4 out of 5 stars

After Ubisoft’s previous lackluster title, Far Cry Primal, Ubisoft went back to the modern-day setting with Far Cry 5. If players are familiar with the Far Cry series, then the idea of being basically a one-man army taking on overwhelming rebel forces in large groups and in unexpected areas will be very familiar in Far Cry 5.

Players take on the role of Rook, the protagonist of the story. Rook was sent with Marshal Burke, Sheriff Whitehorse, and deputies Pratt and Hudson, to arrest Joseph Seed, the founder and the leader of a religious cult organization. When making the arrest, Joseph is willing to go in peace, but his cult responds to the arrest with violence and destroyed the group’s helicopter to prevent Joseph from being taken away.

During all the chaos, Deputy Hudson was captured, Sheriff Whitehorse and Deputy Pratt went missing, but Rook and Marshal Burke briefly managed to escape. Joseph called reinforcements to locate them and captured Burke while a man that goes by the name of Dutch, saved Rook from the cult.

After all the chaos that happened, Dutch will take players on a tutorial of how to play the game. Players learn how to liberate areas, destroy structures, how to navigate the world, and how to scavenge and craft items. After going through a tutorial on how to play the game, the whole entire world of Hope County is available for exploration. Players will have the choice of which regions they would like to liberate first.

The three regions are Henbane River, Holland Valley, and Whitetail Mountains. Players will approach these different areas with engagements in different methods of conflict, use the environment to their advantage, tame animals, and slowly build a resistance militia to take over the region of Hope County, Montana.

Each region has its own resistance meter which unlocks a unique boss after filling up the meter by playing story missions, cult events, liberating outposts, destroying structures and a lot more. It does not matter which order the regions are liberated as long as all of them get taken over so players can face Joseph Seed.

In Far Cry 5, perks are now grouped into multiple categories to help players find their own playstyle. How it’s done now is if players have enough skill points to unlock a perk they want, then they can just unlock it instead of unlocking the perks in sequential order to get the one they want. In order to obtain these perks, players have to complete missions, destroy structures, and find hidden loot.

Although the game has its positives, it also has a few negatives. For instance, there’s no longer any minimap to help players navigate the world. Yeah, it’s great that it helps us pay attention to detail and our surroundings of the world, but it’s very annoying to open up the map every couple of minutes to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction.

Also, the main antagonist of the story seems to be absent in the story. Aside from the beginning and some cutscenes, players will notice that Joseph is rarely associated with any of the missions, but the other antagonists from each region help make up for Josephs lack of appearance.

Far Cry 5 may be very similar to previous Far Cry games, however, all of the combat, physics, and wildlife systems all blend together to create unexpected moments of intense action and amazing gameplay.