gunfight or other setpiece, it’s not valuable to the goals of triple-A games, where character and plot are so often beside the point. Emotional resonance is valuable, sure, but only insofar as it serves the ultimate goals of the title.
Their mechanics and worlds are usually marshalled purely toward the goal of escapism. Just a tense drive, and a loving couple in the back, talking about contractions, navigating the stress and terror of labor as Nick tries to give you directions to the doula while out of his mind with nerves.īig-budget games don’t normally do things like this. There are, so far as I could tell, no fatalities. There are some car wrecks and explosions nearby, to provide obstacles and ratchet up tension during the driving. It’s not an easy drive, but it’s also suspiciously devoid of the violence that suffuses most moments of Far Cry 5. The rest of the mission is simple: you drive. You’re led to a truck and get behind the wheel, and the couple enters the backseat, Kim narrating her mounting pain as they stumble into the car. Kim is going into labor, and the couple needs someone to drive them to their doula, halfway across the map. When you arrive at the Rye house, Nick is frantic. But after that, you have the opportunity to do another mission for the Ryes. It’s the typical Far Cry 5 mission, starting with glib irony and ending in a cacophony of explosions. During that mission, you briefly meet his wife, Kim, who is pregnant with the couple’s first child. Earlier, you can undertake a mission to help Nick Rye, a local pilot, liberate his plane from the cultists. It occurs at what will be, for most players, roughly a third of the way through the game, as they start to wrap up the siege on John Seed, the first of three cult lieutenants in Hope County, Montana. And it’s a mission that makes me think that, perhaps at the margins, this messy game has something to offer to gaming’s future. There’s a single mission that is everything Far Cry 5 isn’t - warm, humanistic, real. It does not, in any sense, represent progress for the world of big, expensive video games.Įxcept for one moment. Its story doesn’t make sense, its themes don’t cohere, and it fails to do any justice to its real-world setting, Montana, or the politics and people that comprise it.
The fifth numbered entry in the broad series of nature-and-tourism themed open-world shooters, Far Cry 5 is a mess.