The Far Cry series has been going strong since 2004. It has gone through some changes over the years, but finally hit a really well working formula with the 2012 entry, Far Cry 3. With Far Cry 5 now out, in a Montana setting and a similar formula, does it do enough different to keep players engaged?

Far Cry has taken us to many different places, like the islands of Micronesia, Africa, it has given us animal powers, we’ve checked out some Pacific islands, headed to the Himalayas, and it has even brought us back in time to the Stone Age. Heck, the series has even taken us to a 80s themed future where you kill giant dragons. The Far Cry series does not hold back when it is picking its setting.

Hearing that Far Cry 5 would be set in the United States in the state of Montana was surprising, and for a lot of people not in a good way. How do we go from so many exotic locations, to just some random midwestern state? Well, I am happy to say that these people are just plain wrong and the setting is just as engaging as previous entries. Montana is a beautiful sate, and the development teams at Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto put so many interesting locations and things to do that I never felt bored.

The setting brings more than just pretty trees, beautiful rivers, and mountains. We also get a healthy number of vehicles. In past games, you are usually driving some old and decrepit vehicles, but in Far Cry 5 you are behind the wheel of weaponized eighteen wheelers, trucks, and cars that you would normally see on the roads of America. If ground based traversing is not your style, then there is a large assortment of helicopter sand planes to fly, a fist for the series if you don’t count the gyro-copter in Far Cry 4. Take your trek by boat if you need to as well! Parachuting and wingsuiting are still around and as fun as ever. You are not without an assortment of ways to get across the map in any way you see fit.

This time around, the player is fighting a religious cult. Many people assumed that the development team was trying to make a statement in a post-Trump America, but in my time with the game, I noticed that they main focus was creating a fun time rather than attempting to make any political or righteous proclamation via their game’s story. While it would have been interesting to see the game plant it’s feet into the ground with a statement, it was very refreshing to not have them do that, as we get plenty of politics out here in the real world. That is not to say that politics have no business in video games, but rather it was refreshing to see them not take a stance and focus on why we play games, escapism and fun. One thing is for sure, killing cultists IS fun, and our main bad guy, The Father, is very interesting. He makes quite the impression in the first moments of the game.  Nobody will ever be as memorable as Vaas, but The Father holds his own in a series with pretty memorable villains.

The gameplay is solid, and upgrading and equipping the right loadout is a fun feedback loop. To help in the carnage you now have a gun for hire mechanic. Across the game map are random NPCs and fully fleshed out characters that you can recruit to your squad. You gain the ability to have two guns for hire, which changes things up in some big ways. Need some air support? One character will follow you around in an airplane and make passes at the enemy with some killer air support. Headed into an outpost, and need a silent partner? Perhaps your dog Boomer, a cougar named Peaches, or a silent bow huntress can help! There are so many options and ways to team up and get the job done.

Now sure, a lot of this sounds like your basic, everyday Far Cry, and that’s because it is. If you were hoping for a complete overhaul of the formula, then you might be disappointed. You are still hitting points of interest, taking down outposts, doing missions and trying to take down the big bad. The way you gain access to these missions and points of interest are different though, which brings some refreshing mechanics into the mix. Gone are the radio towers that populate your map with an assortment of locales and things to do. If you want to find stuff on your map, you better do it the old fashion way and explore. You can also talk to random NPCs in the world and they will suggest places of interest for you. It is very much like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in that regard. In fact this series has very much been a Skyrim with guns type of game, but now even more so.

Another smaller change is the way your character progresses and grows. Experience points are no longer given with kills and liberating outposts. Instead, you get perk points for completing challenges and missions, and you use those perk points on a very standard skill tree, shaping your character into the way you want him, despite by game’s end you having enough points to spread across almost everything. No more hunting is required to further expand ammo and item slots, which to me is kind of a bummer. Hunting is almost completely unnecessary now, unless you are trying to make a quick buck on the pelts. Hunting has now been rendered to a side activity that is only good for making money.

One last change is in mission progression. You won’t see story missions on your map regularly. Some side missions and other quests will populate on your map, but the main goal is filling up an action bar to try and get the boss of the area to come out of hiding and face you. The action bar has sections and each section filled grant you a main story mission. The thing is these missions do not populate on your map. They just happen randomly to you once the section of the gauge is filled up. Often times I would find myself driving or fighting in the world only for my screen to go blank and a story mission automatically unfolding. They give you context for why it happens so suddenly as well, so while it feels jarring it actually makes sense. One example is I was does with a drug called Bliss, and I began a very psychedelic journey that was not unlike other drug based scenes in previous games.

These changes do not make a completely new experience. They change the very standard Far Cry formula in small ways, but in the end this just feels like another Far Cry game. To be honest, I don’t think that is a bad thing. They have a very specific flavor, and what can I say I dig the taste and I don’t know if I want it or need it to change much. Enough is there to make things feel refreshing, but not too much has changed where it suffered an identity crisis. This is not a series we get yearly entries of; so I don’t think we have hit that saturation point yet with the series.

Co-op is back, and you can enjoy the game from start to finish with a buddy…but I found this to be rather pointless if your goal is to progress into the story. If you jump into a friend’s game, and unlock a bunch of map locations, do some quests and progress the story, none of your progress follows you back into your game, except money made and guns earned. Now I understand this in some ways, as it would not make sense to skip some of the story in your game if you played a bit further ahead in somebody’s else’s, but I feel more should have came over with you. Is it so hard to have map locations, side quests, and other little activities transfer over? In all honesty it made me never want to play with a friend. Sure it is a lot of fun causing chaos together, but the end just did not justify the means, and I found myself ignoring co-op requests when friends would reach out to me. I will say that doing simple activities like fishing and racing was a lot of fun with a partner though.

Far Cry 5 is a beautiful game. On a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X you will see the game really come to life in its 4k, HDR display. Few games capture nature like this game does, and hearing the sounds of the flora and fauna layered underneath the chaos and gunplay of the gameplay really creates a nice orchestra of different sounds and effects. Seeing the complete random nature of the world in these graphics have just been a breathtaking experience. In one situation I was hunting a very mad bear all hoped up on the before mentioned Bliss drug. The bear was quite the bullet sponge as it took many of my rifle rounds, only to run straight towards me, right past me, into a small fire, catching it on fire, only for it to run towards a nearby outpost, into the enemy filled area, and right up to an explosive barrel that 4 guys were standing next to, killing them and liberating the outpost. I was not even planning on taking down that outpost at this time. These random happenings are not foreign to the Far Cry series, but I have found that they happen more regularly, as if there is a chaos code in the background that just randomly generates unique moments that leave me audibly voicing my surprise or excitement.

These teams did a wonderful job with Far Cry 5. I experience was a meaty one with plenty to do, leaving me with plenty of Owen Wilson style “wows” to be said. While it does not do much to change the standard Far cry formula that began in Far Cry 3, I changes up enough to not make it feel like a reskinned experience. Far Cry has never looked or felt better, and if you are a longtime fan of the series, this should be a no brainer purchase. However, if you are looking for a complete reinvention of the series, you may find yourself disappointed. There are not many games that offer up an experience quite like Far Cry delivers, and if you like open worlds and shooting bad guys, then you might want to saddle up for this trip into Montana.