Far Cry 4 Review

Shameless in its familiarity, Far Cry 4 is a mostly fun and occasionally fascinating iteration on Far Cry 3's reward circuit formula, with all meta-narrative ambition stripped away to make room for the real star of the show: the gameplay.

As a fan of the Far Cry series, I found myself experiencing a strange kind of hype whiplash in the months leading up to this one's release. On the one hand, the new environment and the set-up for the story seemed genuinely interesting; on the other, the low level minutia of actual gameplay seemed incredibly similar to the previous game. The information and further gameplay we were shown painted (at least for me) an unprecedented likeness to Far Cry 3, which was a fairly big deal for this series.

Strange Deja Vu  

And after getting 20 or so hours into it, the feelings of familiarity definitely only increased. The mixture of old and new ideas is pretty largely skewed, and on paper the balance doesn't seem too flattering for the game -- but everyone and their dog has already mentioned how "samey" it feels, so I'll save you that trouble. In any case, it was kind of a foregone conclusion given the 1/2 as long development cycle.

It isn't just the gameplay, though -- many of the missions in the campaign are riffs on previous escapades (some more obvious than others), with some pretty standard "decision making" thrown in. From what I've seen, these decisions don't really affect the outcome much, which is both annoying and nice. Annoying, in that Ubisoft thinks I'll enjoy these little decision trees even though they have little bearing on the plot, and nice because in a game with an inexplicable lack of save slots, I just don't give enough of a shit to start over and see how it would play out had chosen Sabal over Amita. Which brings me to the characters.

Characters Welcome?

While I was afraid Pagan Min would turn out to be a half-assed Vass clone, he quickly became my favorite (just as Ubisoft intended, I'm sure). His appearances bookend the game and just like with Vaas, I found myself leaning in and turning up my TV to hear him -- Troy Baker deserves huge props for making a character with a tiny fraction of the screen time as the others the most interesting one.

There really ins't much to say about the headbutting leaders of the Golden Path, Amita and Sabal. Amita is the modernist, Sabal the traditionalist. Neither side is explored in a deep way, and outside of a single drug trip that causes you to hallucinate the "dark side" of the one you've backed, their motivations and goals are incredibly under-developed. Side characters like Yogi/Reggie and Hurk are apparently just here for comedic relief -- the only other one I was interested in listening to was Longinus, the African arms dealer. Other than that, Ubisoft played it pretty damn safe with this cast.

"Skyrim with guns"

The rest of the gameplay should be very familiar to anyone who's played a Ubisoft game -- climb a tower, reveal stuff, do stuff. This time there are even more collectibles to find, outposts to liberate, caves to explore, animals to hunt, and skills to purchase. The new side missions are a mixed bag fun-wise (convoys are great, hunting is bleh) and there is an increased emphasis on leaderboards and replayability. The core gameplay is as fun as before, but the amount of hedging on display here is a little unfortunate.

Far Cry 4 is a fun, mostly engaging game. It's just kind of a bummer to see a franchise that had consistently tried to take risks and challenge its audience become so much of a "paint by numbers" affair. While the "ankle-deep ocean" type experience works relatively well here, I find myself wondering how sustainable the Far Cry franchise can really be with only 2 years between games -- the franchise is at a crossroads, and I think the next game will define the future of the series. Here's hoping for something that isn't such a sure thing.