There is nothing more peaceful than living out in the woods where everybody has a front-row seat to the wildlife to the lay back environment of fishing on the river or watching out for one another in a small town where everybody knows everyone. We’ll look into the details of what can be done in the open-world setting behind Ubisoft’s newest addition to the Far Cry series of Far Cry 5 and review the terrorizing gameplay in this first-person shooter.
Open Season on the Seed family
In Hope County, there is no where to run and no where to hide from Eden’s Gate and the Seed family headed up by Joseph Seed (also known as “The Father“) who stands front-and-center in the Seed family and head of the table of Eden’s Gate. The Seed family is made up the siblings to Joseph that include: John, Jacob, and Faith Seed who all have their own special abilities as they carry out their own special plans in their regions in Hope County.
As a part of their general plans for Hope County, Eden’s Gate tortures anyone who disobeys the word “Yes” for not wishing to join their cult to holding anyone falsely imprisoned until they convert to joining their movement of doing nothing; but, torturing to baptizing and worshiping to the false prophet words of “The Father” and what the Seed family values in for seeking chaos, destruction, and deletion of the World.
If torturing and drowning is not enough to convince anyone to join Eden’s Gate, then there are other method’s each Seed sibling has they could use to convince anyone to fall to their movement.
Being affected with Bliss has a consequential hallucination effect…being in the alternative world with alternate thoughts while being changed by Faith
One of many methods the Seed family is known to convince anybody forcefully into their movement is through the hallucination effects of their magical drug known as “Bliss” which could over-power anyone over their natural thoughts into thoughts that are the world of Eden’s Gate…In other words, people lose their minds quickly to being brain-washed in an alternate world to think like the cultists where the only Heaven is with Eden’s Gate and every other truthful facts are lies to them…even the drug makes the wildlife lose their minds into becoming the cult’s “Judge animals” against other wildlife.
Other than exposing one to using the cult’s magic dust, the other common way to altering your mind in the cult’s opinion is simple: stabbing your own trusted allies in the back to killing those who pose the biggest risks to the cult’s project and plan. This is the next level to what Bliss can do with the exception of being hypnotized to doing worse than just accepting what Eden’s Gate can do to help.
With all of these things that can be witnessed in Far Cry 5, it is your job as a junior deputy to call in the resistance and reinforcements of the only friends that you got which are the survivors of Hope County who remain unaffected and untouched by Eden’s Gate to fighting back to taking down the cult’s beliefs, the cult, and each Seed sibling around Hope County.
Far Cry 5 Gameplay
Just like any other typical open-world game, there is plenty to do in Hope County besides chatting up all the locals to find out their weird and obnoxious stories in person…most of the game-play in Far Cry 5 requires you as the player to do one thing and one thing mainly and that is to save and liberate the whole county of all of Eden’s Gate cultists. You’ll find yourself in the middle of many fire-fights with the cultists on random and scripted occasions on the main story missions as well as on the road if and when you run into patrols…the cultists patrolling won’t mind turning around and coming after you to shooting you to death until you’re dead (really easy to do on the hard difficulty).
One of the guns for hire specialist available in Far Cry 5…Grace Armstrong
To preventing anyone from shooting you in the back, you’ll always need someone watching your back in your AI support which can be Guns for Hire specialists who you would meet during the campaign to regular rebel fighters that you can find around Hope County to talking to which can be hired to give you a helping hand to fighting the cult. Each specialist/fighter has their own special abilities and perks that could be beneficial to on a support level such as scouting and marking enemies to over-watch support…don’t forget to bring along a Fangs for Hire companion along as well if you need some teeth to chomp down on some cultists.
One of the keys to achieving 100% completion to Far Cry 5 is liberating each cult outpost found around each of the Seed occupied regions around Hope County which can bring out the stealth vibe in you if you don’t want to go loud in neutralizing each of the cultists. Going through these cult outposts, you can achieve stealth by using hand-to-hand combat with distractions to using a suppressible weapon (weapon with a silencer) to eliminate your enemies. If you can’t play through cult outposts side missions stealthy enough, then you can disable the alarm systems in these cult outposts so the cultists can’t call for reinforcements or any help…remaining undetected or no alarms provides a bonus award upon completion.
As far as what can be upgraded in the game, one of things that you can upgrade is your character through a state-of-the-art perk system which can be found in the menu…there are options for like carrying extra ammo, improving your health, and carrying special items that can be useful to completing Far Cry 5 campaign and side missions much easier.
Besides hunting wildlife in Far Cry 5, fishing is another way to cash in and sell towards buying ammo, guns, and other items.
Besides going around and “wreaking havoc” to Eden’s Gate, there are some fun side quests that you get the opportunity of doing in Far Cry 5 like finding “prepper stashes” which are other
people’s hidden assets such as extra ammunition, weapons, money, and anything else to help you remain locked and loaded without breaking the bank. Of course, you will have to find a way to get to the stash through the clues left in the notes left behind when you first start the side quest in order to get your hands on your reward. The prepper stashes can be unlocked by talking to the locals that display a green diamond with the exclamation point above their heads.
Speaking of side quests, there are side missions that are available and can be opened up from the criteria of successfully liberating each cult outposts or talking to the locals around each region that display the side mission icon above their heads. Some of these side missions can be simply saving some rebel hostages from the cultists, doing simple tasks around a recently liberated area, hunting, and more tasks we’ll let you find out on your own.
