@@granola-approach Yeah I don't know much about the state to be honest, and I get that Yellowstone isn't going for an accurate portrayal rather than just using the state as a backdrop.
The saddest thing about Far Cry 5 for me is that the audio work is really terrific. The voice acting is excellent, especially from the lead cultists, and the music and sound effects are best in class. I’ve watched that bit from the ending where Joseph asks you to walk away a few times now, and the tragic swell of the violins and the note of deep sadness in Joseph’s voice combine to very nearly sell the vacuous nonsense the game’s pushing. I know as I’m watching that the moment is desperately stupid, but it still gets me on an emotional level. That’s all down to the audio (and maybe the facial capture, to an extent), because the writing is mealy-mouthed garbage made worse within the larger context of the game. It depresses me to see excellent work go into a fundamentally soulless project.
Surprised when he was mentioning other cults he didn't also mention Rajneeshpuram where a cult actually did take over a neighboring town's city council, they actually had their own police force too. They engaged in a large bio terrorism attack on people in the surrounding county and had a string of failed assassination attempts too. Although that cult wasn't right wing or Christian it's a fascinating and frightening example.
The Rajneeshees only went crazy when the government proved itself too corrupt to deal with normally. Don't get me wrong, they were fucking weirdos, but they were following laws before they weren't allowed to vote. Then the real insanity happened.
>Although that cult wasn't right wing or Christian it's a fascinating and frightening example. Well, honestly they were a prime example of a fascist ideology. Just hits too many fasho marks
Far Cry 2 could afford making statements because 1) it took place in a place in the world that had basically zero potential customers, and 2) games were not maximize-mass-appeal-or-bust "live services" yet.
Shroomy in that sense it is awfully misplaced hope to believe that the fifth installment in a growing and highly popular franchise says anything useful. But it’s still true. Edit:...says anything “useful “ - because as Chris pointed out it of course did say something utterly messed up.
then why make a game that takes place in a country in the usa? that's why i didn't buy the game. I litterally knew that a lot of farcry players would come from the areas discribed in the game and as such the game would make no point whatsoever. It doesn't make sense to chose this setting from a marketing point of view.
Cults exist in the states and they can control entire communities. This was the best setting for a cult like The Project at Eden’s Gate. Sure, it’s not quite how Montana is usually, but that’s the point.
Also FC2 is anything but consistent in that statement. The ending with your friends betraying you comes after they risk their lives for saving you after the first half and not getting paid for it. The gun system is cool and brings that image of chaos but you can get any weapon brand new from safe houses when you have unlocked them and they will jam only if you use them for hours. Malaria is only a problem if you didn't do this "Bring papers to that guy" a hundred times and you basically have so many pills that you never run out of it. The mechanics are nice on paper but meaningless in practice.
It's so absurd that the game spends several days detailing the cult's sins and yet chastises you for passing judgement (or considering you're a deputy and not a displaced tourist like the last two games, YOUR GODDAMN JOB)
Because the option to walk away is essentially turning the game off. Unlike FC5 the actual game world and metanarrative is peppered with suggestions that what you are doing isn't worthwhile, and it's a clear statement of the developer's intentions rather than a token attempt to recreate the Easter egg ending of FC4.
That isn't a deer it's a rocky mountain elk from what I can tell deer have more uniform color while elk have a darker neck and head and the antlers are far too large to be any deer
@@awsumpchits He did not. (See edited time stamp) He shoots it right in the top of the skull as one is drinking water and it bolts only to take 2 (one going through the body, I assume not registering as a hit) more shots.
So based off the endings, the only way to beat this game and get the best possible solution is to never play the game as to not get stuck in a mechanically locked optionless story. Sweet another game i can say ive finished
One of my biggest complaints with this game is that it can't really decide what ideology it wants the bad guys to represent, because on one hand they're all extremist Christian fundamentalists that are insanely nationalistic and patriotic, but then they make the enemy groups ethnically diverse and give them man-buns and hipster beards, which are things commonly portrayed as stereotypical on people of the left. It doesn't help that the trailers exclusively showed Joseph Seed and his army as a bunch of white people hunting down people of color. It can be best summed up with this Yahtzee quote "Well, actually, while one might get that vibe from the premise, in practice, the politics are more even-handed; yes, the cult are all religious fundamentalists to whom gun ownership is more important than basic personal hygiene, but they're also very racially diverse psychedelic drug users sporting hipster beards and man buns"
You're projecting the insanely nationalistic and patriotic thing. They never actually say that in the game and if anything they're anti America (John Seed being a disenfranchised veteran) preaching an inevitablr collapse. So in a way, you are guilty of what Yahtzee said in that joke.
See, it's odd that you should say FC5 is all about empowering the player, because playing it I felt extremely *lacking* in power. Sure, I could approach outposts in absolutely any way I wanted and rain down fire and destruction like some primordial god of death, but as soon as I'd got enough Good Boy Points that the local boss decided they wanted to talk to me I'd just get hunted down by an unavoidable OHKO and dragged to their lair because the story had to progress. The most ridiculous example of this was when I was in the northern territory with the hunting boss (I think his name's Jacob?), where the OHKO is that you quite literally take an arrow to the knee. This happened to me while I was *flying a plane*. I want to meet the archer who was able to land a shot on me several hundred feet up through the metal cockpit of my plane - he must have one HELL of a draw. Possibly he used a ballista. And then somehow managed to pull my unconscious body from the plane before it nosedived and killed me. It's like the game was pointedly reminding me that I get to play with guns in this big open playground of death ONLY for as long as the game wants me to. This is reflected in all the 'choices' that aren't choices: just to see if I could I messed with Faith's interactive cutscenes (not quite 'Press F to pay respects', but nearing that level) by staying where I was or going in the wrong direction and of course the game simply doesn't progress until you do what it tells you to, looping the same state until you comply out of sheer frustration and boredom. It's empowering in all the wrong ways - yes, I can kill these random thugs that I don't care about in 57 different and extremely cruel and violent ways, but when it comes to things that actually matter like main characters and story choices the game just shrugs and says 'follow the script'. As a side note: I liked FC4 despite its flaws because it had Pagan Min, a villain who was so goddamn charming that I chose not to shoot him when presented with the prompt and therefore got rewarded with more story. In FC5 I didn't even get the choice to kill John Seed (Like seriously, why did no-one just headshot him while the bombs were dropping? Ain't like due process matters in the apocalypse.), not even one of FC5's famous 'choice that isn't a choice' kind of choices. By the end of the game I was yelling at the screen 'YES I KNOW I'M NOT A HERO YOU SMUG BASTARD I NEVER CLAIMED TO BE ONE' and fantasising about beating John Seed's face into a bloody pulp with a rusty spade just for the sheer cathartic joy of shutting him up. I'm not a psychopath, I swear.
I did think the whole 'villain is able to kidnap you automatically" thing is kinda corny, but it seemed to be a way to force the story to give them screen time and explain their motives. One small issue: The villains name is "Joseph Seed", not John Seed. John is one of Joseph's flunkies and the guy who keeps talking about "the power of yes".
Sorry to respond to an old comment, but i just want to point out that Jacob's hunters are so skilled that they can kidnap you even after you kill them!
I remember playing for hours and taking out one of the cultist leaders and just feeling NOTHING, which is where I stopped. Nothing the cult was doing made sense, they didn't stand for anything, most of them were trying to do what Vaaz did in Far Cry 3. The game felt so utterly toothless it bored me, it mastered the art of "using lots of words to not say anything". Things like diversity makes a lot of sense for the resistance but the CULTISTS? Pff, sure, let's just not tackle the racial angle that WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAPPEN IN SUCH A SITUATION. It was almost the exact same gameplay as far cry 4, except Far Cry 4 actually had something to say, specifically about the nature of revolutions and just how dangerous the follow up to dictatorship can be when lead by egos, it was a message worth hearing especially at the time with things like the Arab spring going on. Revolution in the face of dictatorship can be inevitable but it must be done carefully and in consideration for the consequences or it can go horrifically bad (see also France directly after the famed French Revolution which was a period literally called "the reign of terror"), even policies like sanctions that push for revolution probably won't have the effect of a new liberal democratic government, but just another form of dictatorship. We have had decades worth of media always showing the resistance as "good guys" with no grey areas and ultimately bringing about peace and super duper happy times, even in "realistic" games and stories, it was sad yet important to see something like Far Cry 4 to me, knowing that I wasn't crazy noticing all these grey and dark aspects of revolution that most people never for one second consider and I really appreciated it. I honestly enjoyed the arcade in Far Cry 5 more than the actual game, no grind, pure gameplay and not pretending to be anything else.
While that's an entirely valid point to make, and position to explore, I see so much more of the other stance. Detailing every potential or imaginable excess of a revolution, without proper consideration of the inhumanity of what it replaces. The cost of doing nothing, so to speak. Real-life revolutions the world over have been judged by this. Or from a way better writer: "THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” ― Mark Twain
Why would Joesph be racist lmao? He literally has 0 reason too cultist or not. His goals aren't about who's racially pure or not. Jacob's moto is literally about strength, and he clearly doesn't see strength in race John's is saying yes and clearing sin which still, no race as John focuses more on the seven deadly sins. And faith was about having faith, which no race still.
You're Never Going To Read This But: The gun loving crowd actually enjoys Far Cry 2 more because it emulates the actual conflicts the firearms were used in. The major gripe is how they're modeled and how the jamming animations play out, but otherwise the consensus seems to be that Far Cry 2 is just a magically perfect snapshot of how grimy, wretched and miserable fighting in the Congo or other African conflicts was and the fleeting romance of being a gun for hire would be. Far Cry 5 just came across as too slick, and too videogamey for anything to have the oppressive weight and misery of a gunfight in the middle of nowhere would be.
My absolute LEAST favorite kind of story; is the one where the villain/s is/are insane and condemns them from the outset, but ends with them being correct. It always comes out of nowhere and, even when it is set-up properly, it comes off as a shit-the-bed type ending and never gives any kind of narrative satisfaction.
One thing I do have to praise the game for: Those two dancing by the corpses? They looked like pretty normal Americans. I mean, their bodies. The animation models weren't based on supermodels or grotesque caricatures or cartoons or anything like that: Just a man and a woman who aren't in great shape but aren't particularly unhealthy either. I haven't been playing a lot of new games lately, but that seems like a bit of a rarity. Kudos to the character designers, if nothing else.
Agreed, though there is a comment by one of the characters that despite raiding everyone's homes, none of the bad guys thought to borrow a razor. Despite everything, the 'baddies' (mostly) remain beard-wearing fanatics ready to take over your land & ruin your day.
I'd say this though: those are "pedistrian" level character models -- you know, the background thingies. Why'd they be modelled after super models? I haven't touched a single western AAA titles for quite some time, but I still remember in GTA 5's singleplayer mode, the peds you find in the countryside are very often unfit, on the heavier side. Perhaps that's just how the public sees the people in the rural areas? Like "o' greesy trucker joe and that rodunt divorcee Gertrude as getting a 'lil sweet on each other"
@@lcmiracle Keep in mind though, most anything GTA *is* parody. Its not supposed to be an accurate representation of people, its a lot of creative liberty and even more stereotypes.
@@lcmiracle Yeah, contrast that with witcher 3, where every random peasant girl looks like a supermodel. I do like looking at some beautiful ladies, but why are they all like that?
Yeah, 21:18 at that point is where the story completely lost me. Felt like they tried to quickly hammer in a spec ops the line type of twist to the whole story. Try and blame you for all the deaths but totally forget how the cult was framed for the full game with them killing innocents, torturing them and brainwashing them even before you arrived. Still, driving while the apocalypse was happening was pretty cool which somes up the whole reason to be attracted to playing this game.
Yeah, seriously. Game should have ended with "Arrest or murder seed" instead of "Arrest or walk away". To turn a blind eye after all the shit that Seed did is just not right. As law enforcement, you can't turn around and ignore that kind of horror.
@@AegixDrakan personally I would've liked all three. Arrest him, murder him, or simply leave him. The nukes were entirely unnecessary. The leave option should've left him in his filthy pit of a burning outpost with the vast majority of his entire cult dead--lieutenants and all. The other two are obvious.
Funny thing is Far Cry 2 has always been known to heavily take inspiration from "Heart of Darkness". A story Spec ops the line also takes inspiration from.
@@jeremylim2421 before I begin: major Spec Ops: The Line spoilers in here. Spec Ops vilifies the protagonist for doing something they didn't really have a choice in doing. Adams says it himself that they didn't have a choice--their descent was their own the moment they chose to invade Dubai, and you (as Martin Walker)'re the one paying for it. You go deeper and deeper into shit that stinks more and more and realize that there just aren't any good sides. It's an apocalyptic scene that is met with apocalyptic morality. Atrocity after atrocity is committed while you try to contemplate what you're even doing there anymore beyond surviving inside the storm wall, your mission all but gone. Far Cry 5, however, does not have this same moral dilemma. Far Cry 5 shows blatant villains and gives them almost the protagonist treatment, as if to have that whole "we're not so different" trope pulled over your eyes for no reason other than to stir up some vague reaction from the players. The problem here is that the protagonist doesn't have a character arc like Martin Walker and his buddies, and the only real moral dilemma you have is righteousness and it's not even really displayed in any meaningful manner. It's as if Far Cry 5 wants to punish YOU for making the wrong choices, not the protagonist of the game. Imagine if Spec Ops had the same dilemma... it wouldn't be held as this beloved piece of game-art that it's seen as. If anything, it'd be seen as Far Cry 5 lol
Honestly I never saw any of these issues when I played Far Cry 5 originally, I didn't know any of it was supposed to be taken serious. I thought the beer commercial America was the point lol
Mattchester Yes, he did. Thank you Lieutenant for educating this youth. Without people like you this young lad may have very well been on his misguided way towards joining the rebel scum. Glory to the EAmpire!
not just the first two, the first 3, not the ea 3rd one, but the handheld renegade squadron game is apparently pretty good, elite squadron, not so much
@Patriot Cat No, not for pointing out the obvious, but for making a bitingly pointed and very well received joke. You are familiar with humour, no? Perhaps not, judging from the tenor of your witless reply.
@Patriot Cat Irony? Does it have something to do with getting really stroppy and upset because you got criticized on the internet for being a douchebag? Tell me more.
