We were recently invited to visit the Ubisoft offices in San Francisco for a very secretive unveiling that most thought would be another Assassin’s Creed game. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that none of those rumors and leaks were true and we were given a first-look at Far Cry 5 with Creative Director Dan Hay.

Welcome to Hope County, Montana. Big Sky Country. Where your freedom and faith are only guaranteed by your firearms and it’s up to you to save the Land of the Free.

The Far Cry series is well known as a first person shooter franchise (with the exception of Far Cry Primal which was more of a first person cave man attack game which we thoroughly enjoyed) that has always been story driven with decent character development. Far Cry 5 follows that same formula as it delves into a rural open world set in a fictional area that’s based on a real world settings. Character development has quite a bit of resources already spent on it and below you’ll get to meet three of those characters.

Mary May

Pastor Jerome Jeffries

Nick Rye

The Far Cry series has always chosen locations that were wild and foreign to gamers. Maybe you’ve been to some islands in the Pacific or maybe you’ve been to places that look like Kyrat or maybe you’ve been to Africa, but it’s probably safe to say that most folks haven’t been to all of those types of places in real life but the Far Cry dev teams, over the years, have taken us to those locations and did a pretty damn good job of making us feel like we were there, at least virtually. While Montana might not be foreign to some of us living in the US, it might be to millions of folks around the world and might even be foreign to some that live here in the big cities that have never ventured out into the wilds of this country.

Before revealing the backstory of the game, Creative Director Dan Hay gave us some insight into how they chose the location and what thoughts they had while creating the story around the cult. They researched cults similar to the one they wanted to create specifically for Far Cry 5 and what they found was how these organizations can go from owning a small plot of land to owning hundreds of acres or more. Using what we would call a long game, they buy a small plot and build a simple compound on it, then start spreading their message around to neighboring areas, slowly bringing down property values and slowly driving others out, until they can create a larger footprint for themselves, all the while converting more and more folks to their twisted ideas, until eventually they are large enough to do whatever the hell they want.

The story of Far Cry 5 centers on a doomsday cult, like the one we described above, called the Project at Eden’s Gate. It is lead by a charismatic fanatic of a leader who wants total control of everything in Hope County and will use everything at his disposal to achieve that goal. As the new junior deputy of this fictional Hope County, Montana, players will find that their arrival accelerates a years-long silent coup, igniting a violent takeover of Hope County. It is up to you, the player (co-op with a friend will be available) to disrupt their plans and help ignite a resistance among those also trapped in this violent situation. Using the folks in the community will be key to liberating Hope County.

Upon initial release of a smaller version of the above photo, the Internet, in reference to Far Cry 5, went crazy talking about God and Politics and Donald Trump and some even went as far to say that the game will have gamers going against the alt-right. What people fail to understand is that these cultists in the game aren’t politically far right, they are politically in outer space. They reside in their own political region that I guess you could call alt-space or maybe alt-moon (and no they aren’t physically on the Moon). Anyway you look at it, the game didn’t seem to be trying to make a political or religious statement, it just looked like a great game with a great storyline. Could something like this happen here in the Good ‘Ol USA? Is the story believable? Very much so.

As time goes by more characters will be revealed and the bigger story will slowly unfold. If you are instantly thinking this game is bad because of politics or religion, think again. From what we saw, the underlying theme is Patriotism and you are the hero of that Patriotism, not the cult. If you are a fan of the Far Cry franchise, love the open world mayhem that can ensue, and want to be able to play with a friend, you are going to want this game. We really want to try out the Rent a Fang feature, but sadly we must wait for a later date.

We can’t wait to see and hear more about this game between now and its release on 2-27-2018.