Ubisoft has churned out another masterpiece in the Far Cry series. Ever since taking over the engine that the Far Cry series is based on from Crytek. Ubisoft has developed the game into a must have for FPS fans, with groundbreaking visuals and a mind-bending true to life Story Far Cry 5 is up there for me as one of the best in the series.

Now I dabbled in Far Cry 2 on the Xbox 360 but never got to grips with it, but ever since Far Cry 3 was released I have been hooked. Far Cry 4 was a little meh and Primal lacked that little thing called longevity but Far Cry 5 is the rubber stamp for me as a great FPS which kept me hooked for days.

The story follows for the first time a character named as Rook as you’re a rookie cop on your first assignment…shock! But for the first time, you’re able to create your character with limited customisation option but many offers of clothing apparel to select, some that are unlocked from signing up to Ubi Club and others that require an email notification to collect. So once you have your character sorted you’re ready to embark on the sheer amazing Hope County in Montana, the map is completely fictional but I feel some parts may be based on real landmarks.

Before I embark on the heaps of Pros in this game I’ll share one of and pretty much the main issue I have with Far Cry 5, Ubisoft stated the game is completely Co-Op if you desire to do that but the one downfall is that if you join a friends game your story progress is frozen. Yes, you can earn money and gain skill points and also complete challenges but then if I complete the game with my mate I then have to do it again on my own game…pretty silly really. This really frustrated me as Far Cry 5 was released really close to EA’s A Way Out which is completely Co-Op. The Co-Op in Far Cry 4 was fine you both gain faction progress and also story missions were moving forward but this time they changed it.

So with that out of the way, the pros of Far Cry 5, visuals…HOLY SHIT! I played this on the Xbox One X with a 4K TV as the visuals are eye-watering, the water textures and foliage around hope county made me feel I was there. The story follows a cult that use a hallucinogen drug to mind control people into following them.

The map is separated into three family members, you have Faith, Jacob and John each have their own unique ways of dealing with you, John has silos that you need to destroy, Jacob has Judges (White genetically modified wolfs) and Wolf structures that you need to destroy and Faith has bliss addicts and shrines that you need to destroy. The game is free to play either way you want I started with John and in my opinion, he was the best out of the three he wants to purify you and feels that engraving people with sins are the way to do that. Jacob uses the song Only You by The Platters to mind control you, he was one of the tougher bosses and Faith uses bliss to take over people and control their thoughts. The story really made me think deeply about how people think and also the characters told such a story it actually made me feel sorry for them. Joseph is the cult leader and the main figurehead in Hope County. He is the next great boss to mirror Vaas in Far Cry 3.

Upgraded in Far Cry 5 is the for hire option, in 4 you used this to work with Hurk and also this was the Co-Op option but in Far Cry 5, you’re able to have humans and animals follow you to take back control on Hope County. You can have Hunters, Heavy Weapons experts, aerial support and snipers to animals like Boomer the dog who spots animals to hunt and also enemies and can sometimes bring back weapons for you. Peaches is a cougar who you can control who uses the art of stealth and Cheeseburger the bear who is the complete opposite to Peaches and is a loud tank that bulldozes through enemies.

You can select that companions you wish, you’re only able to have two at a time and if they die there is a cooling off period of 10 minutes (real-time) until they rejoin you. What I do like about the companions even the animals is that they can revive you if you fall in battle. I like the amount of free reign you as a player has in Far Cry 5, you can sprint across the map, fly or drive (cars and boats) the map is filled with animals that can attack you and will also flee so that you can’t even see…yes i’m talking about the Hare…little bastard!

Within the game you’re set with challenges that you can complete to earn perk points, there is no experience in this game. You earn perk points which are handy for playing co-op with your friends and also playing the arcade. You have free choice to whatever perks you want to unlock as long as you have the right amount of points or that the perk is unlocked, some like the health increase are locked in stages. You can also reduce the length of cooldown for your followers to come back as well.

I managed to clock the game over four days but three of them were hardcore playing, I believe I racked up over 30+ hours playtime so there are loads to do. As I mentioned previously you have challenges these can be to kill a certain amount of enemies with a certain weapon or kill or catch (more on this afterwards) a certain animal. Catching animals is on;y with fish…at first I felt that would be a chore but it is actually relaxing…don’t think it’s as relaxing as doing for real but still pretty cool in a game. There are certain fish locked to set areas and then there are normal spots for common fish and the hard spots, you earn the same amount of money for fish no matter the weight but if you can beat the county records of weights per fish you can unlock the best rod in the game…my only issue with this was once i did that i had no need to use the rod unless I wanted to relax and at this stage I had completed the game.

Once you complete the game and have done everything there isn’t much left to keep you hooked until the DLC, you can redo all the outposts by pressing start and selecting outpost master but do you really want to do that? All you get is money.

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