Does FarCry5 Have Anything to Say?

Last year Ubisoft revealed FarCry5 at E3 in the aftermath of an incredibly turbulent year. 2016 saw the election of Donald Trump, Brexit, and Europe wrestling with the largest migrant crisis in history and the following resurgence of far-right politics. It was within this maelstrom that Ubisoft decided to release a game that explored possibly the darkest aspects of American life: religious extremism, gun culture, and the isolated experience of many states.

* MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FARCRY5 AHEAD *

In case you’ve been living in a fallout shelter snuggled up to an AR15 and a tin of beans, FarCry5 is centred around the Project at Eden's Gate, a cult that is attempting to take over Hope County, Montana, in preparations for the end of the world, forcibly converting and pacifying the local population in order to further their goals. The cult takes inspiration from some of the most extreme real world examples of Christianity derived organisations, such as the Branch Davidians and the Manson Family. The cult hoard firearms and food, and buy up ex-military missile silos (something you can totally do) in order to survive the Collapse, but they also buy up local land and expand their purchases due to neighbouring land value falling or through the harassment and intimidation of local residents, a tactic employed by Neo-Nazi groups in the town of Leith, North Dakota.

All of these influences are blended together in true FarCry style. The ideas of Christian values, right to bear arms, and the right to protect your property and your family are deeply rooted in the American far-right, but here they are taken up to 11. Members of the Project have their sins tattooed onto them to expose the sin and absolve the sinner. Locals who refuse to join the cult go missing in the woods. The Project also confiscate alcohol from the locals, which has long been held as a source of much sin by the American evangelical community.

Ubisoft, 2018

Based on this, we can see that the Project is made up of the self-proclaimed newly marginalised of American society; Christian conservatives have long perceived anti-discrimination laws, such as LGBT rights, sexual education at school, and women’s right to have an abortion, as attacks on them and their values. Eden’s Gate echoes these sentiments, seeing society as irredeemably corrupted by excess, perversion, and pride. It is why the cult have chosen to relocated to Montana, and live out an isolated and simplistic life according to the teachings of their leader, Joseph Seed.

Eden’s Gate is a destructive cult, with members exhibiting sociopathic tendencies (such as forcibly baptising locals), personality changes and even a total loss of their personal identity; for example, it is implied that the step-sister of the Seed family, Faith, was a local girl called Rachel Jessop before she met Joseph. The cult is built around a disinterest in interacting with wider society, and there is even an element of psychological control and enslavement. This is all demonstrated to the player throughout the story; Joseph and John Seed gain followers through their sheer charisma, whilst Jacob uses intimidation and torture to gain compliance and loyalty. Faith is charismatic also, but utilises something a little unusual to further stop dissent among sceptical members – psychedelic drugs.

This is where FarCry5’s potential political message about the times we live in becomes muddled and potentially deliberately sabotaged; where the extreme right wing influences of the Project strangely blend with some incredibly left wing ideas. For instance, the cult does not demonstrate a white supremacist or anti-multicultural mind-set as one would expect from a militant and overtly right-wing Christian group. 

Ubisoft, 2018

The Project at Eden’s Gate is meant to exemplify the excesses of the American right-wing and preaching about the debauchery of society. But then the group goes about gaining compliance through the widespread use of psychedelics and promises of a very hippy-dippy nirvana-esque interpretation of Heaven and the Garden of Eden. The use of drugs is still seen as a sign of sinfulness in Christianity, more so in evangelical circles, so it begs the question: why, narratively, would the Project be embracing a form of spirituality more in tune with 1960s counter culture and rejected by the contemporary American right? It appears to be for gameplay reasons alone, with some enemies being so high on the drug that they roam the landscape, shuffling and moaning like zombies in an obvious attempt to de-humanise them.

What’s more, the way the cult uses psychedelics to cultivate loyalty is by combining it with torture and classical conditioning, eerily similarly to how the CIA planned to break enemy spies in its MKUltra programme. This happens to the player whilst they are combating Jacob, who tortures and conditions them to the point where they enter a fugue state and murder a militia leader opposed to the Project. But this is a disingenuous representation of why cult members commit acts of violence; rather than torture and conditioning, a cult leader’s charisma appears to be the main factor in the manipulation of their members. The best examples of this are Charles Manson and the leader of the Peoples Temple, Jim Jones.

There is also the question of the way the Seed family looks, which is to say they all adhere to a millennial hipster stereotype. Well-groomed and sculpted beards, stretched ear lobes, “man buns” and tattoos. This presentation is at odds with current American religious trends, where 35% of people aged 18-33 identified as being non-religious in 2014, a 6% increase on 2007’s figures. Potentially this is simply Ubisoft creating characters that players can identify with, after all compelling antagonists are part of the FarCry formula, but it also feels as though this is a desperate ploy to appeal to the millennial market.

Ubisoft, 2018

We also have the multiple endings to unpack, which honestly render any player choice or progression null and void. In the final confrontation with Joseph, the player can choose to either walk away from Hope County with the rest of the Sheriff’s Department, or to attempt to arrest Joseph for the second time. The first option leads to the player accidentally entering their murderous fugue state when their trigger, a piece of music, is played over the car radio, heavily implying the player kills the entire Sheriff’s Department they have spent the entire game trying to rescue.

The second option leads to a gun fight and finally the arrest of Joseph … except a nuclear bomb goes off in the distance and Joseph’s prophesised Collapse has begun seemingly out of nowhere. Ubisoft claims that the nuclear war is foreshadowed through NPC dialogue and the in-vehicle radio stations, but in my nearly 30 hour playthrough I did not hear a single thing referring to this.

Combined with the use of brainwashing and manipulation through psychedelic substances, the endings completely rob the player of any real agency. Your actions, whether you choose to leave Joseph and the Project alone or not, ultimately mean nothing. The NPC enemies also have very little agency, having been drugged and psychologically tortured into compliance rather than honestly believing in Joseph Seed’s visions of the apocalypse. It is a total cop out in actually making the cult evil or at least self-aware, simply mistaken and manipulated, and ultimately right.

Ubisoft, 2018

Dan Hays, the creative lead and writer of FarCry5, claims the story was never meant to be political but an exploration of American religious extremism and rural isolation, saying “It's not a story that's supposed to teach you about something specific about politics”. Yet characters often make reference to current political discourse through lines of dialogue like “Just look at who’s in charge!” and “Obama loving libtards!”, along with various weapon descriptions and readable notes dotted around Hope County, all making reference to real world America and offering a commentary and even some passive criticism on modern politics.

Unfortunately, it is skin deep criticism and only really serves as a humorous “nudge nudge, wink wink” to the player. I personally think this demonstrates that there is no way to approach the subject of cults and religious extremism in America without the conversation turning political. Hays himself acknowledges that the story is inspired by his experiences growing up in the 1980s, wondering whether the bombs will drop; a narrative focused around this very idea is, in itself, a creative work with a political agenda. And to come at the subject of religious extremism and doomsday cults in a way that avoids that discussion only undermines the story, the characters, and the player. I don’t often agree with Ben Kuchera, but his review in Polygon is absolutely right: FarCry5 is a “defiantly inoffensive mess” which “wants to appeal to everyone, but ultimately says nothing.”

The game ultimately feels as if there was originally meant to be a political message, but the suits on the top floor ordered it to be scrapped in order to make a palatable product. With the commentary on the arms trade and funding of wars in FarCry2 and the excellently crafted narrative of FarCry3 revolving around what happens to people in extreme situations, FarCry5 had amazing source material and great potential to be a critique on the American way of life in a way Grand Theft Auto can only dream of now, but ultimately failed to do so.