Ok so I know I'm behind the ball on this one - and I am by NO means the first to say any of this. But I made a facebook post about this, including the preemptive TL;DR "Polygon was right - Beautiful setting, decent gameplay, bad story, cowardly writing". (this includes a reference to Polygon's review of the game, which can be found here.) So now it's time to write the post that will end up being too long to read...
In short, I think the story of Far Cry 5 was poorly constructed, poorly concluded, and in a sense even cowardly. Especially compared to other Far Cry games. For those who don't know the series, they are in a sense adventure stories, or perhaps the same story told over and over again in different settings, and they always involve 1.) LOTS of guns, 2.) An exotic/beautiful local full of wildlife 3.) An absolutely psychotic villain who has taken control of the land, 4.) Some sort of resistance you must help to take back said land. 5.) Hallucinogenic drugs. Which, when combined with the aforementioned guns, come to bad results. And 6.) A morally interesting ending offering critique of the player and of the genre as a whole. (Reminds me of Spec Ops: The Line in a way, although it is not as well achieved).
FC5 pits you against a cult, caled the Project at Eden's Gate, who have taken control of and (somehow) sealed off Hope County Montana (a fictional place). The game is open-world, with the world divided into three major regions, with each ruled by a different psychotic leader/family member - John, Faith, and Jacob - and the whole thing under the mystic leader Joseph Seed. When promotional material came out for the game showing the use of a lot of Americana and Christian-esque imagery, a lot of people got a bit up in arms about it. But it turns out they really shouldn't have bothered. When I myself first saw FC5's trailer, etc, I thought it was a rather brave step to take a game traditionally set in a fictional and exotic place and set it in America, because it would allow them to stage the same critique they always do, but aim it directly at the far-right. And that's what FC5 could have been. But it's not what FC5 is.
Let's start with this cult. The cult of Eden's Gate is full of the kind of contradictions that make them easy to write off as evil, but the game is written AS IF they have at least a marginally compelling argument and have reason behind their actions. The problem is, they don't - they have reasons, and they have actions, and those two do not line up. The rhetoric and the practices of these villains have no alignment, which both makes them incredible and also lets them borrow imagery but not actually critique anyone. They look nice, but so much of what they do in Joseph's goes against what Joseph preaches. Now this could be seen as a commentary on the church itself, which has both a history of violence and a history of doing things very much in the face of that which they preach. But let me say - if that was the goal, they've done it extremely poorly. Because none of these contradictions are ever called out in fiction. They are not a point of tension for any of the characters or a point of argument - the game writers do not acknowledge them at all, possibly because they don't see the inconsistencies themselves.
It is typical for FC games to critique both sides (the player and villain) - FC4 did this exceptionally well - but FC5 chickens out, and lets one side be the Good Guys, who have a weakness for falling under the magic spell of a drug but are otherwise justified in their Red Blooded American Firearm Militia Patriotism, and even in killing and (spoilers?) torturing their opponents, because they are The Good Guys Yay America. Speaking of - all of the FC games are set in fantasy places, but most of them are also set in fantasy countries. The bad guys in FC3-4 are a fictional group, but the good guys are a fictional people too. In FC5 the bad guys are fictional, but the good guys are American. But the game doesn't use this to critique America beyond a little friendly ribbing (see: Clutch Nixon), and every "success" screen is celebrated genuinely with American flags and fireworks. The game doesn't say "These type of real people should be critiqued", it says "These types of real people should be celebrated, because they are in the right, especially in comparison to these OTHER guys who really are terrible.". FC5 isn't anti-conservative, anti-christian, anti-republican, or anti-militia. It's actually pro all of those things, because it's created a fictional strawman that makes the far right look like moderates in comparison. Which is. The exact opposite of the kind of critique we need, and the opposite of what it gained controversy for.
The Bad Guys meanwhile commit atrocity after atrocity to justify why you ought to stay and fight them. All this is cut through by monologues from the Big Bad that are both magic (they remove the player from their character entirely) and are supposed to make Joseph sympathetic, I guess? Joseph and Pagan Min (Big Bad of FC4) are both psychotic, and there is in both a break from and noted disjunction between their person and their influence - but Pagan's is the type of break that comes from the privilege of being Above the chaos (a critique of capitalism and class divides), where Joseph's is a mystic break that... i don't know how it should be understood. It breaks from the rest of the game. I got so tired of hearing from him. (Spoilers from FC3, 4, and 5): FC3's turn is that Jason might be just as crazy as Vaas, and that anyone can go mad. FC4's turn is that Sabal and Amita (your allies) are both willing to commit war crimes as much as Pagan Min, and you've advanced as much villainy as you've fought off. FC5's turn is that while what you did was good, and you and your allies were all fighting the good fight, nothing you did mattered in the end, because Joseph's prophecy came true, so really that shows you, doesn't it? It is unconvincing, shoehorned in, and means nothing. There is no critique, just a lot of imagery that makes it FEEL like a critique.
(Oh and as a note - if anyone should be upset and feel targeted by this game it's probably the Mormons/church of latter day saints. Because while you can tell me that every OTHER character is or isn't a rip on some such far right so-an-so, you really cannot argue that the Big Bad Joseph Seed bears no inspiration or purposeful parallel to Joseph Smith. As I said, the critique doesn't land. But still.)
