Hands-on review: Fight a deadly cult in Far Cry 5

The Far Cry series started way back in 2004 and has become one of Ubisoft's most popular franchises. It's one of the few open-world first-person shooters out there that allow players to pretty much do whatever they want.

The great thing about the Far Cry series is that each game is different  from the last one. For example, Far Cry 4 was set in a fictional setting of Tibet, but this time the player is stuck in the rural area of Hope County in Montana USA.

This fictional land has been cut off from the rest of the world and has been overrun by a deadly cult led by the maniacal Joseph Seed. This cult has pretty much taken control of Hope County and its members are deadly cause they kill anyone that gets in their way. 

The only big issue I have with the story is that outside of the villain Joseph Seed, there are no other characters that are very memorable in Far Cry 5 that pushes the narrative forward. It does not help that you play a mute and nameless rookie called "The Deputy" which made me uninterested with the main character.

I think the plot of the game would have been much better if the main character was more involved because "The Deputy" has no emotional impact on the narrative whatsoever. Your character is just relegated to doing lots of fetch quests for many lifeless and boring characters that populate Hope County.  Arguably the best and only likeable character in the entire game is Boomer the dog who is similar to Dogmeat from Fallout 4. Boomer can tag along with The Deputy to help them take down bad guys and more. There are other human characters that you can partner up with as well, although none of them are as cute as Boomer.

In terms of core gameplay, Far Cry 5 is still pretty much similar to Far Cry 4 and other open-world style video games made by Ubisoft. To me, Far Cry 5 feels like the first-person shooter version of last year's Ghost Recon: Wildlands because both games are about liberating innocent people against a force that has lots of guns and firepower.

In Far Cry 5, the evil cult members have pretty much taken over and you have to save people who have been kidnapped by them. This task is easier said than done because Joseph Seed's army is large because they have access to helicopters, trunks, guns and more!

Thankfully, the player can fight back and has access to similar weapons and equipment. Pretty much every vehicle in the game is playable so you can drive a truck throughout the entire map and try to run over as many bad guys as you want. The resistance also have their own weapons including the likes of machines guns, sniper rifles, grenades and lots of other firepower.  However, my favourite thing to do in Far Cry 5 is to fly a plane and explore the entire huge map of the game. The plane I managed to unlock is pretty cool because it has machine guns and also has the ability to drop bombs. The best mission I played in the game was flying the plane destroying a huge statue that Joseph Seed built for himself.

Not every mission in Far Cry 5 is about shooting baddies and liberating people from the cult though. The side missions are pretty cool as one funny quest was to prepare for an upcoming bull testicles festival while in another mission I had to race through a dirt track while riding inside of a 4WD.

That said, the game can get repetitive sometimes since most of the story missions feel the same. There's still lots of missions to do and I'm sure it will keep players occupied for several hours.

While the gameplay might get repetitive sometimes, the graphics are diverse and it has one of the best visuals I've seen so far from Ubisoft. I played the game on Xbox One X and the native 4K resolution made Far Cry 5 look pretty beautiful. The country side looks really realistic and the water effects have to be seen to be believed.

Anyway, Far Cry 5 may not innovate in terms of its gameplay but the visuals are great and there's tons of missions for you to undertake. The only major thing holding the game down is a lacklustre story with a nameless protagonist and unmemorable characters outside of the main villain. It's still a fun game though if you just want to play a game that has an endless number of quests.   Verdict: 8.0/10