With Ubisoft’s long-running, open-world shooter celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, it can perhaps be a little too easy to assume that Far Cry has always existed in the form that it does now – a massive, content-stuffed first-person shooter that is emblematic of the studio’s broader approach to open world game design. However, it wasn’t always this way and it’s certainly the case that the latest entry in the series, Far Cry 6, is profoundly different from the very first instalment in ways that folks who are new to the franchise might not readily appreciate.
Releasing back in 2004, the same year as such genre giants as Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and Halo 2, it’s fair to posit that the original Far Cry had its work cut out for it. A first-person shooter, it puts players in the blood-stained boots of Jack Carver, an ex-special forces operative who is tasked with rescuing an investigative journalist by the name of Valerine Constantine, who it transpires became shipwrecked on a mysterious tropical island after investigating some dodgy goings on there. Well, as it turns out not only are there hostile mercenaries aplenty, but also all manner of terrible monsters and a nuttier-than-squirrel-poop scientist that has been experimenting on the fauna to create said terrible monsters. The Island of Dr. Moreau you say? Never heard of it.
Anyway, though the later Far Cry titles would all be these massive, open-world extravaganzas (except for the fairly risible Far Cry: Instincts which itself was a somewhat misguided remake of Far Cry for the original Xbox console), the very first Far Cry would instead be a much more narrowly focused first-person shooter with levels that boasted open-ended design, allowing players to wander around a much broader environment and tackle objectives however they saw fit. Perhaps the most illuminating aspect of the original Far Cry’s creation was that it was developed by Crysis and Hunt: Showdown studio Crytek, rather than Ubisoft, which would take over the IP just one year later. Crytek meanwhile, would take its CryEngine technology that debuted with Far Cry and would instead focus on creating the Crysis games – sci-fi first-person shooter games which also boasted similarly open-ended gameplay.
As it turns out, it was when Far Cry 2 was released for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms in 2008 that we were treated to the first real glimpse of the direction that Ubisoft was determined to take the franchise. A true open-world effort that would take the baton from Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed series which had kicked off just the year before, Far Cry 2 shifted the action to the rather fresh stomping grounds of a fictional African country and had players tracking down an enigmatic weapons dealer who was seemingly funding two major factions to wage war on each other with scores of civilians stuck in the middle.
Beyond its rather refreshing (though ultimately terrifyingly grim) setting, Far Cry 2 also innovated in several surprising ways. For a start, Far Cry 2 marked a shift to Ubisoft’s in-house Dunia engine, itself an offshoot of Crytek’s now absent CryEngine technology; the difference being that Dunia was specifically equipped to deal with the sprawling open-world expanses that the series would soon become famous for. Beyond placing a premium on freewheeling open-world design that allowed the player to wander the region and tackle a range of primary and secondary objectives, Far Cry 2 also pressed upon players the need to take malaria pills to stave off disease, while a new fire physics system allowed wayward flames to catch onto brush, grass and other parts of the environment in often spectacular fashion.
Arguably it was when Far Cry 3 was released in 2012 that Ubisoft’s stewardship of the Far Cry IP hit its stride. With its series threequel, Ubisoft would begin to include many elements that would become staples in the series and have continued to this day. From the use of radio towers that when liberated would unlock new points of interest and objectives to accomplish, to the leveraging of a crafting system, a range of collectables and a swathe of skill trees to invest progression points into, Far Cry 3 was at the time the refinement of an entirely new subgenre – the open world first-person shooter.
Far Cry 3 would also properly kick off a longstanding series habit of having a strong, almost omnipresent villain that would allow players to anchor themselves to a constant, singular struggle rather than just bumping about an open world completing objectives and killing dudes en route to an unsatisfying final act. Indeed, Better Call Saul actor Michael Mando’s standout performance as the unhinged pirate lord Vaas did a fantastic job of focusing the ire of players against a single, charismatic threat and as I’ve alluded, it would be a trick that Ubisoft would repeat for all its mainline franchise entries from then on.
Believe it or not, amongst all of that free-range slaughter there’s also a degree of levity to be found in the Far Cry series, too. Though the mainline entries are largely po-faced and sobering affairs, Ubisoft would change things up somewhat with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon just one year after the release of Far Cry 3. A genuine surprise when it was released in 2013, though Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was largely identical to Far Cry 3 in terms of mission structure and overall game design, it was a completely different beast in terms of tone and story.