The decision to use a mute/blank slate player character is also infuriating because of how much it doubles down on the developer's care to side-step anything that could merit real controversy. I played the whole game as a woman, and a black woman at that. This had literally no impact on the game. There is no apparent sexism or racism in Hope County, two things which are usually VERY associated with the type of characters found there. Because that would get Ubisoft's hands dirty, I guess. FC3's entire critique of the action genre it was a part of came from watching it's protagonist Jason succumb to addiction - to drugs, to adrenaline, to killing, to power, to fantasy, and to worship. FC5's protag is incredibly stoic (because they are silent), and although they finally express some emotion (fear) before Jacob, they have NO opportunity to offer critique or praise at any time, besides the (spoilers!!) two times you can choose to walk away from arresting Joseph. The player character in FC3-4 both prescribe player reactions and subvert them. FC5 has access to none of this. And that's on purpose, because it's safe.
Outside of these broad accusations, the actual structure of the story also doesn't hold up. This game tried to fit too many cooks in one kitchen. The three sub-bosses, John, Faith, and Jacob, are so jarringly different in their ends and presentations that this is basically three games cobbled together, and the tie that each of them (especially Jacob) has to Joseph seem quite nominal. Having the world be open-world also allows the player to tackle these problems in any order. I think I did them in the intended order (John, Faith, Jacob) and I could talk about why I think that order makes the most sense and how the game leads you in that direction. But the fact that I could do them in a different or opposite order is... odd, to say the least. And it doesn't let any of the player's major actions have as much impact on the game as they should.
FC5's devs really narrowed down on it's gameplay, and focused on what makes FC games fun and enjoyable. The gameplay is genuinely good. The puzzles are fun, the world is GORGEOUS, the effort-reward system is well worked through, combat and movement feel fluid, they took out all the gate-locking and made it truly open world. And they let you have and pet a dog, and a cougar, and a bear! I even like several of the characters. It's a good game, as far as a FC style game goes. It took the things that were fun in FC3-4 and did those things, but more, and better.
Story wise tho it's almost the exact opposite. It's like they took everything that made the story of FC3-4 engaging and hard hitting, but then threw all that in the garbage. Either that or they filed it down and padded it so much that it achieved the opposite result. And don't even get me started on the ending. (Spoilers!) The fact that the ending is cut-scene heavy and negates literally all of the player's effort, is neither bold nor good. It's pretentious, disappointing, and infuriorating.
When FC5's promo material came out, it put people at arms. Their marketing team was GOOD. But they mis-sold the game, which failed to live up to any of it's controversy by pulling every punch it could have had, and throwing away any decent discussion it could have prompted. There is potential in FC5's story, but I don't think it ever actually figured out what story it was trying to tell. So it told a bad one.
Don't even get me started on the ending....
Anyway, thanks for reading. It's been a WHILE since I posted on this blog, and I'd quite like to get back to my Mythology series sometime.
I hope you are all healthy, well, and safe during this whole pandemic business, and that you are all taking proper precautions to halt or slow the spread of disease, especially to the vulnerable, are washing your hands, and using your time wisely (more wisely than me, since I've spent about a week mostly playing this bad game...)
As always, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all creatures here below, praise him above ye heavenly hosts, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
R
P.S. Oh one last thing - another really notable absence in this game is the lack of Sex. Like I know that's a weird thing to bemoan, but I think it's highly indicative of American media's and ESPECIALLY American Video Games' 100% acceptance of violence - murder, mutilation, firearm worship, power fantasies, even nuclear force - and willingness to accept drugs, which are both good and bad in this game - alongside the American video games industry's absolue FEAR of sex and nudity. Like sure you can give me a lot of examples of when this has been broken (especially in female character design) and whole games where sex is a huge theme. I mean Far Cry 3 (Spoilers!!!) actually has a first person sex scene in one of it's endings, including a bare chested woman. But really. For how hyper-masculine and Red Blooded American FC5 is, and how it has multiple villains interested in different forms of torture, it's notable that sex - and sexual violence - doesn't come up at all. I'm not complaining. I don't WANT there to be sexual violence in this game. I'm glad there is not sexual violence in FC5. But it does I think shine a light to ask - why are we so accepting of other forms of violence, if we are too scared of this one to even mention it in a game?
And even more so with nudity. Villains who brutally mutilate corpses or still-living victims and display the bodies, or worse? Fine. A penis? Absolutely not. How dare you. Totally reprehensible, cannot be shown. (boobs are ok tho, apparently. There aren't any in FC5 but just in general you see more in games). Talk about double standards, on so many levels! I think this is another thing that made using a blank-slate character a "safe" choice for FC5. Because this would present really differently for a female character than a male character. That said, I think the game is designed for a male character through and through. Which sucks, btw. One more thing the games industry has been cowardly about; creating games where you have no choice but to play as a woman. There are loads where you have no choice but to play as a man, and a great number where you can choose male or female. There are very few where you can be anything other than a man or a woman (genderfluid, etc), and none that I know of where you must play someone of a non-traditional gender. But there are also sadly only a few where you must play as a woman, and where the whole game is designed for you to do so.
