A brilliant addition to an already great franchise. Far Cry 5 improves on the gameplay features of past Far Cry games, but still retains the chaos and mayhem we've come to know and love from Ubisoft's hit FPS.
-
8
4 years after we ventured to the Himalayan Province of Kyrat in Far Cry 4, the long anticipated Far Cry 5 has been released, and it was worth the wait. The latest addition to the award-winning franchise takes us to the fictional Hope County, Montana, where the player, an unnamed junior deputy sheriff, must take on a doomsday cult, Project Eden’s Gate.
As with any game within the Far Cry series, the game wouldn’t be complete without a power-hungry charismatic antagonist, which in Far Cry 5, is the cult’s leader Joseph Seed. Seed aka “the father” believes that the collapse is coming and that joining the Project at Eden’s Gate is the only way to survive. As the player, you must battle the cult across Hope County, helping to build a resistance against the Project at Eden’s gate by assisting locals, liberating outposts and disrupting cult supplies in three different regions. Once you gain enough resistance in a region, you can take on one of Joseph’s heralds, where defeating them brings you one step closer to taking down Seed.
The gameplay mechanic where you accumulate resistance is completely different to the running of all the previous games in the series, which had a very linear storyline, where you completed one mission after another, and not much choice in which direction the story heads next. This is completely different to how the story progresses in Far Cry 5, where you can choose to build resistance in each of the regions simultaneously and carry out over 120 side missions while completing the main missions, there is a lot more choice in the latest game. However, my only criticism of the story mode is that it is simply too short, as the story missions themselves are quite fast to work through.
As well as changes in the main PvE story mode, there are also many changes to the multiplayer features of the game. Like previous Far Cry 4, there is an option to play the main game as an online co-op with a friend. However, the PvP element of the game has had a major overhaul. Instead of the PvP online multiplayer being separate from the main game, as was the case in Far Cry 4, the online multiplayer is accessible in game in a new arcade mode. This allows the player to compete in many different game modes, such as team deathmatch and capture the flag, on custom levels designed by players. This new feature is fun to play and expands the gameplay after the main storyline has been completed. And what’s even better is the virtual currency that is earned in the arcade can be used to buy new items in the main game, which links both modes closely together.
This game continues a great legacy set by previous games in the franchise and the flexibility in the storyline makes it easy to pick up and play whenever you have a spare 5 minutes. I would highly recommend fighting Project Eden’s Gate and see what Hope County has to offer.
Far Cry 5 is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC
