History YMMV / FarCry4

* TheScrappy: Rabi Ray Rana, for his often disgusting speeches which always seem to come around to his [[ToiletHumor odd fascination with shit]]. Alongside this, once you take over a radio tower, you're pretty much stuck with Rabi's broadcasts over any actual music. It doesn't help that he tends to repeat himself.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Rebellions are not always a good thing: without foresight or competent leadership, a rebellion can result in another dictatorship.
* {{Fanon}}: A great deal of fans considered the shortcut ending where you [[spoiler:waited like a normal person for 13 minutes, then Pagan returned and took you to your sister's altar to place your mother's ashes]] the ''true'' ending. This is because of a combination of SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments in this ending and the ridiculous amount of DarknessInducedAudienceApathy in other endings.

* {{Narm}}: Yuma's dramatic speech while Ajay is held prisoner at Durgesh is ruined slightly by the way she says some of its words.

* CrazyAwesome: Pagan's Min's EstablishingCharacterMoment with his customized pen at the start of the game. MoodWhiplash at its finest.

* AssPull: What happens when you complete the Kyrat Fashion Week Questline? [[spoiler:The guy who gave you the quests leaves, claming that Pagan has found out about him. The fans were, unsurprisingly, not happy.]]

** It's difficult to pick who to blame in this case: Amita for not supplying Ajay with a gas mask or Ajay for not thinking to ask or bring one himself. Either way, after flooding an underground opiate facility with toxic fumes in order to drive out the occupants (it wasn't an accident either, it was all part of the plan) Ajay goes barging in without any protection whatsoever and predictably starts [[MushroomSamba tripping balls.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: As the plot progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no best, or even just plain good, solution for Kyrat. The Golden Path's leaders are either pragmatic to a dangerous level or scarily traditionalist with all that implies, and Ajay himself may (at the player's discretion) be guided by a good heart, but he has no experience in politics or ruling a country. Any sense of grandeur or high conflict for the story is lost as it turns into a power struggle between two equally bad extremes. [[spoiler:Killing both of the Golden Path's leaders during the course of the game and getting handed Kyrat by Pagan Min is what could be seen as the best option, but we've no indication that Ajay isn't going down as dark a path as Pagan did, especially as he had to kill his way to the top to get here.]] There's no sense of tension or interesting conflict because no one is likeable, except maybe Ajay [[spoiler:and ironically Pagan Min once his past gets explained]], which removes any meaning from the endings.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: As the plot progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no best, or even just plain good, solution for Kyrat. The Golden Path's leaders are either pragmatic to a dangerous level or scarily traditionalist with all that implies, and Ajay himself may (at the player's discretion) be guided by a good heart, but he has no experience in politics or ruling a country. Any sense of grandeur or high conflict for the story is lost as it turns into a power struggle between two equally bad extremes. [[spoiler:Killing both of the Golden Path's leaders during the course of the game and getting handed Kyrat by Pagan Min is what could be seen as the best option, but we've no indication that Ajay isn't going down as dark a path as Pagan did, especially as he had to kill his way to the top to get here.]] There's no sense of tension or interesting conflict because no one is likeable, except maybe Ajay, which removes any meaning from the endings.

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler: The Goat, assuming that is him hanging around his lair, is just an ordinary Royal Army scout that goes down like everybody else. You might even kill him on instinct before you realize who he is.]]

** The Buzzer is overpowered to the point where you can use it to get past jumping puzzles on the radio towers and float untouchably above outposts as you shell them with a grenade launcher.
** The "Buzzsaw" signature weapon. On top of the regular MG-42 machine gun's blistering rate of fire, it boasts near-maximum damage per bullet (on par with a heavy sniper rifle), enabling it to kill pretty much every non-heavy human enemy with one shot, and heavies in a short burst to whatever body part you prefer to aim at. Combine that with the Buzzsaw's ridiculously huge 400-round belt (it carries more ammo than ''you'' do unless you've absolutely maxed out your ammo bag's upgrades), ridiculously fast reload, ridiculously high accuracy even during hip-firing (did I mention the thing [[UpToEleven also has an optical scope, given the zoom of the 4x sight, for pinpoint long-range precision]]?) and its ridiculously weak recoil, and you have a mid-game weapon that can and will brutalize everything the game throws at you at any range with contemptuous ease, from rhinos over trucks and helicopters to heavy gunners and entire armies of elite soldiers. It's also ridiculously easy to unlock - liberating all 17 bell towers on the map is a cakewalk compared to unlocking the next-best machine gun, the Ripper, which requires Ajay to conquer all four fortresses and isn't nearly as powerful. There's literally nothing stopping players from grabbing a chopper and consequently the Buzzsaw the moment they break through into the northern part of Kyrat, thus turning the entire rest of the game into a CurbStompBattle for everyone on the receiving end of this gun - except maybe for the cash to buy it, but money is ridiculously easy to come by and by that point you're probably swimming in it, as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qabWT_bHic here]].
** The Hunting Syringe makes the Camera redundant in many circumstances, as it automatically tags every enemy and animal within a certain distance. It also disables one of the [[KungFuProofMook Hunters]]' main advantages, as they will stay tagged for the duration of the syringe's effects, and once you've done enough of Yogi and Reggie's missions you can increase its duration, up to a minute and a half.
** The M79 grenade launcher is nearly silent and has an incredible range once you get a feel for the arcing. It makes a better sniper rifle than any actual sniper rifles with its consistent trajectory and the explosive results, and it's not hard to clear outposts with it while never being detected. [[MythologyGag It also counts as a sidearm]], since it was shunted into the sidearm slot in ''Far Cry 2'', so you can dump grenades on an outpost from the safety of a Buzzer flying outside the enemy's detection radius as well.
** The SA-50 is an anti-materiel Sniper Rifle that has a nice magazine, it's semi-automatic unlike the Z93 and the M-700 and a one-hit kill against all enemies, even Heavies if [[BoomHeadshot shot through the head]]. Oh, and you can equip it with a suppressor, unlike the SVD (the other semi-auto sniper), which lets you clear outposts without being caught, especially seeing as it's one of the few weapons that can penetrate walls.

