Far Cry 5 and The American West
This newest game plays off of (and extends) interesting trends in Video Games and Culture
Not long ago, I wrote about The Oregon Trail and its odd, endearing realism. I’m continuing this theme of writing about video games and the American West with this post here:
Today, Ubisoft released the reveal trailer for Far Cry 5. It’s fascinating: the graphics look beautiful, and the themes the game addresses are intentionally jarring. Polygon’s Charlie Hall wrote an in-depth preview of the game’s storytelling choices, which is worth reading, but I want to address something else that caught my eye. As you can see from the trailer below, this game is set in the West:
Far Cry 5, from a graphical standpoint, looks good. The world, that its developers have made, looks great. The sweeping landscapes, open fields, and dirt roads all combine to make a world that looks livable, dangerous, and exciting. In short, this game draws on themes of the American West that many other recent games have. These themes — and similarities with other games — all have the potential to add significantly to the story that Far Cry 5 tells, and the resulting world in this game is filled with the potential to make a truly special title.
Some time ago, I made a short list in my head of games that I wanted to buy in the future. It included Red Dead Redemption 2, Days Gone, and The Last of Us: Part II. Putting aside The Last of Us: Part II (because of its unclear stage in development), there are huge similarities between Days Gone and Red Dead. Red Dead is also set in the West (perhaps even more explicitly than Far Cry), and is a play on the classic Western. Here’s its own reveal trailer, below:
As a franchise, we already know the key parts of what makes a Red Dead game. It’s huge, sprawling, open-world, and drawing on classic Western themes. There’s a fortune to be made in this world, but danger lurks around every corner. It’s a safe bet that there will be a massive, open-world sandbox to discover in the sequel, one that will allow players a massive amount of freedom and exploration.
And despite the vast differences in time between Red Dead and Far Cry 5, there are notable similarities, too. The first is geographical, since the Montana setting in the latter is right within the general Western setting of the former. But the worlds are similar in more than just place, too. The opportunity and danger of Western exploration reside within Far Cry’s story of a cult taking over rural Montana.
Can you imagine the type of stories that these games are telling happening in a markedly different environment? A talented narrator could probably pull this feat off, but the wild, untamed American West lends itself to these concepts so much better than many other areas. With fewer people around, and a less entrenched civilization, there’s simply more freedom — for good or bad—for everyone.
Sony’s latest exclusive, Days Gone, fits this mold as well. Take a look at the trailer from last year’s E3 below:
Without more concrete details, it’s difficult to say just how good Days Gone will be. There have been an overabundance of zombie games in recent years, and it’s quite possible that this latest offering will rely on too many tropes and stereotypes to be truly good. But there’s also reason for hope, as well. The trailer looks like it’s going to focus on the human relationships as well as the open-world combat, which is always a good sign. Trailers aren’t always accurate, but if there’s as much of a focus on storytelling and character development as we’ve seen so far, this new franchise is off to a good start.
Days Gone, just like the other two games in this post, is also set in the American West. The connection here isn’t quite as over, since the story is set in the Pacific Northwest, trading open, sweeping plains for dense forests and rainy climates. Nonetheless, this area of the country is still part of the Western mythos, and the themes of danger and opportunity are just as present.
Danger, in this game, is evident. There’s a lengthy gameplay video that’s worth a watch, where viewers can see the game’s protagonist using a variety of tactics to escape a horde of zombies. The game has been pretty vague about more story details, but the trailer and this gameplay video show a man trying to simply survive in a post-apocalyptic world. He appears as something of a renegade, a character in a similar mold to someone out of Red Dead, perhaps.
Anyone can cherrypick random video games to find similar settings or themes, but I think it’s significant that these three games all approach the different types of opportunity and danger that are often found in the West. They aren’t alone, either. Other games, like The Last of Us and Firewatch both take place (at least in part) in the West. Joel travels west from Boston at the beginning of the game, while Firewatch is set entirely in Wyoming. Both games approach the type of danger found in the West even if they aren’t perfect analogues for these three upcoming releases.
In a sense, these comparisons aren’t terribly important. It’s not like the designers of these games met in some secret room to discuss parallel themes. With the sheer amount of games that come out every year, similarities like these are almost inevitable.
As someone who loves exploring video game worlds though, I still think these common threads are interesting. Perhaps, more than anything else, they show how perfect the American West is for a video game setting. Western movies captivated both American and international audiences for decades, and the same things that make good Westerns often make good video games as well. Opportunity for riches and personal gain? Danger around every corner? These are perfect for a video game.
Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Days Gone might all be terrible games (though that seems unlikely). They’re all highly-anticipated releases though, and the themes that they all address are interesting, to say the least. With so much similarity in these upcoming releases, I can’t wait to see how they turn out.