Hitting Collectible Paydirt: Bobbleheads & Baseball Cards
What would any open-world video game be without finding another man’s treasure?…Collectibles are scattered all throughout Hope County and Far Cry 5 ; but, there is always the impossible feeling of finding a collectible in comparison of finding a needle…well in a bunch of needles.
Besides fighting the war with the cult, there is always a chance to take a break from fighting to going off another side quest in just exploring unseen areas of Hope County to look around for these collectibles. However, it can be time-consuming (we’re taking hours) without the assistance from a map. We’ll let you figure out how to find all the collectibles…it’s a secret.
There is one secret I can spill about the collectibles side quest and that secret is that some of the collectibles can just be stumbled upon while out doing a campaign or side mission in Far Cry 5. So, if you are the exploring type of gamer that bothers to takes time to look around when completing a task on a mission then there will be a highly possibility that you would just happen to find a collectible without assistance or help.
Find all the collectibles such as a collection of baseball cards or say someone’s lost “bobblehead” collection …Let’s just say that there will be a reward at the end of the “rainbow;” but, we’ll let you find out in person what that reward is. We’re not going to tell you!
Personal Views about Far Cry 5
What can I say further about Far Cry 5…The whole story behind the game itself made sense in the way that it describes the typical good versus evil persona; but, with an ultimate twist. When you have one side that knows the truth to knowing right from wrong and the other side feeds false beliefs to creating false prophets that would create chaos against humanity. That is what is found and shown in Far Cry 5 as far as the story goes.
I can compare this game to what we are seeing in the real world where one side is fighting for the Truth while the other side is protecting the “ultimate lie” to turning good people who were once straight arrows into corrupt individuals where nothing else matters; but, worshiping one person or a fictional fantasy that seeks everything towards tyranny and oppression over a whole population and eventually the country.
For the game-play in my opinion, Far Cry 5 does up the anty as far as the AI programming goes where it was total crap in say in another Ubisoft game like in the instance of Ghost Recon Wildlands in which the enemies just didn’t care about your squad-mates as they walk around them without knowing their there (it was more like the AI squad was in Ghost mode); but, this is not the case in Far Cry 5.
One of the three Seed brothers and villains in Far Cry 5…John Seed
If any of your Guns for Hire/Fangs for Hire happen to get spotted by any of the AI enemies, then the enemies will fire on them…even-though it was an aggravation to have to go revive my AI support, it was nice to see that Ubisoft made it a challenge to force you to control your AI support’s movements through the limited commands made available. The enemy AI although is not as sensitive as spotting your buddy or even you for the matter that they can sometimes be as dumb as a rock to know that you are there or know something is wrong sometimes.
In addition to this, the big downside is that the AI ally support does not fully provide a stealth approach to doing hand-to-hand take-downs of enemies…there are some guns for hire that have the perk to providing a stealth approach of enemy take-downs; but, in saying this stealth is very limited on the AI side. In the same boat, the fangs for hire can only do take-downs from the rear of the enemy position instead of full frontal…keep this in mind when using your fangs for hire support.
On the stealth subject, there aren’t many ways to achieve stealth in this game; but, I found that if you play the game smart by setting up a distraction like throwing stones to an area of cover to go for the easy takedown, observing the AI patrol patterns and using the environment to your advantage for cover then it is possible to play it stealthy most of the times…sometimes you might expect to get lucky where the wildlife or the rebels patrolling on the road would do all the dirty work for you. For the times in Far Cry 5 where stealth isn’t really impossible and full-on assault is the only option, I would always use the compound bow & arrow or a suppressed pistol/rifle in most situations with the goal of going for a headshot in the one shot, one kill rule to remain quiet (this is what I recommend for anybody who has yet to play through Far Cry 5 to use in the entirety of the game).
As far as the special perks made available for your character, they aren’t really that special in my opinion like the bullet resistance perk or quick reflex perk is not that good as it is not as efficient to
There is no mini-map in the bottom right or left side of the HUD in Far Cry 5…Only the mission objective, compass bar at the top and waypoint indicator.
even use in the middle of a gun-fight; but, there are some perks that can come in handy especially get further into the game that would be beneficial in fighting the cult and achieving side missions like the grappling hook, ghost, human fish, and sneaky sprint perk (there are more I could list; but, this would be a start for anybody). The consumables found on your secondary wheel don’t make sense to have in this game other than just using your liquor to get wasted or to easing the pain by snorting oregano to get high in partying like it is still 1999.
While I never got a chance to get into the arcade mode or the creator mode much in Far Cry 5, it’s a big plus since you get the opportunity to bring out the developer side by building a custom map that could be used in the arcade mode with it’s own objectives and modifiers to implement in challenging your co-op friends in completing your map if you have the hours to put in to building a consistent map. There are a lot of things to play around with like building objects, environment objects, backdrops, paint textures, effects, loadout map options, and other things to make your own map unique.
For playing the PC/Steam version of Far Cry 5, it was not optimized quite right as there was plenty of times when the game was buggy or stuttering due to the slow rendering of the graphics and sometimes the AI characters were buggy to the point that sometimes it was hard to work with them. Other than this and the other minor disadvantages to what the game had to offer from my view, I would give Far Cry 5 a solid B- or B+ on my own grading scale just because the graphics was realistic and the voice acting was decent despite the plot sort of bring politics into the mix.