Here's the thing...Any time Seed and his goons tried to make be feel like it was "my fault" anything happened, I laughed in their face. In say, Spec Ops, even though they force you to use violence and commit war crimes, it ultimately makes sense when the game goes "None of this would have happened if you've have just stopped". It was a teachable moment about intentions and how the fog of war can make you misunderstand the situation and make things worse by trying to force things to get better. In Farcry 5? The villains aren't some nebulous force that's maybe pulling strings until you realize the truth. The villains are a cult of nutcases who do fun things like tattoo sins on your chest and rip them and the flesh out, or do some kind of crazy brainwashing on people, or turn people into drugged up zombies, or talk about how they murdered their own daughter. The evil they're doing is right out there in the open. Even before the feds piss in the hornet's nest at the start, the cult is already kidnapping and drugging people. That's not something you can just shrug and leave alone. To blame the player (who is law enforcement, let's remember) for trying to arrest these people is hilariously silly. Considering the shit they did, I had no regrets taking them down in self-defense (and then pouring a few extra shotgun shells and a molotov into their bodies just to be sure...And to vent a little). When Seed was giving his speech at the end about how right he was and how it was all my fault, I was there imagining that I was cutting him off with "You may have been right about the collapse, but you were dead wrong about everything else. If it weren't for the kidnapping, the drugs, and then the flesh-ripping, the brainwashing, the brain-dead drug slaves and the multiple murders...None of your people would have died. Your bunkers would have remained unbreached and you'd have been able to ride out the collapse just fine. I'm just the bullet. You and your family are the ones that pulled the trigger." Hell, I felt I was showing RESTRAINT at the end. I went to Seed's island with the intent to take him out. But when he was all "You can't solve everything with a bullet!" I paused, nodded and then decided that yeah, you know what, I'd rather arrest this sumbitch instead. Lemme read him his miranda rights and cuff him, game! Honestly, the end of the game would have made more sense if the final choice wasn't "arrest or walk away" but rather "murder or arrest". Either you stick to your duty as law enforcement knowing he had friends in high places that might get him off the hook, or you take justice into your own hands to make sure he can't hurt anyone again. THAT would have been interesting. Heck they could have still had the nukes. Make it so that if you kill Seed, you end up alone in a bunker with just Dutch (or even alone) for years on end, and if you arrest Seed you can use his fingerprints to get into his own personal bunker with your friends. That would have been neat. Or even invert it and have sparing him get you stuck in the bunker alone with him at the end, and killing him gets you stuck in the bunker with Dutch instead, if you wanna have a total downer ending! But nope, instead I'm just going to have to imagine that either the whole nuke thing was a hallucination because of the Bliss, or that my deputy spent the next two weeks grinding down the cuffs on the bedpost until they broke, and then snapping Seed's neck like so many of his goons, and then just stewing alone in the bunker not regretting anything other than letting the other deputies take him WITH us instead of, I dunno, Grace, or Boomer, or even nobody if it means we don't save the lunatic cult leader!
Aegix Drakan Yeah, I agree, I always laughed at their claims, Joseph Seed wasn't "right" in their murder and pillage, their use of violence wasn't frame as legitime, so you can't turn around in the end and say "surprise, we were right, you destroyed everything", hell, when we first come to Hope County to arrest him, you watch a video of Joseph Seed tearing a guy eyes out for bringing a camera, Faith is drugging people to oblivion, Jacob have the worst "kill the weak" militaristic philosophy and John Seed is a grade A psychopath... you can't show these things and cultists kidnapping and killing people left and right and then turn around and say "we were doing our things in our own corner of Montana and you came here and started the apocalypse", they were doing batshit crazy stuff before the "reaping" begun. I agree we should have been able to kill him in the end (or arrest him).
It is a classic Ubisoft thing, having their cake and eat it. As in Watch Dogs 2, they want the games to feel current and contemporary on release, while avoiding as much controversy as possible doing so.
That was Watch_Dogs 1 (with internet privacy and information control). Watch_Dogs 2 is like a parody take on that, but turned into a fun playground with cool hack-y gadgetry
Yeah, watch_dogs 2 is a direct response to the fact that they did a terrible job at writing a tragic cyberpunk vigilante or supporting it mechanically in the first game. So instead they just stepped back and made it focused on fun and technology as a power for disenfranchised groups to express themselves. Which honestly made for a stronger game because it's harder to fuck up.
Mmm, when you have Fortunate Son blazing on the soundtrack while blowing up rigged voting booths? (Yes, that's an actual moment in Watch_Dogs 2.) I wouldn't call that "avoiding as much controversy as possible."
+WhiplashGames God forbid you have art that tries to make a positive change to the world and challenges your views. You types only complain when it's left-wing politics inserted into a work, if a right leaning story came out you'd all be jerking iff and defending it with "muh freeze peach".
It's funny, the game tries so hard to be utterly inoffensive, but inadvertently creates the most anti-theist game I've ever played. The only logical conclusion you can get from how the endings differ is that, yes, God genuinely does endorse this murdering, torturing, brainwashing cult leader, and he will smite both you and all of mankind for daring to defy him. Because the only way the three endings differ is based on your choices, and yet one of them contains a nuclear apocalypse. All of Joseph Seed's prophecies come to pass, too. He genuinely does seem to be touched by the divine, and yet he's blatantly a horrific person. My main problem with the game then, is that the big question about Joseph Seed is constantly framed as "What if he's right?" in the sense of correct in his prediction rather than morally right. So when you choose to try to arrest him anyway at the end of the game, you're framed as a big dumb-dumb for not believing him when, for a lot of people, I'm sure the feeling was more like "I refuse to turn my back on the suffering you have caused." And I know that it's... Probably not what they intended, but for me this feels like the inevitable conclusion you get when you link the plot points together. God hates you.
The "vaguely Christian cult is the child of a cosmic horror" theme is something I've only seen come out of Japan, so it's interesting to see in an Ubisoft game.
Well with Bliss being involved, you could argue that the nuclear ending isn't real. But either way, I think they were trying to make the whole thing feel hopeless, like no matter what you did you were destined to fail. I'm not sure if that is necessarily related to religious belief, but it seems they unintentionally made it seem that way.
So let me get this straight. This game has a scene in which a white guy plays a Leadbelly song while a couple, one of whom is wearing what's basically the equivalent of the Punisher American flag t-shirt, slowdance in front of dead bodies. And not only is that not satire, but we're in fact supposed to think of these people as good guys?
I'm getting dozens of requests to cover it but it really just a mish mash of tipped toed around ideologies. I really can't add anything to the argument other than what you've just said. It's going for escapism, not meaning... or at least, it has the illusion of meaning.
Arsene Lupin What you just said explains perfectly why this game is so frustrating. It doesn’t make any sort of judgement on anything so in the end some really ridiculous points of view come across as normal in the game. And the game preaches these watered-down political stances at you all the time but there’s nothing behind it because the game has no conviction. It may as well just left current politics alone since it wasnt going to make any meaningful observations, but they had to sell copies of this game by making it seem topical and controversial, so.
Really by the end, the story is a quagmire of contradictions. You the player have been leading a resistance that basically just wanted to live under US rule (in Montana), every place you liberate raises the US flag and is dripping in Americania; through most of the game it has this vibe of Red Dawn with the Soviets replaced with a cult like the Peoples Temple ran by Jim Jones. Then at the end it all falls apart, the game gives the message that you the player, had no right to try and stop the cult with violence and should have just let the cult take over Montana, because of a WWIII non sequitur thus America was going to end anyway.
Bartosz Szafarz, not really. The story is such a mess that all meaning within the story's internal logic collapses by the end. As the "meaning" can be everything from God is evil (God is actually backing Joseph Seed thus started the WWIII to stop you from arresting him) to you never defeated Faith Seed thus everything past that point in the game is a hallucination. The ending sequences destroyed what threads of logic were still intact in the story, leaving the player with no reference point to make any sense of the story. As one has to ask if you don't arrest Joseph Seed, does that mean the US will still be nuked or was the nuking hallucinations or a supernatural event, each of these interpretations gives the game different meaning yet none are compatible with themes of rest of the game. The struggles of Hope County is pushed aside as the player has to try and parse out what is meant to be real within the story.
When a game critic calls FC2 their favourite in the series, I know that it's worth paying attention. FC2 is a work of genius, I don't know whether that was by design or by accident or both, but I'm glad it exists in the form that it does.
Huh. I heard the endings were rather sad prior, but now that someone actually explained them in context; its just shock value. The nuke ending turning on you and saying its your fault is a striking image, but theres very little its actually trying to say with that horrible depiction of thousands of innocent deaths. It all depends on the build up; the white phosphorus works because it was used against you and then Walker made the choice to use it against them and spec ops has some mechanical quirks that also support the lead up. Here we just played hours of a empowering shooter and then bam "massive casualties are now on the players concisious". How shocking.
Peter Grauer It isn't your fault though ? It was about the villain getting the upper hand and if you didn't have dismantled his cult it would have been extremely powerful if not for your own involvement.
Peter Grauer The white phosphorus scene doesn't work for the soul reason you can't skip it. it feels extremely artificial. If spec ops the line had stronger gameplay and less "forcing you" to do shit it would have had a point but it doesn't.
Finally, someone who feels like i felt, i felt no "omg i did wrong" in Spec Ops the Line because the game itself is far too liniar and little to no choices actually exist, in fact the only choice i recall was "these 2 are hanging from a lamp post, you are given the choice to execute one of them, if you dont these snipers over here will kill them both" and in my sense of "Fuck the rules" i shot the snipers directly, also the Phosphoros scene was terrible in itself but again you had no fucking choice in the matter, even taken storywise they were outnumbered and outgunned what other option was available ?
I'm sorry to butt in but you completely missed the point of SpecOps. As self destructive as it was to the game as an idea the whole choice to do stuff was there - you as a player could have stopped playing the game. The whole final bit was Konrad speaking directly to the player. If you didn't want to use the white phosphorous you could not do it and just stop the game theoretically. It was all about putting the spotlight on the player with his need to "feel like a hero" being more important then his own morals. Far Cry 2 did address the issue of fetishising war a bit but never to the extent SpecOps went.
Fun fact, the nuke ending wasn't your fault and anyone who thinks otherwise should take a long look in the mirror. Literally a death cult, he would've had to use them sooner or later.
23:05 As a European it's wild to hear "centre right politics" used to describe flag waving, skull wearing, automatic weapon wielding, bunker owning people.
Seems to me like someone greenlit the premise of Far Cry 5 *before* realising it would critique their core audience. And then they ended up with what we ended up with, an attempt not to offend anyone too strongly by portraying the antagonists cartoonishly.
FC4 spoilers ahead: I know its still a little different, but I feel like this argument (both here and in the video) about them running away from religious right wing stuff is a little weird when we just had a game where your traditional conservative caricature buddy turns villain in the end, not to mention their idol literally murdered a baby. Then in this game right here, FC5, there's hurk's dad who is practically a southpark style image of conservatives, fussing about obama and libtards with a massive cigar in his mouth, and a constant attitude problem. This stuff isn't exactly avoiding the right wing, it's just not going super hard on the exact names some want to see (like as stated in the video, he was expecting it to go against christians or mention jesus. But... its not necessary in the slightest, and many cults do in fact move towards their own images and elements. What references are there, could be either from the devs being too lazy to get creative, or the devs ironically wanting us to see the reference to get a clearer idea (last supper is still on the box, sends an easy religious vibe despite alleged 'too scared to do it' conversation we're having), or the idea of cults still taking influence from real religions) The game also makes the same guys shout about corporations and greed taking over traditionalism, which would anger some right-wingers, while actually mirroring others. Its all still there, just not with the name some are looking to be criticized.
"This sounds like a great idea for a game!" "Yeah, it sure does!" "...Wait a second, if we make this game critical of patriotic, religious Americana, then basically anyone sympathetic to the American Right is going to feel insulted. That's about half of the American consumer base. We can't afford to lose that many customers!"
I think the issue is that the Far Cry series had been being critiqued as a "brown-people murder simulator" for its tendency to send a white protagonist on a killing spree in a non-white region of the world. Yes, this isn't a particularly deep critique and there are a lot of counter arguments to it but I think it was still partially responsible for the decision to bring the game's setting to the U.S. From there, I do agree with you. There was no way they could create a credibly believable villain group within the U.S. without some group identifying with it and creating a fuss. I mean, that very thing happened when they released the "Last Supper" image and people started complaining that the game was an attack on Christianity.
I see "saying nothing" as making literature rather than propaganda. Literature is written to explore ideas. Propaganda is written to make a point. The author of literature doesn't know what point she's trying to make when she starts writing, she just explores the ideas and sees where they go. The author of propaganda knows EXACTLY the point she wants to make, and directs the whole story to make that point.
I almost expected that this take would be an analysis of the mute player character - Saying nothing while the foundations of a peaceful society is being demolished around him, and subverting the duty that she/he is bound by ( An agent of federal law enforcement ). And also staying silent while casually slaughtering hundreds of fellow human beings.
It's pretty ironic to make an entire video about how something that attempts to take no stance takes a stance anyway, and then finish with a conclusion wherein you attempt to take no stance but then take a stance anyway.
Errant Signal, you are the best gaming channel. You don't critique JUST the game alone, but the game behind the game. The meaning that they don't even realize they carry. fucking mindblowing concepts
Does anyone know how close those explosions would have to be to make mushroom clouds that visible? I have a dumb fan theory that thinks Jacobs set those up to go off to make it appear the world was ended, just so he can maintain what leadership and control he can, no matter how small. Maybe this is just my brain trying to make this make more satisfactory sense.
If you listen to the radio in-game, it's implied to be a retaliatory attack for a recent nuclear attack on Moscow. The degrading political arena (and now literal annihilation happening on a global scale) are part of what Joseph is referring to, but that's not made entirely clear about the "outside world"'s current state until you hear that tidbit on the radio (which, to be honest, I didn't hear until after my ending). Then, it makes somewhat more sense why nukes would "suddenly" go off in the U.S.
Here's the biggest why of that. The politics of it are...sketchy enough...but what the heck does this mean for future Ubi games in terms of setting? Are we talking an actual divided timeline, with Walk Away leading to the future present day Ubi games and Resist to Beyond Good and Evil 2?
I remember reading someone complain about the things that made Far Cry 2 what it is. He went as far to use the usual argument of, "If you want realism, play ARMA." No words can express my disappointment in that argument and view. When we and people like you point out the problems inherit to games like this, people somehow get offended. As if they are somehow personally attacked by such observations. As if a games themes and story somehow is only just window dressing and not something worth analyzing. That it can't and should not be analyzed and critiqued. Somehow we are being political and not the game. As if the marketing and obvious attempts to avoid stepping on toes is being apolitical. These games could be so much more than just a power fantasy and yet they aren't for the reasons you have so aptly pointed out. The power-fantasy gameplay never intersects with the story and the story is just full of the stereotypical depiction of the things it talks about. And they wonder why video games are not taken seriously as a means of story telling. A fantastic video, I am in complete agreement. Edit: that does not mean that power fantasies can't exist. Or that a studio wanted to make a statement but did not due to to fear of loss of revenue. But that does not absolve the game (any game really) and its creators from scrutiny.
Cannonfodder43 You do realise these kinds of games are usually made to be a sort of cash cow to feed Ubisoft the money it needs to stay afloat and to be able to make its more inventive games. Sure it is not art, but bot everything is and nor does it need to be. And I don't really know where the expectation for Far Cry 5 to be something more seems to have sprung up from, as it was not the first game to have done many of the changes to being more of a power fantasy type game, why would it change the formula that mich if it sells well especially when it seems to be meant as a product to be put out in order to make its company safe money, because games are still a business. These games are also not why games are actually not viewed as art, movies have similar types of movies and are still considered art, the big difference seems to really just be Games are a lot newer and are a very different form of art when compared to other more traditional from of art, and honestly being hung up on others not seeing games as art, implies you think games need the approval of those not interested in games or art in order for games to receive any validation to qualify as art.
