What is Far Cry 5?
Far Cry 5 is a first person shooter game released in 2018 set in a fictional location called Hope County in Montana USA.
The county is said to be an hour outside of the real city of Missoula.
You play as an unnamed junior deputy who becomes trapped in Hope County after your colleagues are taken. You also work alongside various resistance factions to liberate the region from each of the region's leaders - the three siblings of the cult leader, Joseph Seed.
Gameplay is combat and exploration driven, with plenty of story missions, side missions and unlockables to discover. You can explore each of the three main regions in any order you want and even return to the regions once they are liberated. If you want to play with a friend, the game allows for two player co-op.
Game Plot:
[Game intro spoilers]
The sheriffs department and a US federal marshal arrive at the compound of the cult leader, Joseph Seed. A lot of the cult members are around to surround the department, watching as the Rookie Deputy, Deputy Hudson, Sheriff Whitehorse and Marshal Burke approach the church, which is initially closed.
Burke opens the door and the rest of the department parts through a group of congregated cultists, approaching Joseph and his siblings, also known as his Heralds - Jacob Seed, John Seed and Faith Seed. Burke presents Joseph with the arrest warrant and tells the Rookie Deputy (the player character) to cuff him. Joseph lets you walk him out to the helicopter you arrived in, where Deputy Pratt is waiting as the pilot.
Seeing their leader taken from them and put into a helicopter, the cultists - also called Peggies because of the cult name, the Project at Eden's Gate, swarm the helicopter to get their leader back, causing the vehicle to crash.
Waking from the crash, Joseph is free from his seat and his cuffs, he taunts the rookie and gets some of his followers to take their colleagues, leaving them to escape into the woods as the heli catches fire. The rookie find the marshal and is tasked with taking out peggies before Burke can get an escape vehicle ready, starting a vehicle chase until the rookie and the marshal get bombed by John Seed in his plane and go off the side of a bridge into the river. The marshal gets captured and the rookie gets taken in by someone not related to the cult, a local survivalist and prepper named Dutch. Dutch is prepared to help the rookie deputy, since now, they’re the only one out of the arresting party that can take on the cult.
Playing as the rookie deputy, you then have the choice of three regions to take on, Holland Valley, Henbane River and the Whitetail Mountains, and their respective Heralds to get your co-workers back. Fighting the cult with other allies in the resistance along the way.
Why I love this game:
I was gifted this game by my sister "for my birthday", sometime in November 2018 - which is about a month before my birthday. Initially, she wanted the game herself but didn't have a PS4, so she bought it for "me", or, she wanted to play it on my console.
She played the very beginning of the game and made the player character but ultimately decided to give it to me.
I began to play the game solo until one of my best friends, Maegan, invited me to a co-op session, then another friend joined the PS4 party. Maegan had to leave, leaving me with Andy, from there we ended up playing the game together for almost 3 years. Those moments have been some of the best I've had as a young adult.
Clips from this time also happen to capture my HRT progress as time went on.
It didn't take long for my bestest friend Sledge to get into the game and we are still talking about the game and its characters in 2024.
As a note, the digital versions of this game are easily broken - which has been a source of fun for me and my friends for years. The disk versions seem to be more stable.
My oc, Rhodey, started out solely as a Far Cry 5 deputy character.
Far Cry 5 Short Film:
Things different to the game compared to this short film:
My favourite character:
Joseph Seed:
Joseph Seed is the leader of the cult. He's the main antagonist of the game and the most powerful force behind everything. He believes he talks to god, is extremely charismatic and holds fast in his beliefs - as messed up as they are, with the ability to captivate many people into believing they are his flock.
He's my favourite character because he's so intense and strange, he also has a believable and relatable background, growing up poor with an abusive family, becoming an orphan after his older brother takes actions into his own hands twice, becoming disillusioned with society due to mental health and homelessness. I find him interesting as a character because he clearly has some very outlandish traits fitting of a fictional universe, but he's grounded enough in reality to not sound totally absurd. He's an unreliable narrator and he becomes more unhinged as the game events go on, which gives you a sort of insight into his personality. I may also be telling on myself, but I could listen to his sermons and him talk for ages.
