Far Cry 5 (2018): The Review
Overview
Far Cry 5 trades exotic locales for rural Montana, dropping players into the heart of Hope County, where a doomsday cult known as Eden’s Gate has seized control. As a nameless deputy, you lead the resistance against the cult’s charismatic and terrifying leader, Joseph Seed. With its bold setting, intense action, and open-ended chaos, Far Cry 5 reinvigorates the formula, even if it stumbles in a few familiar ways.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Positives ✅
At its core, Far Cry 5 is still very much Far Cry: one extremely motivated person versus an unreasonable amount of heavily armed lunatics in a beautiful, dangerous playground. But this time, Ubisoft finally stopped holding your hand like you’re about to fall down the stairs. After a short intro, the whole of Hope County is just… there. Three massive regions, all open, all accessible, and only a gentle nudge suggesting where you might want to go first. That moment where the map opens up and you realize you can go basically anywhere is genuinely liberating, and a little terrifying in a good way.
The new progression system is one of the smartest changes the series has ever made. Instead of following a rigid mission order, you earn Resistance Points by doing pretty much anything useful: main missions, side missions, liberating outposts, rescuing civilians, blowing up cult stuff, or just stumbling into trouble. Everything feeds the same meter, everything matters. It’s a system that quietly tells you, “Play how you want. We’ll keep up.”
Even better is how you find things to do. There’s no minimap. No tower-climbing to vomit icons all over your screen. You discover things by actually existing in the world: spotting signs, finding notes, talking to people, or literally just walking into places. And honestly? It rules. Without a minimap nagging you, you start paying attention to the world itself, the forests, the rivers, the farms, the tiny details inside houses that actually make them feel lived in.
This new flow fits perfectly with what Far Cry has always done best: letting chaos happen. Outposts can still be tackled in a dozen ways, stealth, animals, fire, explosions, or just raw stupidity, and the perk system finally lets you lean into your preferred playstyle right from the start. No more being told you need ten hours before you’re “allowed” to be a stealth god. If you want to sneak, you can sneak. If you want to go loud, you can go loud. The game stays out of your way.
Then there are the Specialists and Guns for Hire, which are basically walking chaos multipliers. Whether it’s a silent archer, a helicopter pilot, or a murder-happy animal companion, they add a ridiculous amount of personality and unpredictability to every situation. The AI can be dumb sometimes, sure, but that just adds to those “how the hell did this turn into that?” stories Far Cry lives for.
The Negatives ⚠️
For all its freedom, Far Cry 5 still can’t resist occasionally grabbing you by the collar and dragging you into something way less interesting. Once you hit certain milestones in a region, the game straight-up kidnaps you—no matter what you’re doing, using a magic plot bullet. You’re then thrown into tightly scripted, linear missions that look impressive but play like cardboard.
These sequences are easily the weakest part of the game. They’re full of basic stealth, on-rails turret bits, and dull corridor shooting. They’re not long, but they happen often enough to be annoying, and worse, they pull you away from the open world that is actually fun.
The villains, the Seed family, are charismatic and well-acted, but the game is absolutely in love with forcing you to watch them monologue. Every encounter is the same: you’re restrained, they get way too close to your face, and they explain how evil and twisted they are. It gets old fast. The game also tries to make you care by hurting side characters, but you barely know these people, so the emotional punch mostly misses.
There’s also some modern Ubisoft nonsense. Weapons and vehicles you can buy with real money are shoved in your face in shop menus, and those same menus take longer to load because they’re clearly talking to an online store. It’s not game-breaking, but it’s annoying, especially when all you want to do is swap a rifle.
And despite the extremely spicy political and religious setting, the game mostly refuses to say anything interesting with it. It pokes at the idea of cults and extremism, but never digs deep. It’s safe, shallow satire, and for a game so focused on its villains, it feels like a missed opportunity.
The Experience 🎮
What Far Cry 5 does better than almost any other open-world game is vibes. Just existing in Hope County is a pleasure. Wingsuiting off mountains. Fishing for way too long. Petting your animal companions. Driving down a perfect road in a 70s muscle car while classic rock plays on the radio. Flying a plane for the first time in the series. Shooting feels great. Moving through the world feels great. Being in this place just… works.
Some of my best moments weren’t planned at all. I’d be driving, get ambushed, run into the woods, accidentally piss off a cougar, call in air support, and suddenly the whole situation would end in a fiery disaster that I absolutely did not survive. And I’d just sit there like, “Yeah. That’s Far Cry.”
Co-op is a mixed bag. It’s a shame that only the host truly progresses, but if you’re okay being the sidekick, sharing these ridiculous moments with a friend is still a lot of fun. Meanwhile, Far Cry Arcade is this weird, messy, ambitious side mode that ranges from “wow, this is clever” to “who let this exist?” The editor is powerful, the community is… chaotic, and digging through the junk to find the good stuff takes patience. But when it hits, it really hits.
In the end, despite the annoying story interruptions and the wasted narrative potential, I loved my time in Hope County. Far Cry 5 feels freer, smoother, and more confident than the series has in years. It finally trusts you to make your own fun, and then gives you a massive, beautiful, explosive playground to do it in. And honestly? That’s exactly what this series should always have been.
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