The expectation for Far Cry 5 to have something to say comes from the four games that precede it, successfully taking stances on the issues of gun violence, oppressive governments, institutionalized racism, and the nihilism of war. Most of this video is Chris praising Far Cry 2 for at least having SOMETHING to say, even if it comes at the expense of annoying gameplay mechanics or wonky environmental things like poor cover and intense fire-spread. That's where the expectation comes from. That, along with all of the marketing for the game cashing in on America's current political climate, it's pretty easy to see why there was expectation for this game to pull no punches. And your argument stems from the infamous "not all art has to be political" faux pas, but the point you seem to be missing is that if Far Cry 5 was truly aiming to be apolitical, that would be fine. Power fantasies aren't inherently a bad thing, and sometimes escapism is just the thing we need in video games, but the reaction to this game comes from it handling it's themes sloppily and _attempting_ to be political, but not backing up their thematic claims through their story or their gameplay and in fact hurting their perceived stance by backing up their opponents' views through character design and main gameplay loop. I ultimately think that what holds back games from being seen as art are the gamers who push back on the criticism and analysis the likes of Chris produce; for games to be art, they need to be analyzed and discussions need to be had on what impact a game's central loop, or story, or mechanics, or any other elements of their creation, can have to a larger social, political, or historical context. That's what defines art, at it's core.
Joey Sweener So the expectation is justified because people where being stupid in assuming the game would pander to their political beliefs? That sounds like an argument an entitled child would make about expecting something unrealistic, in order to validate their feelings of disappointment. Usually I am a lot more polite when trying to discuss other view points online, but I think it is important in this situation to make things clear to you, that the game did not promise you that it was going to "pull no punches", and be strictly about the current political climate, and the game does have a few indirect Trump bashing jokes in there from what I heard, and given that it is a tripple A game designed to be sold as a product to the largest number of people possible, it is somewhat surprising they included any at all. Also only the politically motivated actually think all Art does indeed need to be either a large social, historical and or political context in order to be judged as art, and no one else actually agrees with you, because most people are not stuck up elitists looking to justify looking down on art in order to justify my own tastes in art. And such views of art can be toxic, and stop some works of art as being counted as art. Is a painting that captures the emotion of sadness and makes you experience it, no longer art, because it holds no historical or political and or itself holds a large social context?
Kids movies are more political these days than adult entertainment. Adults are the ones who have to be a princess have good and evil clearly defined or else it shatters their little mind and they throw a temper tantrum. All rationalizations about risk and budget are invalid, you just have to face the truth that some adults these days are completely insane. Watch Zootopia and tell me what big budget productions can and can't say. It's not Art, not Money, it's 100% the audience. We accidentally at least one entire batch of humans and now it's too late.
Just to zero in on a specific point you raised, I hate the way "realism" is treated as a dirty word in entertainment (not just video games but tabletop games and films as well), as if it's the antithesis of fun and only matters to boring old history nerds. And that's bollocks. It paints "realism" as a binary (or at least a strict good/bad axis) as opposed to an aesthetic choice where the "correct" level can be radically different for different works. Would Saving Private Ryan or Heat be improved if they had featured gunplay from an 80s action movie? Of course not; that would ruin them as surely as authentic, tactical gunplay would ruin a John Woo film. And that's no less true of games because they're interactive. Call of Duty's not fully realistic but it relies on a degree of realism to successfully deliver its particular brand of heroic power fantasy. Doom's mechanics would utterly destroy it. And games like Red Orchestra, Metro and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would collapse entirely without a faithful adherence to reality.
Something I loathe about Far Cry 5 is that it just...lacks so much personality. I remember the older Far Cry games, 2 and 3, having dozens of animations for different injuries, healing, and bandaging yourself up. It was gross, disgusting even, to be in the middle of a battle and crack your thumb back into place. Far Cry 5 just has a few generic "wrap my arm up" animations that look way more clinical, but also make me feel like way less of a rugged badass or a desperate-to-survive soldier. It just seems...sanitized.
Isn't the "lol we asked you to do violence and you did it, take a look in the mirror!"-trope something Spec Ops: The Line did too? Except better and earlier, perhaps?
I like Far Cry 2 the most, simply because it's the only game in the franchise that offers some challenge. There are some pretty tricky moments in that game, and the less refined game mechanics, coupled with the unforgiving save system, makes for some rather tense action sequences. You DON'T want to die. Compare that with Far Cry 5, where the friendly autosave will guide you by the hand to the fake promised land.
I think Ubisoft just pussed out on pressing any criticism of religious cults like this when they realized that their more vocal fans treat this as an assault on their beliefs and political positions. That's cowardly and deserves scorn. You're right about the beer commercial americana comment. Also Joseph Seed is a boring villain and an blatant hypocrite, though he's not nearly as bad as Jacob. I fucking hated Jacob. Never has a character been so wordy while being so wrong. "Oh woe is me I'm a veteran who saw the horrors of war (in a mostly tank-based war that lasted a year) so now I am justified in brainwashing people and encouraging nihilistic darwinism, but I'm still better than you despite bleeding out on this rock because hypocrisy. Also this too is your fault somehow."
Far Cry 5 had that "walk away" ending mostly because Far Cry 4 did. But in Far Cry 4's case, it was presented differently. In Far Cry 4's case, you have to sit there for ten minutes ignoring the screaming of a tortured man, upon which Pagan Min returns, makes some quippy remarks, helps you take care of your mom's last wish, and then the game ends. Pagan tells you to sit still and wait for him to come back, but it's your decision not to that leads to a bunch of people getting killed and the nation being destabilized. And you don't wait for him to get back because. . . well, it's a video game. And as the short ending even says, "This could have happened if you decided to just walk away. . . but is that really fun? Restart the game and let's go shoot some guns." Far Cry 5 didn't EARN the short ending. You don't defy game tropes, you don't defy the game's orders, you don't even have any motivation NOT to arrest the cult leader except that you're afraid of their followers. It didn't make any sense, except that people were expecting a short ending, so the game gave it to them. I personally feel like a better short ending would have been if you don't put the handcuffs on the cult leader. . . and after a few minutes, the doors behind you burst open and you die in a hail of gunfire. And then the cult leader makes some comment about, "Did you really think it would turn out some other way?" as the game turns to black. Kind of like what the iddqd code did in Heretic, as opposed to DOOM.
It's making me think of Bioshock Infinite. It starts out talking about one topic and seems to enter that conversation swinging, but then changes gears at the very end.
You mean Majora's Mask of the series. Complete with the mechanics that alienate a lot of people but manage to set a tone through its gameplay mechanics alone. I'm of course talking about the timer. I mean it's always been that but just like Majora's Mask it is only now getting recognition for what it does right.
I appreciate the angled commentary that reaches into gameplay as opposed to, but not without mentioning, the very middle ground story strokes. I really appreciate the long term format that allows for this more throughout and well written commentary and analasys. Keep it up!
I really have to disagree on this one. Pulling these kind of deep political statements from Far Cry 2, whose main plot boils down to "what if the white diamond-smuggling gun runner in a war torn African country was a good guy" just because of gun jams seems like a leap. I really enjoyed FC5, and as a left-leaning person, the main message I got from it was "America is made up of all types of people, and if it comes down to it, everyone can recognize true evil and would work together to end it." It did a fair job of showing the preppers as nutty but mostly just a group of people who logically would have been armed making a stand against a real threat. As an aside, I didn't get those bodies when I went to the area with the dancing couple. They may have despawned for me, or maybe been the product of a random encounter before you got there for you.
Ailith Twinning Philosophically speaking, true evil cannot be manifested by humanity in reality, therefore anything evil that is not purely philosophical cannot be true evil, so you can only do the above on paper, therefore, not bullshit.
True evil can not be decided by Americans on either side of the political scale. True evil requires historical and literary knowledge, something the average Murican lacks.
Absolutely. What's the point of escapist entertainment if we see politics in it? What's the point of getting immersed in a story if you bring your personal ideas in without judging it on it's own?
you are definitely not the good guy in far cry 2. there is no good guy. you actively participate in tearing the country apart. I haven't played it, and I'm not going to, but judging from this video and the other criticism I've seen, FC5 is - aside from the batshit ending and some of the other cultist stuff - deliberately trying to cultivate the idea of 'bear commercial and gun/prepper culture america' as 'real america'. It's a mythologizing of a real place into something else, very similar to a lot of the rhetoric over the past couple years about the 'white working class' in the rust belt and appalachia.
Great points. One thing you missed was ever since Far Cry 3 there has been no penalty for dying. Oh you died, doesn't matter, you just respawn 50m down the road. FC2 you had to leave the save room, complete the mission and get back to save room. And there was no insta tagging enemies, you had to remember how many you saw and hope you scoped the area enough. Idk, for me it made it more rewarding.
i keep thinking of a scenario where a guard tells you to go fetch a key before he'll let you past, yet the key is right behind him with him blocking the path, and an attempt to go around him leads to him turning hostile and the game blaming you for trespassing. i can sorta compare that to games blaming you for the execution of several action pieces that the game set up for you.
the creative director actually mentioned in a vice interview that during development he turned a into one of those prepper-lite types. on a personal note it's also so weird to me that people think guns make you right-wing as a far-left socialist who is into them.
Isobel Sharp they are pretty much the biggest group that actually cares and protects rights that you seem to like so I am not sure why you dislike them.
42crazyguy Far right reactionary guy here. Friends with a lot of far left people bc I like "right wing socialism" Anyways, NRA are behind most of gun control and promote and propigate the regulations on fire arms. They are ass holes They want everyone to have a single shot hunting rifle and maybe a pistol. But only if it has a slow rate of fire
I watched this review before I played the game, and I had some of its points going round in my head while playing. What is all the violence amounting to, and what is the game saying, if anything, by its constant dodges to tell a cohesive story with real world messaging? I kept thinking, though, and I began to wonder if the dodging and apparent lack of real world messaging was maybe the point. Don't get me wrong, it's still a far from meaningful game, but I honestly think their message was delivered and it's "America is doomed." Compare the loops of resettlement in every other game prior to Far Cry 5, and how the villages and settlements return to normality is shown through a relaxing of violence and the threat of violence. Meanwhile, in Montana, everyone goes back to violent activities, or prepares for more of it. From the very beginning, the story is set out in front of you, that there are already cultist infiltrators in the government; that creates a feeling of futility that's very familiar to how things are right now. It creates a feeling of "Just how much can I change here, and is it even worth anything?" That said, the three clans have such little synergy between them that any cohesive story that's told in a straightforward way is just about impossible. It's still a dumb as heck game, but the air of futility is what America feels like for the most part. Where we can't really stop this train we're on, so we might as well go fishing or whatever, you know?
The fact Ubisoft is European I feel like should be in the discussion more? They may not be as focused on guns as an issue as Americans. Like, they don't see our politics the same way. Which can be refreshing because usually the opinion is totally not a default American right nor left one.
I never expect to laugh at a Errant Signal video but holy hell that Battlefront gag got me hard. Also Mark Brown's Game Design Toolkit has a pretty good take on the same subject (FC2 vs FC5) with a particular focus on player empowerment. :)
This video makes me want to give Far Cry 2 another try. I dropped it early-on during my first play through to instead play FC3, but I maybe seeing it with a "saying something through mechanics" mindset would make me appreciate it better!
I continue to love the malaria / decaying guns aspect of Far Cry 2. And it was one of the dealbreakers for me when I discovered they were removed from Far Cry 3. For me, the fire of FC2 was always a blessing. When it started, it generally meant enemies had to maneuver to safety or get burned, and I always found a rock or hidey hole from which I could wait it out. And then, walking across the scorched earth (heh!) was the FC2 equivalent of walking away from explosions. Another thing I remember was snipers without lasers. I'd be out in the field and bullets would start whizzing by, and I'd have to zig and find brush so that I could peek around and locate the bastard. Also, absent in FC2 was fast travel (except for five bus stops). Missions, safe houses and supplies were always spaced apart, meaning there was always traveling, and travel was always dangerous.In FC3 missions can be found at safe houses, ammo is dispensed in a vending machine in your own room, and fast travel is instantaneous from one safe house to the next. Man, I miss FC2.
Yeah, but in the game your allies are also "the right". The good guys are all law enforcement, ex-military, pastors, business owners, patriots and preppers.
Not evey game needs to say something, on fact it's better that many of them don't, considering most developers Don't know how to say anything intelligent, and those who don't are often just pandering, additionally if games making statements became common place it will devalue the act of making a statement, now if we want to talk about clever game mechanics that's a different story.
I kinda felt like the idea of how the game makes everything feel so ideal and then hits you with a "This is actually fucking serious and your fucking around killed everybody" wasn't specifically a bad statement. Kinda like a really ungraceful spec ops: the line. REALLY ungraceful, but I admire what it's trying for.
The Far Cry series is a really interesting one to look at regarding the Entertainment Vs Art argument of video games. Where a game like Far Cry 2 feels designed from the ground up in it's story, mechanics & presentation to make an artistic statement (whether or not it's a worthwhile statement or it's executed well is definitely debatable), Far Cry 3-5 feel designed from the ground up to be FUN to play first and foremost, with their stories & ideas taking a big backseat to the players entertainment & empowerment. This creates a dichotomy that fuels both sides of the argument of what games are intended to be & capable of being. On the one hand, Far Cry 2's commitment to it's artistic vision willingly sacrifices player enjoyment with a lot of it's mechanics, particularly the respawning outposts & malaria symptoms, leading to a game that many appreciate in retrospect, but few people actually finished upon release. Almost everyone I know who has played Far Cry 2 loved the setting but never finished the game & had mixed opinions on the game as a whole. Whereas Far Cry 3-4 were much more praised upon released for their very fun, convenient & addictive gameplay, but in my opinion have not aged very well.. especially considering how many modern games have VERY similar sandbox action mechanics. The series over the course of one game, from Far Cry 2 to Far Cry 3, went from a flawed but deeply memorable game with uncompromising artistic vision to a mass market bubblegum action shooter with a story that is in no way supported by the mechanics. I say Far Cry goes back in the experimental direction after bombarding us with 4 straight games of essentially the exact same mechanics
I know FC2 is a cult darling (no pun intended) but I think FC4 had the best thematic push. The story is about revolution but has two revolutionary leaders that have terrible plans for the nation. It frames the bad guy as a monster, and he is, but his motivations are human and understandable. The take away is that following ideals and charismatic leaders isn't enough. A person needs to be "king of their own country" as well. They need to take responsibility outside picking a flag and doing everything it asks of them. My choice was to let the bad guy go un-murdered and then go back, completely unprompted by the game and execute both revolutionary leaders myself.
@@p.alexlaflam-mcfall2975 Yes. You're ordered to kill one but you can let the first one go. For the second you have to find them and it'll play a cutscene. After that you can gun them down.
