Far Cry 5: Politicized
The first Far Cry game I ever played was Far Cry 2. It had a unique mechanic with malaria pills, a great story, and fun combat. I knew then the franchise had a formula for a special type of game. Then, four years later, we were met with the third installment of the franchise. Quite a big gap to fill my Far Cry needs, Ubisoft. Side note, In the past few months since I’ve been out of college, every triple A game I’ve played with the exception of one has been from Ubisoft. I don’t have a problem, you do. Fast forwarding to March, we will get a fifth installment to the franchise that I’m incredibly excited about, although there seems to be a great deal of backlash around it. I’ll be honest, I was looking for a pun to jump into this, but let’s just…never-mind.
Set in a fictional county in the state of Montana, this Far Cry has you fighting against white cult leaders who take the community hostage so they bend to the will of a religious leader. Whoa. Crazy right? While not too common, recently, story driven games have you pitted against white antagonists. For example, Outlast/Outlast 2 and Resident Evil 7. These are extreme cases in that the antagonists are zombies or infected but nonetheless make a huge leap in not just portraying antagonists of color. Far Cry’s cover art is reminiscent of The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci. It’s as if Ubisoft wanted to make a statement on the current political status of our country and the world as a whole.
You may be thinking, “Antony, I didn’t come here to get all political about a video game. I just wanna shoot things.” Well, that’s exactly my point. As a society and community, we need to stop politicizing video games. While I do agree that Ubisoft has something to say and wanted to push the boundaries a little bit, I do believe that at the core, they just wanted to make a great game that stood out. Does everyone remember when Modern Warfare 2 came out? The infamous “No Russian” mission where you go undercover and end up murdering or not murdering a bunch of civilians? Yeah, that caught media attention as well. I understand the content could have been a little much, but it’s on the parent to educate and REGULATE what their child plays. It has an M rating for a reason.
All that being said, I hope this does incite discourse around the subject of race and right wing extremity IRL. If I can take guns away from those people in a video game then maybe I’ll feel alright about them having guns in real life, but probably not. Moving on! All in all, from the trailers I’ve seen, the game looks great. Open world first person shooters have always been my favorite genre but this offers a unique environment. Executive producer Dan Hay had much to say on the creative direction, inspiration, and what to expect of the game in this interview with The Game Fanatics.
I ask this question at the end of every article I write, but this time I really mean it, what do you think? Not only about the game itself but also the controversy surrounding it. Will there be negative impacts for Ubisoft when the game drops? Let me know in the comments below or shoot me a message!
