Hope County, Montana, the ideal location for your dream vacation. Featuring sprawling landscapes, dense forests, flowing rivers, and friendly citizens, there’s no shortage of sights to see in this luscious American home. While staying in the beautiful rural outback, you might enjoy a romantic ride through the countryside on quad bikes, or perhaps go exercise your right to use firearms by exploring the countless shooting ranges, where you can unload your trusty shotgun at harmless ducks. Hope County, Montana, the place of dreams. Though, this is a Far Cry game, and everything I just said is but a pipe-dream for the more horrific truth of the matter.

Far Cry 5 begins in a totalitarian alternate of what Hope County once was. As the new deputy sheriff on the scene, your first course of action is to arrest the leader of a powerful religious cult that has taken over the county; the charismatic, persuasive Joseph Seed, nicknamed the “Father”. A short helicopter ride into Seed’s compound reveals just how firm of a grip the Father has on his insanely devoted followers, the Project at Eden’s Gate. Upon meeting the Father, two things become clear; his range of influence is deceptively wide, and you aren’t getting out of this situation unscathed.



As expected of a Far Cry game, things don’t go as planned and you find yourself trapped in the middle of a civil war in Hope County. To make matters worse, your partners have all been kidnapped and held captive by the terrifying Seed family – Jacob, John, and Faith - who each control a region of the county, overlooked by the Father. Far Cry 5 expects you to rise to the challenge and take down each region and their leader, but gives you ultimate freedom in doing so. As soon as you step foot in the open world, there’s no set path you have to take. You can start in whatever region you want, and subsequently create your own story.

Ubisoft have gone to great lengths to ensure that players have more agency this time around. This is evident in the fact that you aren’t playing as a pre-written character like Jason Brody or Ajay Ghale, but instead have the freedom to create your own character in the beginning. While character customization is very limited and lackluster, being able to choose between a male or female for the first time in the series, it does encourage players to create their own journey in Hope County. Unfortunately, this works for and against the story-driven nature of the game, risking the protagonist’s emotional connection to the story for player connection. The deputy sheriff here feels like a blank canvas without personality, and in a game about manipulative villains who warrant intense character study, your main character simply lacks the depth required to hit these emotional home-runs.

However, Ubisoft once again succeeds in creating a truly compelling open world. Hope County is absolutely massive, and there’s no shortage of things to do. Despite the fact that Seed’s followers are on your tail every five steps, you’ll have a blast just roaming around the countryside and causing all kinds of satisfying chaos. The core of what makes a Far Cry game so insanely fun to play is present here in full force, complete with unintentionally hilarious moments. Far Cry 5 embraces its absurdity and randomness, and feels right at home in the series. Ubisoft has wisely chosen to emit both tower liberation and a mini-map, instead giving you the entirety of Hope County to explore from the beginning. The lack of a mini-map also encourages exploration, making the world feel organic and inhabited by both dangerous wildlife and equally dangerous citizens.



However, this also comes at a disadvantage to the story. Players can tackle story missions at their own pace and in whichever order they please, but it risks telling a coherent story like previous games. It’s unfortunate, then, that the Seed family is some of the most memorable antagonists I’ve ever seen in a video game recently, perhaps since Far Cry 4’s own Pagan Min. Each family member has a rich backstory and incredibly powerful presence, but the disjointed nature of the game’s narrative structure never gives them enough time to truly shine. In order to get their attention, you have to build resistance points that expands your influence over theirs in each region, but you only ever encounter the Seed family sporadically over the course of the campaign. While I did have a blast completing objectives, stealthily liberating outposts, and causing all kinds of havoc in between these big story moments, I always yearned to confront the Seeds head-on, yet it only rarely gave me that opportunity.

The story missions (and various side missions too) instead felt like a checklist of things to do instead of a natural progression of the narrative. Nonetheless, these are some of the most twisted villains the series has ever seen, and I can’t give Ubisoft enough praise for just how superbly written these antagonists are. Joseph Seed is another standout powerhouse main villain that can stand comfortably next to Vaas and Pagan.

Far Cry 5 introduces some welcomed changes to the series, though. AI companions can now join you, ranging from snipers and gun-touting maniacs to animals such as a bear named Cheeseburger who has diabetes (I kid you not). Furthermore, these companions are very useful in the line of fire. Each companion has a specific skill set that’s perfectly accommodated to your play style. If you prefer to play stealthily, you can hire a bow user or sniper, while heavy-gunners offer an explosive offensive if you want to run in guns blazing. This level of freedom only comes with a Far Cry experience, and thankfully, Far Cry 5 still retains that core gameplay, for better or worse. If you want a friend to hop in on your campaign too, then co-op mode offers that multiplayer edge, and it just as satisfying as you imagine.



Far Cry 5 boasts some of the best graphics in the series thus far. While Hope County lacks the breathtaking presentation and immersion of Kyrat, it’s still a fully realized, beautiful world that wonderfully captures the volatile nature of its rural southern-American setting. Ubisoft has given a lot of attention to detail this time around, from the improved facial animations to the weather physics. It really adds another level of immersion to the experience, even if it isn’t noticeable at first glance.

Sound is par for the course for a Far Cry game. There’s a themed soundtrack complete with country music and plenty of ambient gunfire and explosions, but that’s to be expected when every setting in the series consists of gun-crazy lunatics who will happily lay waste to a squirrel if it looks at them the wrong way.

Far Cry 5 succeeds on the strengths of its extraordinary batch of villains, wildly fun gameplay, and solid world-building that’s expected with Ubisoft games. However, the level of freedom to go anywhere you want and do anything at your own pace and order threatens a coherent narrative that lacks the punch it really deserves. I had so much fun blasting my way through cultists and basking in the random, quirky nature of the game, that I often forgot that the story, one of the series’ greatest strengths, unfortunately took a backseat.