Except that "both sides are just as bad and its better to let the corrupt fascist regimes stay in power because rebels are always worse" is just as bad a thematic statement as Far Cry 5's refusal to actually concretely condemn anything.
Knowing how inoffensive AAA videogames are trying to be these days, I was actually surprised that FC5 even suggested that the player might be the problem and the obvious POV can be questioned
You should try doing a critical review of arma (2 or 3 or both or all). There aren't any critical reviews of any of the games so it'd be nice to see one
I agree completely. A game so concerned with not offending reactionaries that it tacitly condones them. It wouldn't bother me on its own, but coming from the same game series that produced Far Cry 2 & 3 & 4, all of which used intentionality to make very up-front statements about the world and/or the player makes it more of a betrayal. Which is how I would describe my distaste for the game; not contempt for the message that it has, but disappointment that the message is accidental and from a studio that has shown that it can do better.
Any studio producing a game a massive budget, that has to sell to a wide audience to make some bucks and stay afloat, it has to appeal to the mainstream. And any game doing that, as well as trying to "make a statement", will definitely have it's "statement" muddled, because they don't want to offend people. They are making a product, not an art.
Even then, the act of marketing/branding and editing something to better appeal to mainstream itself is a type of art. That's why companies have staff specifically trained in advertisement so they can make the best selling and/or most memorable marketing campaigns. Many people have favorite commercials or logos or jingles that have lasted for a really long time because talented people were hired to make such a thing. Making a product easy for distribution and consumption is also a form of art if you consider it.
Agreed with Deshara. What's sad too is that the leadup to the release of the game had basically a press tour with people who study cult behavior. FC5 was being sold on the idea that it not only had something to say, but had people behind it that would make sure it said it correctly. The game releases and it instead displays the same (incorrect) brainwashing and torture that people tend to see from 24 or any other crime drama. It's hard to say if FC aborted from saying anything because 'reality is unrealistic' or because something else, but the end result is a story that is spineless trash.
To be honest, it didn't bother me. Far Cry 5 wasn't the game I booted up to get introspective about social politics. It's a game to shoot bad guy drive car fast big gun go boom after a long day of work.
So, given "the morals" of the ending of the game, how does this differ from Spec Ops The Line? The only way to really win either game is, to not play it.
i like the part where he was talking about the couple dancing with the guitar guy and the guy with the guitar was playing and singing "where did you sleep last night"
Why is it that I have never heard anybody say anything good about Far Cry 2 until Far Cry 5 came out and now it is suddenly the best game in the series?
Yeah, quite honestly Far Cry 2 wasn't very good as an actual *game.* Beyond what statements it made, it just didn't work as a game. Getting chased by cars literally every time you drove past a checkpoints or the gun jamming thing just gives me memories of FC2 being frustrating, tedious, and unenjoyable more than anything else.
It always seemed to me like a game that had a lot of interesting ideas but ultimately didn't work. I never played it myself though, that's just what it sounded like to me from how other people described it. The fact that outposts get repopulated after you clear them out makes me not want to play the game. I like to feel like my actions are actually affecting the game world, which is also why I don't like the endings to Far Cry 5.
Campster has a video on it from SIX years ago. it's a pretty common thing in a lot of game crit circles, and comes up again every time a new one comes out, and often elsewhere. Lots of people brought it in comparison to breath of the wild's more systemic elements, for example.
Ubisoft reminds me of car manufacturers. You release some new boxy model of car. It's a bit goofy looking, but it stands out. It appeals to a certain crowd and helps you build an audience. Then each year, your audience is bigger and you have less incentive to stand out. You now have a larger swath of people to please with different wants or needs. You start adding all the convenience features a large audiece would want, and shaving corners off your boxy car. Then one day you realize your quirky car looks like every other SUV on the road. The same forces act on anything, whether it's a car or a game.
If you think Far Cry 5 presenting anything straight, then you might have missed the point. It's supposed to be a tongue in cheek parody of 'Murica culture.
I just wanted to say that I've been watching your videos since I was a teen (for around 5 years now) and not only have you helped me view my favorite games more critically, but have also helped me learn how to critically dissect other forms of media! Thanks man and I'm loving this video so far!
The game has a very strong message. Every member of the Seed family has suffered traumatic experiences that made them the way they are. Joseph mentioned several times that his family were doing things he wasn’t comfortable with. By firing your first bullet, you’re doomed to become as violent as John and Jacob. God doesn’t approve of them just because the Great Collapse came. It’s possible for prophets to become corrupt. Essentially, the game’s about a cycle of abuse that the player can only break by not playing, tying in with the themes of nuclear war. That scene with a couple dancing by corpses was meant to look that dissonant. It’s trying to show you that you’re being just as cruel and violent as John and Jacob. The mechanics are in your favour because you’re a deputy. You were trained for combat. The guns don’t jam because America has such an ungodly amount of overpowered weapons in circulation. The game reveals a lot of points you missed in the various notes in cultist property. You have to look around for the answers. Even without the notes, each leader reveals their past in one on one cutscenes. John was savagely beaten as a kid and became so broken by it that he started saying yes to torture, hence his obsession with the power of Yes. Jacob was forced to cannibalise one of his comrades in the army, making him believe that people were still like other animals, needing to cull the weak to make mankind strong. Joseph’s wife died in a car crash and he justified it by believing it was God’s will. Finally, Faith was a rock bottom drug addict who Joseph decided to take in, freeing her from drug addiction, but not entirely. She uses Bliss to control the unwilling, keeping them constantly high and malleable. A note says the cult sexually abused her too, showing how corrupt the people of the cult had gotten. She wasn’t quite as trustworthy as most fans believe. She’s a manipulator, something that every successful cult needs. The writers worked with a cult expert to make the cult as realistic as possible. Every action taken by The Project at Eden’s Gate was inspired by a real cult doing the same. It’s important to note that the mind control methods of the game aren’t unheard of. Drugs, manipulation, and trauma have been used by real cults to brainwash their flock into doing everything asked of them. This isn’t to say the player is free from blame. The resistance is hypocritical, using the very same forms of violence to take down the cult. Fighting back is understandable, but the resistance goes way too far. They weaponise the very same things they criticised the cult for. All this being said, the story’s not quite over yet. New Dawn’s trailer implies that God gave up on Joseph a long time ago, as the world he inhabits isn’t the one prophesied to him. When New Dawn comes out, I may update this.
I don't get when people say the story doesn't make sense or it's so shallow. The lore goes deep, you jus have to be willing to pay attention to the story
God, I would've loved it if they just went in on everything, have the cult be racist, sexist, homophobic, bastards who kill baby animals, just make them the absolute worst, give the player something to really really hate, that they kill out of principal instead of duty, let them live up to their sin of wrath, so when the game calls them out on it, it really kicks. I think Far Cry 5 is a little bit tonally confused. I kind of like that, in that it's a silly game that takes itself seriously, whereas, for example, Far Cry 4, had a comedic relief villain and a few funny characters, but the tone was still pretty serious, people's lives were on the line. Whereas Far Cry 5 can't really make it's mind up. I feel bad for the devs and writers, I'm sure they wanted to do something really special and unique, but trying to critique the church in mainstream media is an absolute deathwish.
In terms of saying nothing, I think after Farcry 2 it could be levelled at all subsequent entries in the series. Farcry 3 was extremely light on the themes of modern slavery and human trafficking for instance, never letting it get in the way of the player's fun. I think the fact that the setting became a place much closer to home for western audiences, brought this fact into stark relief. Though it could be argued that the development studios for the game were based in Canada, Ukraine & the UK, wouldn't have the same obligation to offer commentary on USA's internal politics as a USA-based studio and publisher, but given the cultural proximity, that seems a bit flimsy.
You could argue that far cry 3 and to an extent 4 had a lot to say, It just was not about those themes you mention. In far cry 3 the themes and player empowerment go hand and hand the more the player levels up and commits violent acts in the story the more insane and broken Jason becomes and the more in susceptible to the tribe he is helping nearly barbaric ways. Near the end of the game you get a turret sequence escaping with Riley most the thing that Jason says during this are framed as almost insane. The main point i am trying to get at here is that far cry 3's theme is more personal than political and that theme from my interpretation is that even good intention violence and killing can break someone soul or to better put it in a quote. "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster."(This quote is not suppose to be pretentious it just something that articulates my point better than I could have worded it .lol) Far cry 4 Imo is more about the struggle of progress vs tradition even if I don't think its handled well. I may be full of shit though, its been a while scene i played ether and my memory can be shit sometimes, but that's how I remember them.
Skull guy I don't disagree with what Farcry 3 said there, but with the setting and backdrop of the plot, the other themes, that still did have a presence, were reduced to occasional window dressing. And the whole personal rather than political message could be extracted out of Farcry 5 also. I'm just saying that both games are guilty of skirting the very real political issues of their settings.
Yeah, I miss understood your argument. I agree but in all honesty it did't bother me in far cry 3,4 and primal's case but i do understand why people are annoyed with far cry 5 doing this because it was marketed like a game with a political message but kind of had jack to show for it. I beat Far cry 5 a few weeks back enjoyed it from a gameplay perspective but the story was honestly very weak no matter how i look at it.
Hold up, stealth was tacked on and vestigal in FC2? You realize FC2 was designed by Clint "Splinter Cell" Hocking? The stealth in 2 was so much more than the "line of sight plus detection meter" of later games. Ever try sneaking up on a camp during a rainstorm? You're practically invisible. Broad daylight? You aren't sneaking anywhere.
What is wrong with "good old fashioned American Flags". It is America after all. If it was Venezuela or any other country they would use that flag I imagine. It is a strange criticism.
I'd say at this point in time the American flag is more used as a product logo than an actual flag. Our flag is *way overmarketed* especially in comparison to others. for example, FC4 is set in Nepal. However, you don't see the Nepalinan Flag on 100s of T shirts and planted on every building. That's because Ubisoft weren't trying to appeal to a bunch of surface level psudeopatriots who wear a flag because it makes them look like Patriots.
I think if you have the right to burn the flag you have the right to fly or even wear the flag. This does not make you a pseudo patriot. It is insulting and patronizing to judge in such a manor.
In its failure to say anything objectively, we could say that the game's subtext--unassigned by its creators--is an allegory for America's indifference towards the rise of far right militias. It's a tension in the public sphere where we know they're there, but refuse to discuss and respond to these movements in an appropriate way that capture the gravity of the situation; that there are armed groups of mostly white Americans that wanna see America as a Christian ethnostate. That's a very concerning fact that public sphere appears to be oblivious to, intentionally or not. And with an American militia as the villains of a video game, how could you come so close to saying something about this issue, and yet say nothing other than "They're there, but their problems aren't because of weaponized religion and doomsday-ism, but because this one dude and his family are insane." And if none of what I've said connects, Step Back has a wonderful series of videos on the history of these groups, I recommend it, and it was enlightening. What more can I say. [EDIT] There is more I can say. You play as a cop, and the sheriff wants you and the marshal to leave the cult alone, right? Just turn a blind eye and hope it works out. Complacency. Reminded me instantly of how our own police either ignore or support right-wing violence against the underclasses. The big fantasy of this game, is that you, the cops, ultimately stand up to the cult. And yet the game's ending message is: It's your fault things got worse, why didn't you just look the other way? It's a message that trying for progress and liberation is is fruitless or harmful. I think that's all the meaning I can suck from this game. Cheers.
I think the most amusing thing about Far Cry 5 is that I saw more people in that game's Montana than I ever saw in the 10 years I lived in Montana.
I lived in Lewistown for about the same amount time and I approve this message.
That's wild .
@@itcouldbelupus2842 montana is wild. wilderness even
@@granola-approach Yeah I don't know much about the state to be honest, and I get that Yellowstone isn't going for an accurate portrayal rather than just using the state as a backdrop.
"beer commercial idea of america" hits the nail on the head so hard
Looking forward to the great taste of a glass of 'Whistling Beaver'...
yoo mt zion profile picture
Far Cry 5 has a deep political message that you can dig into:
Shovels solve everything.
Well played
Happy Krieg noises
The saddest thing about Far Cry 5 for me is that the audio work is really terrific. The voice acting is excellent, especially from the lead cultists, and the music and sound effects are best in class. I’ve watched that bit from the ending where Joseph asks you to walk away a few times now, and the tragic swell of the violins and the note of deep sadness in Joseph’s voice combine to very nearly sell the vacuous nonsense the game’s pushing. I know as I’m watching that the moment is desperately stupid, but it still gets me on an emotional level. That’s all down to the audio (and maybe the facial capture, to an extent), because the writing is mealy-mouthed garbage made worse within the larger context of the game. It depresses me to see excellent work go into a fundamentally soulless project.
Surprised when he was mentioning other cults he didn't also mention Rajneeshpuram where a cult actually did take over a neighboring town's city council, they actually had their own police force too. They engaged in a large bio terrorism attack on people in the surrounding county and had a string of failed assassination attempts too.
Although that cult wasn't right wing or Christian it's a fascinating and frightening example.
The Rajneeshees only went crazy when the government proved itself too corrupt to deal with normally. Don't get me wrong, they were fucking weirdos, but they were following laws before they weren't allowed to vote. Then the real insanity happened.
And then Rajneesh became Osho, which very few seem to have noticed.
>Although that cult wasn't right wing or Christian it's a fascinating and frightening example.
Well, honestly they were a prime example of a fascist ideology. Just hits too many fasho marks
Cults aren't ever Christian. They may take Christian imagery and extremely pervert it, but that doesn't make them Christian, actually the opposite.
@@noahpetry As in what the cult is based on. Don't overthink it. Pretty sure most people understand that cults are different from the rest.
Far Cry 2 could afford making statements because 1) it took place in a place in the world that had basically zero potential customers, and 2) games were not maximize-mass-appeal-or-bust "live services" yet.
Shroomy in that sense it is awfully misplaced hope to believe that the fifth installment in a growing and highly popular franchise says anything useful. But it’s still true.
Edit:...says anything “useful “ - because as Chris pointed out it of course did say something utterly messed up.
"Far Cry 2 could afford making statements because [...] 2) games were not maximize-mass-appeal-or-bust "live services" yet."
ummmmmmm... how about no?
then why make a game that takes place in a country in the usa? that's why i didn't buy the game. I litterally knew that a lot of farcry players would come from the areas discribed in the game and as such the game would make no point whatsoever. It doesn't make sense to chose this setting from a marketing point of view.
Cults exist in the states and they can control entire communities. This was the best setting for a cult like The Project at Eden’s Gate. Sure, it’s not quite how Montana is usually, but that’s the point.
Also FC2 is anything but consistent in that statement. The ending with your friends betraying you comes after they risk their lives for saving you after the first half and not getting paid for it. The gun system is cool and brings that image of chaos but you can get any weapon brand new from safe houses when you have unlocked them and they will jam only if you use them for hours. Malaria is only a problem if you didn't do this "Bring papers to that guy" a hundred times and you basically have so many pills that you never run out of it. The mechanics are nice on paper but meaningless in practice.