With tongue planted firmly in cheek and embracing the sort of narrative that Duke Nukem would readily find himself in, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was a neon-tinged, 80’s synth-wave throwback to the sci-fi B movies of more than three decades ago. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon even went the extra mile of casting 1980s action actor Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens) as the main protagonist, Sergeant Rex “Power” Colt, with his not-so-dulcet tones kicking in every so often while the player wreaks havoc across a post-apocalyptic landscape filled with cyborgs, mutants and a massive cybernetic dinosaur with laser eyes. Yep, laser eyes.
The next mainline series entry, the release of Far Cry 4 marked something of a shift in the series. No longer were you trying to escape psychopathic killers or trying to off corrupt weapon dealers but rather you were tasked with toppling sprawlingly hostile and oppressive regimes headed by, well, psychopathic dictators who have a bit of a thing for power and control. Though Far Cry 4 was essentially more of what we had already seen in Far Cry 3, it again nonetheless succeeded because it presented Pagan Min as a central antagonist, who, thanks to Troy Baker’s wonderfully effervescent performance, became an easy villain to root against and thus keep the proceedings trucking along.
2016’s Far Cry Primal showed that Ubisoft’s dalliance with spin-offs in the series wasn’t a one-time thing, either. By throwing the setting back a good 100,000 years and switching out rifles, pistols and shotguns for bows, spears and clubs, Far Cry Primal immediately felt quite fresh – even when compared to other titles in the series. More than that, Far Cry Primal also brought a more keenly felt element of survival into the proceedings, as you found yourself not only worrying about warring tribes but also a variety of savage creatures to boot.
With Far Cry 5, Ubisoft would relocate the franchise into the fictional Hope County, envisaged to be part of the state of Montana. Leaning into the notion of cults, the socio-economic turmoil brought on by a lack of investment and breathtaking rural expanses that are synonymous with that region, Far Cry 5 remains to this day one of the better titles in the Far Cry franchise. It’s also worth noting at this point that Far Cry 5 also didn’t seek to rock the boat much from a design perspective, as it once again included the familiar crafting systems, an open world that is gradually unlocked, vehicles to aid in traversal, progression trees and just about everything that had been seen in the series up until then. That said, one new mechanic that Far Cry 5 did bring to the table was a ‘Fangs for Hire’ system, whereby players could hire NPCs to help them in battle.
Following on the heels of Far Cry 5 sequentially and canonically, Ubisoft once again dipped their toes into the slightly absurd for their next entry in the series. Far Cry New Dawn picked the story up seventeen years after one of the Far Cry 5 endings and saw players attempting to rebuild Hope County in the wake of a nuclear exchange known ominously as ‘the Collapse’. Boasting a vibrant colour palette – and more than a few homages to Mad Max – it contained many of the open-world staples that had become the series mainstay but also introduced a few RPG-inspired elements, including an upgradeable home base and an increased focus on crafting.
The most recent entry in the series, 2021’s Far Cry 6 takes the franchise’s penchant for dictators, regimes and bloody regional conflicts to Yara, a fictional Caribbean island nation that definitely wasn’t inspired by Cuba. Nonetheless, Far Cry 6 still managed to enthral thanks to the acting chops of Giancarlo Esposito lending the game a charismatic villain to rail against, while the setting of Yara itself provided players with yet another exotic playground with which to exercise their particular brand of open-world violence.
Ultimately, though the Far Cry franchise as we currently know it is as separated from its original outing as it possibly could be, it’s also true that Ubisoft has carved out a niche for itself. With the Far Cry franchise, its creators have allowed players to not just employ a mixture of confrontational and stealth gameplay styles that fall in line with the player’s own preferences but have also provided them with a wealth of means to traverse these massively sprawling and compelling environments. Though there’s certainly ample room to suggest that Ubisoft could do more to innovate within this subgenre that it has created, it has nonetheless fostered an evolutionary offshoot of the first-person shooter into a full open-world design that no other outfit outside of the French mega-publisher seems willing to match.
