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  1. #1

    Poor story spoiled an otherwise great game (spoilers)

    Hoping someone at ubi sees this, just a bit of context I'm a big fan of far cries 3 and 4 and since I platinum'd four I have even fully replayed it and been waiting for far cry 5 with much anticipation, buying the gold edition day 1.

    Far cry five has a lot of great things going for it in terms of how it's fresh mechanics and ideas are clearly aiming to redefine open world gameplay, but what I feel has let it down, in a big way, are several creative errors in terms of story and structure, it's a real shame because I've got to the end of the game and I'm totally let down (enough to create an account on this forum and type a complaint)

    Also why should my opinion mean anything? During my MA I focused on showrunning (writing and producing for tv) and have a BA in scriptwriting and have also been playing video games for 20 years. So I do know a lot about both story and games before anyone says "what does he know!?"

    I just wanted to note down my issues somewhere with the hope they would be somehow be seen by the writers. I don't wanna just bag on you as there's a lot I do like about the game but I really feel this all needs to be said:

    1.The ending - the 'good' ending is the worst decision for an ending I have seen in a long time from anyone. It totally destroys any gratification we should receive by beating the game. It seems as if it's setting up a sequel but I found that this would be unlikely as I don't believe the stories themes and delivery were strong enough to create desire or need for that. The ending could have also been intended to shock, a heartaching disappointment is not a shock, it's a kick in the stones and a spit in the face.

    I will say the moments leading up to the end were fantastic, turning around to see all my allies pointing guns on eachother and myself was exhilerating and having to revive them all and bring them back to my side was cool and added a real dramatic sense of urgency which I appreciated, I like how the allies were brought back and made more integral to the plot in that way, that was unexpected and fun -However, the events of the whole game were ultimately made redundant when Joseph survives without consequence and we are not given the opportunity to put him down, if the intention was a harrowing/somber ending this could have been done by showing that Joseph had demonstrated non violence throughout and that we may be the bad guy by killing him, this would have been more interesting than what actually happened- Joseph gets off scott free with us as his prisoner/new disciple. Terrible ending.

    2. Villainous vignettes -

    My issues here are that the scenes with them were all essentially small vignettes spliced into the rest of the game, to me it felt like (and I have this issue with pagan min too, although I do still like him) that based on the success of far cry 3s antagonist there seems to be an eagerness at your end to show your villains being 'insane/psycho/sociopathic'/ whatever, where you simply have a villain pacing back and forth/left to right in front of the player character delivering somewhat 'evil' monologues and hoping that they are ticking boxes in terms of what will make them interesting villains.

    This is not interesting without context or scenes showing the villains interact with characters we care about, or better yet giving us reasons to care about the villains, the only villain in the game that I found slightly more than 'interesting' was Faith because it was hinted she would lie to us and try to deceive us all the way through yet she started off all butter wouldn't melt, which was great but didn't pay off too much either, although we did get to see her facade drop and her attitude towards us changing throughout so she was automatically more viewable than the others. I would like you to stop trying to channel Vaas going forward if possible, there can be only one Vaas stop recycling him and do something new.

    3. Allies -

    Just more. The allies were great and their interactions were fun and varied, although repetitive. More missions to make us invest in and care about the allies would have been great, they felt slightly ignored considering some other Npcs had more quests than the allies seemed to. At least one mission each accomplishing something with stakes for each ally would have been great to give us more insight into them. (even if some of the missions already in the game were switched around to make them more relevant to the allies)

    4. Issues with tone - given I'm from the UK I've been waiting to see how far cry would parody the United States with much anticipation. All I can say is that it seems like someone came over and removed anything risky from the game as it seems to pull all of its punches in what was a fantastic opportunity to parody both the states and organised christianity, from the prelaunch content I was expecting far cry five to be 'Westboro baptist church goes full hitler' but got nowhere near the level of edginess I was expecting, I can see how you have clearly tried to add a more poignant, positive tone to the game.with also relying on pride/American pride as a motif for the game but overall the nonironic positivity focused on here has distracted from the opportunity to create some crazy satire which I would have appreciated far more than trying to go for serious tones in a game where you also want me to collect testicles from a mid-coital bull.

    Sorry for the essay guys but I've been waiting a long time and I'll be honest you've hurt my feelings.

    All in all I've enjoyed the game, but the mechanics would work with anything you wanted to do,its the story which makes the game individual and in story you've not done too well here. Far cry 4 did a better job of involving me in the narrative and creating urgency. 3 still being the best for essentially everything discussed here.

    Thanks and regards
    A fan begrudgingly continuing far cry 5
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  2. #2
    I enjoy the game but the endings were horrible and seem to be written by immature 5th grader.
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  3. #3
    One of the things that was most frustrating about the writing problems in Far Cry 5 is that I know they can do better. Just last year Ubisoft released Ghost Recon: Wildlands and the characters and story arcs are great. El Sueno is easily the best villain I've seen in a long time. The game gives you look inside the minds of the cartel bosses on a regular basis and builds a terrific picture of their strengths and weaknesses. If they can do that for Wildlands, why couldn't or didn't they do it for Far Cry 5.
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