It's so absurd that the game spends several days detailing the cult's sins and yet chastises you for passing judgement (or considering you're a deputy and not a displaced tourist like the last two games, YOUR GODDAMN JOB)
"hey video game player, here are some morally repugnant enemies to shoot"
"cool thanks"
"how dare you"
See also Bioshock Infinite.
Maksie0 At least Spec Ops had the good grace to present you with people who had extremely good reasons to hate Captain Walker and want him dead.
But even Spec Ops: The Line does not give you the option to walk away when you should.
Because the option to walk away is essentially turning the game off. Unlike FC5 the actual game world and metanarrative is peppered with suggestions that what you are doing isn't worthwhile, and it's a clear statement of the developer's intentions rather than a token attempt to recreate the Easter egg ending of FC4.
15:24: "It's got hunting. . "
* shoots deer in head, then in body, doesn't die *
. . Yeah. . hunting.
he missed the headshot. and deers die after a single bullet, just not right away.
That isn't a deer it's a rocky mountain elk from what I can tell deer have more uniform color while elk have a darker neck and head and the antlers are far too large to be any deer
@@padenlisk2447 I guess I was too baffled to use a more precise word. You're right. However, Elk are in the deer family. Close enough for me.
@@awsumpchits He did not. (See edited time stamp) He shoots it right in the top of the skull as one is drinking water and it bolts only to take 2 (one going through the body, I assume not registering as a hit) more shots.
Well, hunting in the video game sense.
"not every problem can be solved with a bullet"
"Commence THE REAPING"
Same guy
So based off the endings, the only way to beat this game and get the best possible solution is to never play the game as to not get stuck in a mechanically locked optionless story. Sweet another game i can say ive finished
If there is something the game does right, its that it shows how the optimal, "best"/"good" ending is always the most boring one.
I’ve never played Far Cry 5 so I got the good ending
That fake ending thing was amazing in Far Cry 4 but the hacks who wrote part 5 just shoehorned it in.
Money well saved if you ask me.
Or, in terms of story, seek proper help instead of going enforcing on them.
One of my biggest complaints with this game is that it can't really decide what ideology it wants the bad guys to represent, because on one hand they're all extremist Christian fundamentalists that are insanely nationalistic and patriotic, but then they make the enemy groups ethnically diverse and give them man-buns and hipster beards, which are things commonly portrayed as stereotypical on people of the left. It doesn't help that the trailers exclusively showed Joseph Seed and his army as a bunch of white people hunting down people of color. It can be best summed up with this Yahtzee quote
"Well, actually, while one might get that vibe from the premise, in practice, the politics are more even-handed; yes, the cult are all religious fundamentalists to whom gun ownership is more important than basic personal hygiene, but they're also very racially diverse psychedelic drug users sporting hipster beards and man buns"
Sounds like hardcore libertarians that somehow ended up being religiously authoritarian
You're projecting the insanely nationalistic and patriotic thing. They never actually say that in the game and if anything they're anti America (John Seed being a disenfranchised veteran) preaching an inevitablr collapse. So in a way, you are guilty of what Yahtzee said in that joke.
See, it's odd that you should say FC5 is all about empowering the player, because playing it I felt extremely *lacking* in power. Sure, I could approach outposts in absolutely any way I wanted and rain down fire and destruction like some primordial god of death, but as soon as I'd got enough Good Boy Points that the local boss decided they wanted to talk to me I'd just get hunted down by an unavoidable OHKO and dragged to their lair because the story had to progress.
The most ridiculous example of this was when I was in the northern territory with the hunting boss (I think his name's Jacob?), where the OHKO is that you quite literally take an arrow to the knee. This happened to me while I was *flying a plane*. I want to meet the archer who was able to land a shot on me several hundred feet up through the metal cockpit of my plane - he must have one HELL of a draw. Possibly he used a ballista. And then somehow managed to pull my unconscious body from the plane before it nosedived and killed me.
It's like the game was pointedly reminding me that I get to play with guns in this big open playground of death ONLY for as long as the game wants me to. This is reflected in all the 'choices' that aren't choices: just to see if I could I messed with Faith's interactive cutscenes (not quite 'Press F to pay respects', but nearing that level) by staying where I was or going in the wrong direction and of course the game simply doesn't progress until you do what it tells you to, looping the same state until you comply out of sheer frustration and boredom.
It's empowering in all the wrong ways - yes, I can kill these random thugs that I don't care about in 57 different and extremely cruel and violent ways, but when it comes to things that actually matter like main characters and story choices the game just shrugs and says 'follow the script'.
As a side note: I liked FC4 despite its flaws because it had Pagan Min, a villain who was so goddamn charming that I chose not to shoot him when presented with the prompt and therefore got rewarded with more story. In FC5 I didn't even get the choice to kill John Seed (Like seriously, why did no-one just headshot him while the bombs were dropping? Ain't like due process matters in the apocalypse.), not even one of FC5's famous 'choice that isn't a choice' kind of choices. By the end of the game I was yelling at the screen 'YES I KNOW I'M NOT A HERO YOU SMUG BASTARD I NEVER CLAIMED TO BE ONE' and fantasising about beating John Seed's face into a bloody pulp with a rusty spade just for the sheer cathartic joy of shutting him up.
I'm not a psychopath, I swear.
I did think the whole 'villain is able to kidnap you automatically" thing is kinda corny, but it seemed to be a way to force the story to give them screen time and explain their motives.
One small issue: The villains name is "Joseph Seed", not John Seed. John is one of Joseph's flunkies and the guy who keeps talking about "the power of yes".
Sorry to respond to an old comment, but i just want to point out that Jacob's hunters are so skilled that they can kidnap you even after you kill them!
A good alternative for that would be a surprise mission that hides all other missions, forcing you to go there.
You also totally forgot how your Deputy character gets kidnapped a grand total of *nine* times throughout the game, ten if you include the ending.
21:46 - 21:53 "When are you gonna realize that every problem cannot be solved with a bullet? Some can be solved with sticks."
I remember playing for hours and taking out one of the cultist leaders and just feeling NOTHING, which is where I stopped. Nothing the cult was doing made sense, they didn't stand for anything, most of them were trying to do what Vaaz did in Far Cry 3.
The game felt so utterly toothless it bored me, it mastered the art of "using lots of words to not say anything". Things like diversity makes a lot of sense for the resistance but the CULTISTS? Pff, sure, let's just not tackle the racial angle that WOULD ABSOLUTELY HAPPEN IN SUCH A SITUATION.
It was almost the exact same gameplay as far cry 4, except Far Cry 4 actually had something to say, specifically about the nature of revolutions and just how dangerous the follow up to dictatorship can be when lead by egos, it was a message worth hearing especially at the time with things like the Arab spring going on. Revolution in the face of dictatorship can be inevitable but it must be done carefully and in consideration for the consequences or it can go horrifically bad (see also France directly after the famed French Revolution which was a period literally called "the reign of terror"), even policies like sanctions that push for revolution probably won't have the effect of a new liberal democratic government, but just another form of dictatorship.
We have had decades worth of media always showing the resistance as "good guys" with no grey areas and ultimately bringing about peace and super duper happy times, even in "realistic" games and stories, it was sad yet important to see something like Far Cry 4 to me, knowing that I wasn't crazy noticing all these grey and dark aspects of revolution that most people never for one second consider and I really appreciated it.
I honestly enjoyed the arcade in Far Cry 5 more than the actual game, no grind, pure gameplay and not pretending to be anything else.
While that's an entirely valid point to make, and position to explore, I see so much more of the other stance. Detailing every potential or imaginable excess of a revolution, without proper consideration of the inhumanity of what it replaces. The cost of doing nothing, so to speak. Real-life revolutions the world over have been judged by this. Or from a way better writer:
"THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?
What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain
Why would Joesph be racist lmao? He literally has 0 reason too cultist or not. His goals aren't about who's racially pure or not.
Jacob's moto is literally about strength, and he clearly doesn't see strength in race
John's is saying yes and clearing sin which still, no race as John focuses more on the seven deadly sins.
And faith was about having faith, which no race still.
Bro take your pills god damn
You're Never Going To Read This But: The gun loving crowd actually enjoys Far Cry 2 more because it emulates the actual conflicts the firearms were used in. The major gripe is how they're modeled and how the jamming animations play out, but otherwise the consensus seems to be that Far Cry 2 is just a magically perfect snapshot of how grimy, wretched and miserable fighting in the Congo or other African conflicts was and the fleeting romance of being a gun for hire would be. Far Cry 5 just came across as too slick, and too videogamey for anything to have the oppressive weight and misery of a gunfight in the middle of nowhere would be.
My absolute LEAST favorite kind of story; is the one where the villain/s is/are insane and condemns them from the outset, but ends with them being correct.
It always comes out of nowhere and, even when it is set-up properly, it comes off as a shit-the-bed type ending and never gives any kind of narrative satisfaction.
One thing I do have to praise the game for: Those two dancing by the corpses? They looked like pretty normal Americans. I mean, their bodies. The animation models weren't based on supermodels or grotesque caricatures or cartoons or anything like that: Just a man and a woman who aren't in great shape but aren't particularly unhealthy either. I haven't been playing a lot of new games lately, but that seems like a bit of a rarity. Kudos to the character designers, if nothing else.
Agreed, though there is a comment by one of the characters that despite raiding everyone's homes, none of the bad guys thought to borrow a razor. Despite everything, the 'baddies' (mostly) remain beard-wearing fanatics ready to take over your land & ruin your day.
I'd say this though: those are "pedistrian" level character models -- you know, the background thingies. Why'd they be modelled after super models?
I haven't touched a single western AAA titles for quite some time, but I still remember in GTA 5's singleplayer mode, the peds you find in the countryside are very often unfit, on the heavier side. Perhaps that's just how the public sees the people in the rural areas? Like "o' greesy trucker joe and that rodunt divorcee Gertrude as getting a 'lil sweet on each other"
@@lcmiracle Keep in mind though, most anything GTA *is* parody. Its not supposed to be an accurate representation of people, its a lot of creative liberty and even more stereotypes.
@@lcmiracle Yeah, contrast that with witcher 3, where every random peasant girl looks like a supermodel.
I do like looking at some beautiful ladies, but why are they all like that?
The soundtracks were good though, I can give them that.
Yeah, 21:18 at that point is where the story completely lost me. Felt like they tried to quickly hammer in a spec ops the line type of twist to the whole story. Try and blame you for all the deaths but totally forget how the cult was framed for the full game with them killing innocents, torturing them and brainwashing them even before you arrived. Still, driving while the apocalypse was happening was pretty cool which somes up the whole reason to be attracted to playing this game.
Yeah, seriously. Game should have ended with "Arrest or murder seed" instead of "Arrest or walk away".
To turn a blind eye after all the shit that Seed did is just not right. As law enforcement, you can't turn around and ignore that kind of horror.
@@AegixDrakan personally I would've liked all three. Arrest him, murder him, or simply leave him. The nukes were entirely unnecessary. The leave option should've left him in his filthy pit of a burning outpost with the vast majority of his entire cult dead--lieutenants and all. The other two are obvious.
Funny thing is Far Cry 2 has always been known to heavily take inspiration from "Heart of Darkness". A story Spec ops the line also takes inspiration from.
@@jeremylim2421 before I begin: major Spec Ops: The Line spoilers in here.
Spec Ops vilifies the protagonist for doing something they didn't really have a choice in doing. Adams says it himself that they didn't have a choice--their descent was their own the moment they chose to invade Dubai, and you (as Martin Walker)'re the one paying for it.
You go deeper and deeper into shit that stinks more and more and realize that there just aren't any good sides. It's an apocalyptic scene that is met with apocalyptic morality. Atrocity after atrocity is committed while you try to contemplate what you're even doing there anymore beyond surviving inside the storm wall, your mission all but gone.
Far Cry 5, however, does not have this same moral dilemma. Far Cry 5 shows blatant villains and gives them almost the protagonist treatment, as if to have that whole "we're not so different" trope pulled over your eyes for no reason other than to stir up some vague reaction from the players. The problem here is that the protagonist doesn't have a character arc like Martin Walker and his buddies, and the only real moral dilemma you have is righteousness and it's not even really displayed in any meaningful manner. It's as if Far Cry 5 wants to punish YOU for making the wrong choices, not the protagonist of the game.
Imagine if Spec Ops had the same dilemma... it wouldn't be held as this beloved piece of game-art that it's seen as. If anything, it'd be seen as Far Cry 5 lol
Honestly I never saw any of these issues when I played Far Cry 5 originally, I didn't know any of it was supposed to be taken serious. I thought the beer commercial America was the point lol
"Or an intense sense of buyer's remorse in the star wars battlefront games" xD lol
And to be fair the two recent ones are shit. The first two were pretty fun though.
I believe he meant an intense sense of pride and accomplishment.
Mattchester
Yes, he did. Thank you Lieutenant for educating this youth. Without people like you this young lad may have very well been on his misguided way towards joining the rebel scum. Glory to the EAmpire!
not just the first two, the first 3, not the ea 3rd one, but the handheld renegade squadron game is apparently pretty good, elite squadron, not so much
@@hockeater The ONLY two, you mean?
"Kind of like parkour in the Assassin's Creed games, or buyer's remorse in Star Wars Battlefield games."
Give that man a medal.
@Patriot Cat No, not for pointing out the obvious, but for making a bitingly pointed and very well received joke. You are familiar with humour, no? Perhaps not, judging from the tenor of your witless reply.
@Patriot Cat Irony? Does it have something to do with getting really stroppy and upset because you got criticized on the internet for being a douchebag? Tell me more.
Here's the thing...Any time Seed and his goons tried to make be feel like it was "my fault" anything happened, I laughed in their face.
In say, Spec Ops, even though they force you to use violence and commit war crimes, it ultimately makes sense when the game goes "None of this would have happened if you've have just stopped". It was a teachable moment about intentions and how the fog of war can make you misunderstand the situation and make things worse by trying to force things to get better.
In Farcry 5? The villains aren't some nebulous force that's maybe pulling strings until you realize the truth. The villains are a cult of nutcases who do fun things like tattoo sins on your chest and rip them and the flesh out, or do some kind of crazy brainwashing on people, or turn people into drugged up zombies, or talk about how they murdered their own daughter. The evil they're doing is right out there in the open. Even before the feds piss in the hornet's nest at the start, the cult is already kidnapping and drugging people. That's not something you can just shrug and leave alone. To blame the player (who is law enforcement, let's remember) for trying to arrest these people is hilariously silly. Considering the shit they did, I had no regrets taking them down in self-defense (and then pouring a few extra shotgun shells and a molotov into their bodies just to be sure...And to vent a little).
When Seed was giving his speech at the end about how right he was and how it was all my fault, I was there imagining that I was cutting him off with "You may have been right about the collapse, but you were dead wrong about everything else. If it weren't for the kidnapping, the drugs, and then the flesh-ripping, the brainwashing, the brain-dead drug slaves and the multiple murders...None of your people would have died. Your bunkers would have remained unbreached and you'd have been able to ride out the collapse just fine. I'm just the bullet. You and your family are the ones that pulled the trigger."
