Far Cry 5 Review

"Heartland of the America"

Campaign

This is a very different type of setting for the series bringing it to the Heartland of America and greatly mixing everything up in the process. Far Cry 5 still feels similar and only greatly expands upon traditional methods for exploration.

With this setting it should feel close to home for many while be completely different in tone from the wild exotic adventures of the past. At the start you're sent in as a deputy of either gender and need to help with the arrest of this seemingly Christ-like figure that's built an empire.

Things don't go well and eventually you end up having to help build a resistance movement. It's all about working against this crazy and quite twisted man. You do this by causing trouble for his three chosen leaders, they're the core family and each bring something different.

I found them all twisted in crazy awesome ways, but so distinct as they all had their own way of running things within their territory. For example, one was a "Yes" man like in the great Jim Carrey comedy from years past and another felt elegance within her flowers. This makes each area unique not only for the terrain, but the type of objectives you get.

There are main quests but the game is entirely open for you to work through the narrative however you'd like. The stories for each area are long, winding and full of surprises. I would have however liked more core missions as I did feel like I was wandering towards the ending of finishing off a section.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer of Far Cry 5 is rather fascinating and has great potential. I didn't find the direct multiplayer competition to be anything other than just a generic FPS, but there are some incredible layers here. The entire aspect of this "Far Cry Arcade" is completely player customization focused.

Instead of making standard maps, the tools for creating levels is left entirely to the community. There's a full editing suite that can directly compete with Halo's Forge. This tool has thousands of objects from multiple Ubisoft games and easy to understand options to carve up a world however you'd like.

There are game types such as traditional multiplayer with custom load outs and shared perks from campaign or even solo/coop missions. The latter has a series of focused objectives that can be created by players, I've seen some promising work here thus far from what Ubisoft has made to initially showcase it.

On top of that I've spent a fair bit of time working with the editor to see what it can do and it's damn impressive. The multiplayer can be fun, but I didn't find it to be anything too wild. It'll be decent to play, but I'm more interested in seeing just what can be done by the community and this should greatly expand the longevity of the title. We've all see what has been done in Forge and this option adds some extra tweaks to deploy.

Gameplay

Far Cry 5 is gorgeous, the game looks stunning and on Xbox One X it glows. It's perhaps a tad bright at times, but that doesn't distract from the vast massive vistas. I was amazed every step of the way whether I was in an incredibly detailed store or out in the open woods walking with my squad.

There are too many forms of traversal whether you're swimming, flying, driving or doing some other type of transportation. The perk system has lots of depth and there are tons of weapons as well as vehicles to work towards unlocking. The world is large and filled with quests, unique people to meet and a pile of activities.

You can fish, pull off stunts and take on classic series based objectives such as liberating outposts. Animals are everywhere too such as wild bears or fish and each place you go feels alive. The shooting is towards the casual side of things, at least that's how I felt and there are many tools to unleash within the world. I was shocked at how fresh every step of the journey was. I did however face some screen tearing, this was while I was using the map and regular gameplay is typically perfectly fine.

The Conclusion

It's hard to describe everything that's in Far Cry 5 as this game is ambitious and just a massive playground of fun to explore however you'd like. If you enjoyed the past games you'll find this to be a fresh entry and if you somehow haven't played the games in the past it's worth the countless hours of exploration.

You can play alone, or with a friend online where they earn stats as opposed to progression. They should get progression honestly, future titles need to include the option. That aside, this game is wonderful and it's too large in scale to properly cover it all. There's an intense story with antagonists that are so damn creepy, they really do provide some chills and rather dark moments.

You could quest for hours in this world as you build a resistance and it's a great time with every spot feeling fresh. The multiplayer wasn't too crazy gameplay wise, but the customization is incredible.

I really do feel this area of the game will be a hit with so many fresh multiplayer maps, custom cooperative levels and just players building new content all the time. It might take a bit, but it's an easy tool to use and one that I feel folks will be creative with. This is a great package and the game is fantastic, so much to do and an extensive world to whatever in.

Read our Assassin's Creed: Origins Review
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Far Cry 5 Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Ubisoft

Rating Overall: 8.6