Hell, I felt I was showing RESTRAINT at the end. I went to Seed's island with the intent to take him out. But when he was all "You can't solve everything with a bullet!" I paused, nodded and then decided that yeah, you know what, I'd rather arrest this sumbitch instead. Lemme read him his miranda rights and cuff him, game!
Honestly, the end of the game would have made more sense if the final choice wasn't "arrest or walk away" but rather "murder or arrest". Either you stick to your duty as law enforcement knowing he had friends in high places that might get him off the hook, or you take justice into your own hands to make sure he can't hurt anyone again. THAT would have been interesting. Heck they could have still had the nukes. Make it so that if you kill Seed, you end up alone in a bunker with just Dutch (or even alone) for years on end, and if you arrest Seed you can use his fingerprints to get into his own personal bunker with your friends. That would have been neat. Or even invert it and have sparing him get you stuck in the bunker alone with him at the end, and killing him gets you stuck in the bunker with Dutch instead, if you wanna have a total downer ending!
But nope, instead I'm just going to have to imagine that either the whole nuke thing was a hallucination because of the Bliss, or that my deputy spent the next two weeks grinding down the cuffs on the bedpost until they broke, and then snapping Seed's neck like so many of his goons, and then just stewing alone in the bunker not regretting anything other than letting the other deputies take him WITH us instead of, I dunno, Grace, or Boomer, or even nobody if it means we don't save the lunatic cult leader!
Aegix Drakan Yeah, I agree, I always laughed at their claims, Joseph Seed wasn't "right" in their murder and pillage, their use of violence wasn't frame as legitime, so you can't turn around in the end and say "surprise, we were right, you destroyed everything", hell, when we first come to Hope County to arrest him, you watch a video of Joseph Seed tearing a guy eyes out for bringing a camera, Faith is drugging people to oblivion, Jacob have the worst "kill the weak" militaristic philosophy and John Seed is a grade A psychopath... you can't show these things and cultists kidnapping and killing people left and right and then turn around and say "we were doing our things in our own corner of Montana and you came here and started the apocalypse", they were doing batshit crazy stuff before the "reaping" begun. I agree we should have been able to kill him in the end (or arrest him).
Why are you're the only comment I've seen comparing The Line and Far Cry 5? It was taking time xDDD Edit: nevermind, you ain't the only one.
It is a classic Ubisoft thing, having their cake and eat it. As in Watch Dogs 2, they want the games to feel current and contemporary on release, while avoiding as much controversy as possible doing so.
That was Watch_Dogs 1 (with internet privacy and information control).
Watch_Dogs 2 is like a parody take on that, but turned into a fun playground with cool hack-y gadgetry
Yeah, watch_dogs 2 is a direct response to the fact that they did a terrible job at writing a tragic cyberpunk vigilante or supporting it mechanically in the first game.
So instead they just stepped back and made it focused on fun and technology as a power for disenfranchised groups to express themselves. Which honestly made for a stronger game because it's harder to fuck up.
Mmm, when you have Fortunate Son blazing on the soundtrack while blowing up rigged voting booths? (Yes, that's an actual moment in Watch_Dogs 2.) I wouldn't call that "avoiding as much controversy as possible."
Can you blame them
+WhiplashGames God forbid you have art that tries to make a positive change to the world and challenges your views. You types only complain when it's left-wing politics inserted into a work, if a right leaning story came out you'd all be jerking iff and defending it with "muh freeze peach".
It's funny, the game tries so hard to be utterly inoffensive, but inadvertently creates the most anti-theist game I've ever played. The only logical conclusion you can get from how the endings differ is that, yes, God genuinely does endorse this murdering, torturing, brainwashing cult leader, and he will smite both you and all of mankind for daring to defy him.
Because the only way the three endings differ is based on your choices, and yet one of them contains a nuclear apocalypse. All of Joseph Seed's prophecies come to pass, too. He genuinely does seem to be touched by the divine, and yet he's blatantly a horrific person.
My main problem with the game then, is that the big question about Joseph Seed is constantly framed as "What if he's right?" in the sense of correct in his prediction rather than morally right. So when you choose to try to arrest him anyway at the end of the game, you're framed as a big dumb-dumb for not believing him when, for a lot of people, I'm sure the feeling was more like "I refuse to turn my back on the suffering you have caused."
And I know that it's... Probably not what they intended, but for me this feels like the inevitable conclusion you get when you link the plot points together. God hates you.
The "vaguely Christian cult is the child of a cosmic horror" theme is something I've only seen come out of Japan, so it's interesting to see in an Ubisoft game.
This totally reframes the first promotional material (the parody of the last supper) of the game : Joseph Seed indeed is Jesus come again.
Well with Bliss being involved, you could argue that the nuclear ending isn't real. But either way, I think they were trying to make the whole thing feel hopeless, like no matter what you did you were destined to fail. I'm not sure if that is necessarily related to religious belief, but it seems they unintentionally made it seem that way.
Anti-theist? The writers wrote off Joseph Seed as a literal jesus figure, what the hell?
Precisely.
So let me get this straight.
This game has a scene in which a white guy plays a Leadbelly song while a couple, one of whom is wearing what's basically the equivalent of the Punisher American flag t-shirt, slowdance in front of dead bodies.
And not only is that not satire, but we're in fact supposed to think of these people as good guys?
I'm getting dozens of requests to cover it but it really just a mish mash of tipped toed around ideologies. I really can't add anything to the argument other than what you've just said. It's going for escapism, not meaning... or at least, it has the illusion of meaning.
To a certain extent, failing to condemn certain ideologies is essentially the same as endorsing them.
Arsene Lupin What you just said explains perfectly why this game is so frustrating. It doesn’t make any sort of judgement on anything so in the end some really ridiculous points of view come across as normal in the game. And the game preaches these watered-down political stances at you all the time but there’s nothing behind it because the game has no conviction. It may as well just left current politics alone since it wasnt going to make any meaningful observations, but they had to sell copies of this game by making it seem topical and controversial, so.
Really by the end, the story is a quagmire of contradictions. You the player have been leading a resistance that basically just wanted to live under US rule (in Montana), every place you liberate raises the US flag and is dripping in Americania; through most of the game it has this vibe of Red Dawn with the Soviets replaced with a cult like the Peoples Temple ran by Jim Jones. Then at the end it all falls apart, the game gives the message that you the player, had no right to try and stop the cult with violence and should have just let the cult take over Montana, because of a WWIII non sequitur thus America was going to end anyway.
I suspect you missed the point of the video, since that very point was that FC5 does have a meaning, just not a very intentional and concise one.
Bartosz Szafarz, not really. The story is such a mess that all meaning within the story's internal logic collapses by the end. As the "meaning" can be everything from God is evil (God is actually backing Joseph Seed thus started the WWIII to stop you from arresting him) to you never defeated Faith Seed thus everything past that point in the game is a hallucination. The ending sequences destroyed what threads of logic were still intact in the story, leaving the player with no reference point to make any sense of the story. As one has to ask if you don't arrest Joseph Seed, does that mean the US will still be nuked or was the nuking hallucinations or a supernatural event, each of these interpretations gives the game different meaning yet none are compatible with themes of rest of the game. The struggles of Hope County is pushed aside as the player has to try and parse out what is meant to be real within the story.
When a game critic calls FC2 their favourite in the series, I know that it's worth paying attention. FC2 is a work of genius, I don't know whether that was by design or by accident or both, but I'm glad it exists in the form that it does.
Huh. I heard the endings were rather sad prior, but now that someone actually explained them in context; its just shock value. The nuke ending turning on you and saying its your fault is a striking image, but theres very little its actually trying to say with that horrible depiction of thousands of innocent deaths. It all depends on the build up; the white phosphorus works because it was used against you and then Walker made the choice to use it against them and spec ops has some mechanical quirks that also support the lead up. Here we just played hours of a empowering shooter and then bam "massive casualties are now on the players concisious". How shocking.
Peter Grauer It isn't your fault though ? It was about the villain getting the upper hand and if you didn't have dismantled his cult it would have been extremely powerful if not for your own involvement.
Peter Grauer The white phosphorus scene doesn't work for the soul reason you can't skip it. it feels extremely artificial. If spec ops the line had stronger gameplay and less "forcing you" to do shit it would have had a point but it doesn't.
Finally, someone who feels like i felt, i felt no "omg i did wrong" in Spec Ops the Line because the game itself is far too liniar and little to no choices actually exist, in fact the only choice i recall was "these 2 are hanging from a lamp post, you are given the choice to execute one of them, if you dont these snipers over here will kill them both" and in my sense of "Fuck the rules" i shot the snipers directly, also the Phosphoros scene was terrible in itself but again you had no fucking choice in the matter, even taken storywise they were outnumbered and outgunned what other option was available ?
I'm sorry to butt in but you completely missed the point of SpecOps. As self destructive as it was to the game as an idea the whole choice to do stuff was there - you as a player could have stopped playing the game. The whole final bit was Konrad speaking directly to the player.
If you didn't want to use the white phosphorous you could not do it and just stop the game theoretically. It was all about putting the spotlight on the player with his need to "feel like a hero" being more important then his own morals.
Far Cry 2 did address the issue of fetishising war a bit but never to the extent SpecOps went.
Fun fact, the nuke ending wasn't your fault and anyone who thinks otherwise should take a long look in the mirror. Literally a death cult, he would've had to use them sooner or later.
Hell, even Vaas from Far Cry 3 took a firm and definitive stance on the concept of insanity: fucking embrace it!
23:05 As a European it's wild to hear "centre right politics" used to describe flag waving, skull wearing, automatic weapon wielding, bunker owning people.
Seems to me like someone greenlit the premise of Far Cry 5 *before* realising it would critique their core audience. And then they ended up with what we ended up with, an attempt not to offend anyone too strongly by portraying the antagonists cartoonishly.
It's a big budget game, they can't afford to alienate a section of their audience.
This is the result of trying to "make a statement" in AAA games.
FC4 spoilers ahead: I know its still a little different, but I feel like this argument (both here and in the video) about them running away from religious right wing stuff is a little weird when we just had a game where your traditional conservative caricature buddy turns villain in the end, not to mention their idol literally murdered a baby. Then in this game right here, FC5, there's hurk's dad who is practically a southpark style image of conservatives, fussing about obama and libtards with a massive cigar in his mouth, and a constant attitude problem.
This stuff isn't exactly avoiding the right wing, it's just not going super hard on the exact names some want to see (like as stated in the video, he was expecting it to go against christians or mention jesus. But... its not necessary in the slightest, and many cults do in fact move towards their own images and elements. What references are there, could be either from the devs being too lazy to get creative, or the devs ironically wanting us to see the reference to get a clearer idea (last supper is still on the box, sends an easy religious vibe despite alleged 'too scared to do it' conversation we're having), or the idea of cults still taking influence from real religions) The game also makes the same guys shout about corporations and greed taking over traditionalism, which would anger some right-wingers, while actually mirroring others. Its all still there, just not with the name some are looking to be criticized.
"This sounds like a great idea for a game!"
"Yeah, it sure does!"
"...Wait a second, if we make this game critical of patriotic, religious Americana, then basically anyone sympathetic to the American Right is going to feel insulted. That's about half of the American consumer base. We can't afford to lose that many customers!"
religious zealots aren't the core audience of videogames, the contrary: they think videogames as a tool of the devil to deviate the soul of children
I think the issue is that the Far Cry series had been being critiqued as a "brown-people murder simulator" for its tendency to send a white protagonist on a killing spree in a non-white region of the world. Yes, this isn't a particularly deep critique and there are a lot of counter arguments to it but I think it was still partially responsible for the decision to bring the game's setting to the U.S.
From there, I do agree with you. There was no way they could create a credibly believable villain group within the U.S. without some group identifying with it and creating a fuss. I mean, that very thing happened when they released the "Last Supper" image and people started complaining that the game was an attack on Christianity.
@15:53 you absolutely 100% perfectly summed up that description of FC 5's seriousness. Got a good laugh outta that. Well said.
I see "saying nothing" as making literature rather than propaganda. Literature is written to explore ideas. Propaganda is written to make a point. The author of literature doesn't know what point she's trying to make when she starts writing, she just explores the ideas and sees where they go. The author of propaganda knows EXACTLY the point she wants to make, and directs the whole story to make that point.
I almost expected that this take would be an analysis of the mute player character - Saying nothing while the foundations of a peaceful society is being demolished around him, and subverting the duty that she/he is bound by ( An agent of federal law enforcement ).
And also staying silent while casually slaughtering hundreds of fellow human beings.
It's pretty ironic to make an entire video about how something that attempts to take no stance takes a stance anyway, and then finish with a conclusion wherein you attempt to take no stance but then take a stance anyway.
Blood Dragon deepest Far Cry experience.
Errant Signal, you are the best gaming channel. You don't critique JUST the game alone, but the game behind the game. The meaning that they don't even realize they carry.
fucking mindblowing concepts
Does anyone know how close those explosions would have to be to make mushroom clouds that visible? I have a dumb fan theory that thinks Jacobs set those up to go off to make it appear the world was ended, just so he can maintain what leadership and control he can, no matter how small. Maybe this is just my brain trying to make this make more satisfactory sense.
If you listen to the radio in-game, it's implied to be a retaliatory attack for a recent nuclear attack on Moscow. The degrading political arena (and now literal annihilation happening on a global scale) are part of what Joseph is referring to, but that's not made entirely clear about the "outside world"'s current state until you hear that tidbit on the radio (which, to be honest, I didn't hear until after my ending). Then, it makes somewhat more sense why nukes would "suddenly" go off in the U.S.
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly why WWIII would start with a nuclear strike on some random part of Montana.
Who the fuck would waste a nuke on Montana?
There's also the interpretation that its a hallucination, notably, when Seed starts singing Amazing Grace, everyone loses their shit, except him.
Here's the biggest why of that. The politics of it are...sketchy enough...but what the heck does this mean for future Ubi games in terms of setting? Are we talking an actual divided timeline, with Walk Away leading to the future present day Ubi games and Resist to Beyond Good and Evil 2?
So Ironically far cry 5 accidentally does the "everyone is mad in this wonderland" better than fc3
I remember reading someone complain about the things that made Far Cry 2 what it is. He went as far to use the usual argument of, "If you want realism, play ARMA." No words can express my disappointment in that argument and view.
When we and people like you point out the problems inherit to games like this, people somehow get offended. As if they are somehow personally attacked by such observations. As if a games themes and story somehow is only just window dressing and not something worth analyzing. That it can't and should not be analyzed and critiqued. Somehow we are being political and not the game. As if the marketing and obvious attempts to avoid stepping on toes is being apolitical.
These games could be so much more than just a power fantasy and yet they aren't for the reasons you have so aptly pointed out. The power-fantasy gameplay never intersects with the story and the story is just full of the stereotypical depiction of the things it talks about. And they wonder why video games are not taken seriously as a means of story telling.
A fantastic video, I am in complete agreement.
Edit: that does not mean that power fantasies can't exist. Or that a studio wanted to make a statement but did not due to to fear of loss of revenue. But that does not absolve the game (any game really) and its creators from scrutiny.
Cannonfodder43 You do realise these kinds of games are usually made to be a sort of cash cow to feed Ubisoft the money it needs to stay afloat and to be able to make its more inventive games.
Sure it is not art, but bot everything is and nor does it need to be. And I don't really know where the expectation for Far Cry 5 to be something more seems to have sprung up from, as it was not the first game to have done many of the changes to being more of a power fantasy type game, why would it change the formula that mich if it sells well especially when it seems to be meant as a product to be put out in order to make its company safe money, because games are still a business.
These games are also not why games are actually not viewed as art, movies have similar types of movies and are still considered art, the big difference seems to really just be Games are a lot newer and are a very different form of art when compared to other more traditional from of art, and honestly being hung up on others not seeing games as art, implies you think games need the approval of those not interested in games or art in order for games to receive any validation to qualify as art.
The expectation for Far Cry 5 to have something to say comes from the four games that precede it, successfully taking stances on the issues of gun violence, oppressive governments, institutionalized racism, and the nihilism of war. Most of this video is Chris praising Far Cry 2 for at least having SOMETHING to say, even if it comes at the expense of annoying gameplay mechanics or wonky environmental things like poor cover and intense fire-spread. That's where the expectation comes from. That, along with all of the marketing for the game cashing in on America's current political climate, it's pretty easy to see why there was expectation for this game to pull no punches.
And your argument stems from the infamous "not all art has to be political" faux pas, but the point you seem to be missing is that if Far Cry 5 was truly aiming to be apolitical, that would be fine. Power fantasies aren't inherently a bad thing, and sometimes escapism is just the thing we need in video games, but the reaction to this game comes from it handling it's themes sloppily and _attempting_ to be political, but not backing up their thematic claims through their story or their gameplay and in fact hurting their perceived stance by backing up their opponents' views through character design and main gameplay loop.
I ultimately think that what holds back games from being seen as art are the gamers who push back on the criticism and analysis the likes of Chris produce; for games to be art, they need to be analyzed and discussions need to be had on what impact a game's central loop, or story, or mechanics, or any other elements of their creation, can have to a larger social, political, or historical context. That's what defines art, at it's core.
Joey Sweener
So the expectation is justified because people where being stupid in assuming the game would pander to their political beliefs? That sounds like an argument an entitled child would make about expecting something unrealistic, in order to validate their feelings of disappointment.
Usually I am a lot more polite when trying to discuss other view points online, but I think it is important in this situation to make things clear to you, that the game did not promise you that it was going to "pull no punches", and be strictly about the current political climate, and the game does have a few indirect Trump bashing jokes in there from what I heard, and given that it is a tripple A game designed to be sold as a product to the largest number of people possible, it is somewhat surprising they included any at all.
Also only the politically motivated actually think all Art does indeed need to be either a large social, historical and or political context in order to be judged as art, and no one else actually agrees with you, because most people are not stuck up elitists looking to justify looking down on art in order to justify my own tastes in art. And such views of art can be toxic, and stop some works of art as being counted as art.
Is a painting that captures the emotion of sadness and makes you experience it, no longer art, because it holds no historical or political and or itself holds a large social context?
Kids movies are more political these days than adult entertainment. Adults are the ones who have to be a princess have good and evil clearly defined or else it shatters their little mind and they throw a temper tantrum. All rationalizations about risk and budget are invalid, you just have to face the truth that some adults these days are completely insane. Watch Zootopia and tell me what big budget productions can and can't say. It's not Art, not Money, it's 100% the audience. We accidentally at least one entire batch of humans and now it's too late.
Just to zero in on a specific point you raised, I hate the way "realism" is treated as a dirty word in entertainment (not just video games but tabletop games and films as well), as if it's the antithesis of fun and only matters to boring old history nerds. And that's bollocks. It paints "realism" as a binary (or at least a strict good/bad axis) as opposed to an aesthetic choice where the "correct" level can be radically different for different works. Would Saving Private Ryan or Heat be improved if they had featured gunplay from an 80s action movie? Of course not; that would ruin them as surely as authentic, tactical gunplay would ruin a John Woo film. And that's no less true of games because they're interactive. Call of Duty's not fully realistic but it relies on a degree of realism to successfully deliver its particular brand of heroic power fantasy. Doom's mechanics would utterly destroy it. And games like Red Orchestra, Metro and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would collapse entirely without a faithful adherence to reality.
Something I loathe about Far Cry 5 is that it just...lacks so much personality. I remember the older Far Cry games, 2 and 3, having dozens of animations for different injuries, healing, and bandaging yourself up. It was gross, disgusting even, to be in the middle of a battle and crack your thumb back into place. Far Cry 5 just has a few generic "wrap my arm up" animations that look way more clinical, but also make me feel like way less of a rugged badass or a desperate-to-survive soldier. It just seems...sanitized.
I miss how you could use Molotov cocktails and a few well place burns with the flamethrower to turn the tides of the combat in Farcry 2.
Far Cry 4 at least had the decency to say "I don't know"
Isn't the "lol we asked you to do violence and you did it, take a look in the mirror!"-trope something Spec Ops: The Line did too? Except better and earlier, perhaps?
14:30. If that was far cry 2. You would die or lose 80% of your health right when the AI starts firing at you when you are down on the ground
I like Far Cry 2 the most, simply because it's the only game in the franchise that offers some challenge.
There are some pretty tricky moments in that game, and the less refined game mechanics, coupled with the
unforgiving save system, makes for some rather tense action sequences. You DON'T want to die.
Compare that with Far Cry 5, where the friendly autosave will guide you by the hand to the fake promised land.
I think Ubisoft just pussed out on pressing any criticism of religious cults like this when they realized that their more vocal fans treat this as an assault on their beliefs and political positions. That's cowardly and deserves scorn.
You're right about the beer commercial americana comment.
Also Joseph Seed is a boring villain and an blatant hypocrite, though he's not nearly as bad as Jacob. I fucking hated Jacob. Never has a character been so wordy while being so wrong. "Oh woe is me I'm a veteran who saw the horrors of war (in a mostly tank-based war that lasted a year) so now I am justified in brainwashing people and encouraging nihilistic darwinism, but I'm still better than you despite bleeding out on this rock because hypocrisy. Also this too is your fault somehow."
Far Cry 5 had that "walk away" ending mostly because Far Cry 4 did. But in Far Cry 4's case, it was presented differently.
In Far Cry 4's case, you have to sit there for ten minutes ignoring the screaming of a tortured man, upon which Pagan Min returns, makes some quippy remarks, helps you take care of your mom's last wish, and then the game ends. Pagan tells you to sit still and wait for him to come back, but it's your decision not to that leads to a bunch of people getting killed and the nation being destabilized. And you don't wait for him to get back because. . . well, it's a video game. And as the short ending even says, "This could have happened if you decided to just walk away. . . but is that really fun? Restart the game and let's go shoot some guns."
Far Cry 5 didn't EARN the short ending. You don't defy game tropes, you don't defy the game's orders, you don't even have any motivation NOT to arrest the cult leader except that you're afraid of their followers. It didn't make any sense, except that people were expecting a short ending, so the game gave it to them.
I personally feel like a better short ending would have been if you don't put the handcuffs on the cult leader. . . and after a few minutes, the doors behind you burst open and you die in a hail of gunfire. And then the cult leader makes some comment about, "Did you really think it would turn out some other way?" as the game turns to black. Kind of like what the iddqd code did in Heretic, as opposed to DOOM.
It's making me think of Bioshock Infinite. It starts out talking about one topic and seems to enter that conversation swinging, but then changes gears at the very end.
Suddenly Far Cry 2 become the Ocarina of Time of Far Cry series...
irametdolorem yeah kinda, also blessed with perfection by the older players who reject to keep walking forward
but is more polished than 5 soooo.
You mean Majora's Mask of the series. Complete with the mechanics that alienate a lot of people but manage to set a tone through its gameplay mechanics alone. I'm of course talking about the timer. I mean it's always been that but just like Majora's Mask it is only now getting recognition for what it does right.
Frustrating and yet better
Fire Cry 2*
I appreciate the angled commentary that reaches into gameplay as opposed to, but not without mentioning, the very middle ground story strokes. I really appreciate the long term format that allows for this more throughout and well written commentary and analasys. Keep it up!
I really have to disagree on this one. Pulling these kind of deep political statements from Far Cry 2, whose main plot boils down to "what if the white diamond-smuggling gun runner in a war torn African country was a good guy" just because of gun jams seems like a leap. I really enjoyed FC5, and as a left-leaning person, the main message I got from it was "America is made up of all types of people, and if it comes down to it, everyone can recognize true evil and would work together to end it." It did a fair job of showing the preppers as nutty but mostly just a group of people who logically would have been armed making a stand against a real threat.
As an aside, I didn't get those bodies when I went to the area with the dancing couple. They may have despawned for me, or maybe been the product of a random encounter before you got there for you.
Ailith Twinning Philosophically speaking, true evil cannot be manifested by humanity in reality, therefore anything evil that is not purely philosophical cannot be true evil, so you can only do the above on paper, therefore, not bullshit.
thoriumbrother You are wrong, people still fall for the great evil that is altruism by the billions.
True evil can not be decided by Americans on either side of the political scale. True evil requires historical and literary knowledge, something the average Murican lacks.
Absolutely. What's the point of escapist entertainment if we see politics in it? What's the point of getting immersed in a story if you bring your personal ideas in without judging it on it's own?
you are definitely not the good guy in far cry 2. there is no good guy. you actively participate in tearing the country apart.
I haven't played it, and I'm not going to, but judging from this video and the other criticism I've seen, FC5 is - aside from the batshit ending and some of the other cultist stuff - deliberately trying to cultivate the idea of 'bear commercial and gun/prepper culture america' as 'real america'. It's a mythologizing of a real place into something else, very similar to a lot of the rhetoric over the past couple years about the 'white working class' in the rust belt and appalachia.
Great points. One thing you missed was ever since Far Cry 3 there has been no penalty for dying. Oh you died, doesn't matter, you just respawn 50m down the road. FC2 you had to leave the save room, complete the mission and get back to save room. And there was no insta tagging enemies, you had to remember how many you saw and hope you scoped the area enough. Idk, for me it made it more rewarding.
As someone who grew up there, I feel the need to note that "Montanan" has no I in it.
It took me a long time to figure out what he was trying to say with "mon TANE ian".
5:20 The car "charge" sound effect in FC2 has to be the most response triggering sound effect.
i keep thinking of a scenario where a guard tells you to go fetch a key before he'll let you past, yet the key is right behind him with him blocking the path, and an attempt to go around him leads to him turning hostile and the game blaming you for trespassing.
i can sorta compare that to games blaming you for the execution of several action pieces that the game set up for you.
I am so happy I came across your channel. Objective, unbiased and knowledgeable review. Thanks!
the creative director actually mentioned in a vice interview that during development he turned a into one of those prepper-lite types. on a personal note it's also so weird to me that people think guns make you right-wing as a far-left socialist who is into them.
Guns don't make you right wing, but in the US, guns, the NRA, and Republicans go hand in hand in hand.
god the NRA is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Isobel Sharp they are pretty much the biggest group that actually cares and protects rights that you seem to like so I am not sure why you dislike them.
42crazyguy
Far right reactionary guy here.
Friends with a lot of far left people bc I like "right wing socialism"
Anyways, NRA are behind most of gun control and promote and propigate the regulations on fire arms.
They are ass holes
They want everyone to have a single shot hunting rifle and maybe a pistol. But only if it has a slow rate of fire
Isobel Sharp
But without guns there would be no more war *smirk*
Your words near the end of the video are so true. Everyone expected it to critique the right but it ended up kinda embracing them
I watched this review before I played the game, and I had some of its points going round in my head while playing. What is all the violence amounting to, and what is the game saying, if anything, by its constant dodges to tell a cohesive story with real world messaging? I kept thinking, though, and I began to wonder if the dodging and apparent lack of real world messaging was maybe the point. Don't get me wrong, it's still a far from meaningful game, but I honestly think their message was delivered and it's "America is doomed."
Compare the loops of resettlement in every other game prior to Far Cry 5, and how the villages and settlements return to normality is shown through a relaxing of violence and the threat of violence. Meanwhile, in Montana, everyone goes back to violent activities, or prepares for more of it. From the very beginning, the story is set out in front of you, that there are already cultist infiltrators in the government; that creates a feeling of futility that's very familiar to how things are right now. It creates a feeling of "Just how much can I change here, and is it even worth anything?"
That said, the three clans have such little synergy between them that any cohesive story that's told in a straightforward way is just about impossible. It's still a dumb as heck game, but the air of futility is what America feels like for the most part. Where we can't really stop this train we're on, so we might as well go fishing or whatever, you know?
This video might be your magnum opus. Fantastic, eye-opening stuff. I wish I could like this a thousand times.
The fact Ubisoft is European I feel like should be in the discussion more? They may not be as focused on guns as an issue as Americans. Like, they don't see our politics the same way. Which can be refreshing because usually the opinion is totally not a default American right nor left one.
I never expect to laugh at a Errant Signal video but holy hell that Battlefront gag got me hard.
Also Mark Brown's Game Design Toolkit has a pretty good take on the same subject (FC2 vs FC5) with a particular focus on player empowerment. :)
Great critique. Quick fact check: We are Montanans, not Montanians.
This video makes me want to give Far Cry 2 another try. I dropped it early-on during my first play through to instead play FC3, but I maybe seeing it with a "saying something through mechanics" mindset would make me appreciate it better!
Everyone wants toes to stepped on until it is their toes.
I continue to love the malaria / decaying guns aspect of Far Cry 2. And it was one of the dealbreakers for me when I discovered they were removed from Far Cry 3.
For me, the fire of FC2 was always a blessing. When it started, it generally meant enemies had to maneuver to safety or get burned, and I always found a rock or hidey hole from which I could wait it out. And then, walking across the scorched earth (heh!) was the FC2 equivalent of walking away from explosions.
Another thing I remember was snipers without lasers. I'd be out in the field and bullets would start whizzing by, and I'd have to zig and find brush so that I could peek around and locate the bastard.
Also, absent in FC2 was fast travel (except for five bus stops). Missions, safe houses and supplies were always spaced apart, meaning there was always traveling, and travel was always dangerous.In FC3 missions can be found at safe houses, ammo is dispensed in a vending machine in your own room, and fast travel is instantaneous from one safe house to the next.
Man, I miss FC2.
If criticizing the right by shooting at them in an indulgant power fantasy isn't irony, I don't know what is.
Yeah, but in the game your allies are also "the right". The good guys are all law enforcement, ex-military, pastors, business owners, patriots and preppers.
Ok, honestly surprised that I had to go this far into the comments to find someone else who saw the irony.
So with the ending it's like the Mormon episode of South Park on steroids?
Not evey game needs to say something, on fact it's better that many of them don't, considering most developers Don't know how to say anything intelligent, and those who don't are often just pandering, additionally if games making statements became common place it will devalue the act of making a statement, now if we want to talk about clever game mechanics that's a different story.
The way the game is designed promotes the very thing it tries (and fails horribly ) to comment about
I kinda felt like the idea of how the game makes everything feel so ideal and then hits you with a "This is actually fucking serious and your fucking around killed everybody" wasn't specifically a bad statement. Kinda like a really ungraceful spec ops: the line. REALLY ungraceful, but I admire what it's trying for.
The Far Cry series is a really interesting one to look at regarding the Entertainment Vs Art argument of video games. Where a game like Far Cry 2 feels designed from the ground up in it's story, mechanics & presentation to make an artistic statement (whether or not it's a worthwhile statement or it's executed well is definitely debatable), Far Cry 3-5 feel designed from the ground up to be FUN to play first and foremost, with their stories & ideas taking a big backseat to the players entertainment & empowerment. This creates a dichotomy that fuels both sides of the argument of what games are intended to be & capable of being. On the one hand, Far Cry 2's commitment to it's artistic vision willingly sacrifices player enjoyment with a lot of it's mechanics, particularly the respawning outposts & malaria symptoms, leading to a game that many appreciate in retrospect, but few people actually finished upon release. Almost everyone I know who has played Far Cry 2 loved the setting but never finished the game & had mixed opinions on the game as a whole. Whereas Far Cry 3-4 were much more praised upon released for their very fun, convenient & addictive gameplay, but in my opinion have not aged very well.. especially considering how many modern games have VERY similar sandbox action mechanics. The series over the course of one game, from Far Cry 2 to Far Cry 3, went from a flawed but deeply memorable game with uncompromising artistic vision to a mass market bubblegum action shooter with a story that is in no way supported by the mechanics. I say Far Cry goes back in the experimental direction after bombarding us with 4 straight games of essentially the exact same mechanics
I know FC2 is a cult darling (no pun intended) but I think FC4 had the best thematic push. The story is about revolution but has two revolutionary leaders that have terrible plans for the nation. It frames the bad guy as a monster, and he is, but his motivations are human and understandable. The take away is that following ideals and charismatic leaders isn't enough. A person needs to be "king of their own country" as well. They need to take responsibility outside picking a flag and doing everything it asks of them. My choice was to let the bad guy go un-murdered and then go back, completely unprompted by the game and execute both revolutionary leaders myself.
You could kill both the revolutionary leaders?
@@p.alexlaflam-mcfall2975 Yes. You're ordered to kill one but you can let the first one go. For the second you have to find them and it'll play a cutscene. After that you can gun them down.
Except that "both sides are just as bad and its better to let the corrupt fascist regimes stay in power because rebels are always worse" is just as bad a thematic statement as Far Cry 5's refusal to actually concretely condemn anything.
Knowing how inoffensive AAA videogames are trying to be these days, I was actually surprised that FC5 even suggested that the player might be the problem and the obvious POV can be questioned
You should try doing a critical review of arma (2 or 3 or both or all). There aren't any critical reviews of any of the games so it'd be nice to see one
I agree
Those would really be more a Matthewmatosis thing.
"'Civilians'? I think that's pronounced 'acceptable casualties'."
God, you got that FC5 menu music stuck in my head again.
Thank you for expressing the feeling I had in a coherent manner.
2 years later and ubisoft still says nothing, even with all the allegations and bs.
Wish big companies could be cancelled.
I agree completely. A game so concerned with not offending reactionaries that it tacitly condones them.
It wouldn't bother me on its own, but coming from the same game series that produced Far Cry 2 & 3 & 4, all of which used intentionality to make very up-front statements about the world and/or the player makes it more of a betrayal. Which is how I would describe my distaste for the game; not contempt for the message that it has, but disappointment that the message is accidental and from a studio that has shown that it can do better.
Any studio producing a game a massive budget, that has to sell to a wide audience to make some bucks and stay afloat, it has to appeal to the mainstream.
And any game doing that, as well as trying to "make a statement", will definitely have it's "statement" muddled, because they don't want to offend people.
They are making a product, not an art.
Even then, the act of marketing/branding and editing something to better appeal to mainstream itself is a type of art. That's why companies have staff specifically trained in advertisement so they can make the best selling and/or most memorable marketing campaigns. Many people have favorite commercials or logos or jingles that have lasted for a really long time because talented people were hired to make such a thing.
Making a product easy for distribution and consumption is also a form of art if you consider it.
Game companies are not your personal armies.
Agreed with Deshara. What's sad too is that the leadup to the release of the game had basically a press tour with people who study cult behavior. FC5 was being sold on the idea that it not only had something to say, but had people behind it that would make sure it said it correctly.
The game releases and it instead displays the same (incorrect) brainwashing and torture that people tend to see from 24 or any other crime drama. It's hard to say if FC aborted from saying anything because 'reality is unrealistic' or because something else, but the end result is a story that is spineless trash.
Liana K did character analysis of the leader and his lieutenants. I think she found more than that.
To be honest, it didn't bother me. Far Cry 5 wasn't the game I booted up to get introspective about social politics. It's a game to shoot bad guy drive car fast big gun go boom after a long day of work.
Surprised you didn't mention the removal of healing animations.
You make some good points, but my real takeaway from this vid is that I need to play Far Cry 2
So, given "the morals" of the ending of the game, how does this differ from Spec Ops The Line? The only way to really win either game is, to not play it.
i like the part where he was talking about the couple dancing with the guitar guy and the guy with the guitar was playing and singing "where did you sleep last night"
Why is it that I have never heard anybody say anything good about Far Cry 2 until Far Cry 5 came out and now it is suddenly the best game in the series?
Yeah, quite honestly Far Cry 2 wasn't very good as an actual *game.* Beyond what statements it made, it just didn't work as a game. Getting chased by cars literally every time you drove past a checkpoints or the gun jamming thing just gives me memories of FC2 being frustrating, tedious, and unenjoyable more than anything else.
It always seemed to me like a game that had a lot of interesting ideas but ultimately didn't work. I never played it myself though, that's just what it sounded like to me from how other people described it. The fact that outposts get repopulated after you clear them out makes me not want to play the game. I like to feel like my actions are actually affecting the game world, which is also why I don't like the endings to Far Cry 5.
Campster has a video on it from SIX years ago.
it's a pretty common thing in a lot of game crit circles, and comes up again every time a new one comes out, and often elsewhere. Lots of people brought it in comparison to breath of the wild's more systemic elements, for example.
Aldowyn, do you have a link to that video?
ua-cam.com/video/QU6XZkOXtFo/v-deo.html
Ubisoft reminds me of car manufacturers. You release some new boxy model of car. It's a bit goofy looking, but it stands out. It appeals to a certain crowd and helps you build an audience. Then each year, your audience is bigger and you have less incentive to stand out. You now have a larger swath of people to please with different wants or needs. You start adding all the convenience features a large audiece would want, and shaving corners off your boxy car. Then one day you realize your quirky car looks like every other SUV on the road. The same forces act on anything, whether it's a car or a game.
If you think Far Cry 5 presenting anything straight, then you might have missed the point. It's supposed to be a tongue in cheek parody of 'Murica culture.
And in 2 cars can show up randomly, you're always looking out for them cause that's 3 more soldiers
I just wanted to say that I've been watching your videos since I was a teen (for around 5 years now) and not only have you helped me view my favorite games more critically, but have also helped me learn how to critically dissect other forms of media! Thanks man and I'm loving this video so far!
The game has a very strong message. Every member of the Seed family has suffered traumatic experiences that made them the way they are. Joseph mentioned several times that his family were doing things he wasn’t comfortable with. By firing your first bullet, you’re doomed to become as violent as John and Jacob.
God doesn’t approve of them just because the Great Collapse came. It’s possible for prophets to become corrupt. Essentially, the game’s about a cycle of abuse that the player can only break by not playing, tying in with the themes of nuclear war. That scene with a couple dancing by corpses was meant to look that dissonant. It’s trying to show you that you’re being just as cruel and violent as John and Jacob.
The mechanics are in your favour because you’re a deputy. You were trained for combat. The guns don’t jam because America has such an ungodly amount of overpowered weapons in circulation. The game reveals a lot of points you missed in the various notes in cultist property. You have to look around for the answers. Even without the notes, each leader reveals their past in one on one cutscenes.
John was savagely beaten as a kid and became so broken by it that he started saying yes to torture, hence his obsession with the power of Yes. Jacob was forced to cannibalise one of his comrades in the army, making him believe that people were still like other animals, needing to cull the weak to make mankind strong. Joseph’s wife died in a car crash and he justified it by believing it was God’s will. Finally, Faith was a rock bottom drug addict who Joseph decided to take in, freeing her from drug addiction, but not entirely. She uses Bliss to control the unwilling, keeping them constantly high and malleable. A note says the cult sexually abused her too, showing how corrupt the people of the cult had gotten.
She wasn’t quite as trustworthy as most fans believe. She’s a manipulator, something that every successful cult needs. The writers worked with a cult expert to make the cult as realistic as possible. Every action taken by The Project at Eden’s Gate was inspired by a real cult doing the same. It’s important to note that the mind control methods of the game aren’t unheard of. Drugs, manipulation, and trauma have been used by real cults to brainwash their flock into doing everything asked of them.
This isn’t to say the player is free from blame. The resistance is hypocritical, using the very same forms of violence to take down the cult. Fighting back is understandable, but the resistance goes way too far. They weaponise the very same things they criticised the cult for. All this being said, the story’s not quite over yet. New Dawn’s trailer implies that God gave up on Joseph a long time ago, as the world he inhabits isn’t the one prophesied to him. When New Dawn comes out, I may update this.
I don't get when people say the story doesn't make sense or it's so shallow.
The lore goes deep, you jus have to be willing to pay attention to the story
That liberation sequence was so cheesy it caused me physical pain.
God, I would've loved it if they just went in on everything, have the cult be racist, sexist, homophobic, bastards who kill baby animals, just make them the absolute worst, give the player something to really really hate, that they kill out of principal instead of duty, let them live up to their sin of wrath, so when the game calls them out on it, it really kicks. I think Far Cry 5 is a little bit tonally confused. I kind of like that, in that it's a silly game that takes itself seriously, whereas, for example, Far Cry 4, had a comedic relief villain and a few funny characters, but the tone was still pretty serious, people's lives were on the line. Whereas Far Cry 5 can't really make it's mind up.
I feel bad for the devs and writers, I'm sure they wanted to do something really special and unique, but trying to critique the church in mainstream media is an absolute deathwish.
In terms of saying nothing, I think after Farcry 2 it could be levelled at all subsequent entries in the series. Farcry 3 was extremely light on the themes of modern slavery and human trafficking for instance, never letting it get in the way of the player's fun. I think the fact that the setting became a place much closer to home for western audiences, brought this fact into stark relief.
Though it could be argued that the development studios for the game were based in Canada, Ukraine & the UK, wouldn't have the same obligation to offer commentary on USA's internal politics as a USA-based studio and publisher, but given the cultural proximity, that seems a bit flimsy.
You could argue that far cry 3 and to an extent 4 had a lot to say, It just was not about those themes you mention. In far cry 3 the themes and player empowerment go hand and hand the more the player levels up and commits violent acts in the story the more insane and broken Jason becomes and the more in susceptible to the tribe he is helping nearly barbaric ways. Near the end of the game you get a turret sequence escaping with Riley most the thing that Jason says during this are framed as almost insane. The main point i am trying to get at here is that far cry 3's theme is more personal than political and that theme from my interpretation is that even good intention violence and killing can break someone soul or to better put it in a quote. "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster."(This quote is not suppose to be pretentious it just something that articulates my point better than I could have worded it .lol)
Far cry 4 Imo is more about the struggle of progress vs tradition even if I don't think its handled well.
I may be full of shit though, its been a while scene i played ether and my memory can be shit sometimes, but that's how I remember them.
Skull guy I don't disagree with what Farcry 3 said there, but with the setting and backdrop of the plot, the other themes, that still did have a presence, were reduced to occasional window dressing. And the whole personal rather than political message could be extracted out of Farcry 5 also. I'm just saying that both games are guilty of skirting the very real political issues of their settings.
Yeah, I miss understood your argument. I agree but in all honesty it did't bother me in far cry 3,4 and primal's case but i do understand why people are annoyed with far cry 5 doing this because it was marketed like a game with a political message but kind of had jack to show for it. I beat Far cry 5 a few weeks back enjoyed it from a gameplay perspective but the story was honestly very weak no matter how i look at it.
“Like buyer’s remorse in the SW’s Battlefront games.” I felt that hit.
Hold up, stealth was tacked on and vestigal in FC2? You realize FC2 was designed by Clint "Splinter Cell" Hocking? The stealth in 2 was so much more than the "line of sight plus detection meter" of later games. Ever try sneaking up on a camp during a rainstorm? You're practically invisible. Broad daylight? You aren't sneaking anywhere.
I knew my gut was right when it told me yesterday that you should have a video up soon
What is wrong with "good old fashioned American Flags". It is America after all. If it was Venezuela or any other country they would use that flag I imagine. It is a strange criticism.
I'd say at this point in time the American flag is more used as a product logo than an actual flag. Our flag is *way overmarketed* especially in comparison to others. for example, FC4 is set in Nepal. However, you don't see the Nepalinan Flag on 100s of T shirts and planted on every building. That's because Ubisoft weren't trying to appeal to a bunch of surface level psudeopatriots who wear a flag because it makes them look like Patriots.
I think if you have the right to burn the flag you have the right to fly or even wear the flag. This does not make you a pseudo patriot. It is insulting and patronizing to judge in such a manor.
In its failure to say anything objectively, we could say that the game's subtext--unassigned by its creators--is an allegory for America's indifference towards the rise of far right militias. It's a tension in the public sphere where we know they're there, but refuse to discuss and respond to these movements in an appropriate way that capture the gravity of the situation; that there are armed groups of mostly white Americans that wanna see America as a Christian ethnostate. That's a very concerning fact that public sphere appears to be oblivious to, intentionally or not.
And with an American militia as the villains of a video game, how could you come so close to saying something about this issue, and yet say nothing other than "They're there, but their problems aren't because of weaponized religion and doomsday-ism, but because this one dude and his family are insane." And if none of what I've said connects, Step Back has a wonderful series of videos on the history of these groups, I recommend it, and it was enlightening.
What more can I say.
[EDIT] There is more I can say.
You play as a cop, and the sheriff wants you and the marshal to leave the cult alone, right? Just turn a blind eye and hope it works out. Complacency. Reminded me instantly of how our own police either ignore or support right-wing violence against the underclasses. The big fantasy of this game, is that you, the cops, ultimately stand up to the cult. And yet the game's ending message is: It's your fault things got worse, why didn't you just look the other way? It's a message that trying for progress and liberation is is fruitless or harmful.
I think that's all the meaning I can suck from this game. Cheers.