* ToughActToFollow: The decision to cast Troy Baker as Pagan Min was initially met with skepticism (see above in BrokenBase for details), especially since it was following the excellent display provided by Creator/MichaelMando as Vaas in the previous game. Critics and fans alike consider his performance as one of the game's highlights. It helps that [[spoiler:the character is a whole lot more complex than the initial first impressions of the reveal trailer, especially with his sympathetic back-story]] and that the leaders of the forces opposing him are [[spoiler:downright unlikable]] and have plans that are [[spoiler:no better or even worse than the current narco-state Pagan rules.]] Baker even won awards for the role.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: [[spoiler: The leaders of LaResistance turn out to be no better than the EvilOverlord. So you're going to spend a whole game slogging away to enable slavery and oppression.]] Even if you still want to play the game, knowing that ''that'' is coming sucks some of the fun out of capturing outposts, flying around in gyrocopters, riding elephants and fighting honey badgers.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Rebellions are not always a good thing: without foresight or competent leadership, a rebellion can lead to a power vacuum and a pendulum effect that results in another dictatorship.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Don't always assume that a dictatorship is bad, and rebellions aren't always a good thing because one dictatorship can lead to another without competent leadership.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Don't always assume that a dictatorship is bad and rebellions aren't always a good thing because one dictatorship can lead to another without competant leadership.

** The "Buzzsaw" signature weapon. On top of the regular MG-42 machine gun's blistering rate of fire, it boasts near-maximum damage per bullet (on par with a heavy sniper rifle), enabling it to kill pretty much every non-heavy human enemy with one shot, and heavies in a short burst to whatever body part you prefer to aim at. Combine that with the Buzzsaw's ridiculously huge 400-round belt (it carries more ammo than ''you'' do unless you've absolutely maxed out your ammo bag's upgrades), ridiculously fast reload, ridiculously high accuracy even during hip-firing (did I mention the thing [[UpToEleven also has an optical scope, given the zoom of the 4x sight, for pinpoint long-range precision, which has the zoom of the 4x sight]]?) and its ridiculously weak recoil, and you have a mid-game weapon that can and will brutalize everything the game throws at you at any range with contemptuous ease, from rhinos over trucks and helicopters to heavy gunners and entire armies of elite soldiers. It's also ridiculously easy to unlock - liberating all 17 bell towers on the map is a cakewalk compared to unlocking the next-best machine gun, the Ripper, which requires Ajay to conquer all four fortresses and isn't nearly as powerful. There's literally nothing stopping players from grabbing a chopper and consequently the Buzzsaw the moment they break through into the northern part of Kyrat, thus turning the entire rest of the game into a CurbStompBattle for everyone on the receiving end of this gun - except maybe for the cash to buy it, but money is ridiculously easy to come by and by that point you're probably swimming in it, as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qabWT_bHic here]].

** However, the SA-50 is an anti-materiel Sniper Rifle that has a nice magazine, it's semi-automatic unlike the Z93 and the M-700 and a one-hit kill against all enemies, even Heavies if [[BoomHeadshot shot through the head]]. Oh, and you can equip it with a suppressor, unlike the SVD (the other semi-auto sniper), which lets you clear outposts without being caught, especially seeing as it's one of the few weapons that can penetrate walls.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Pagan Min is this in a lot of fan's eyes. Played with, because while the game presents Pagan Min as a psychopathic despot, the rebels he's fighting against aren't that much better [[spoiler:and according to the ending, are [[WouldHurtAChild even worse]]]]. Pagan Min also has some PetTheDog moments, which show there is a human being underneath the crazy. The fact he personally likes and respects the player character helps matters. [[spoiler: You can let him go in the end.]] Despite this, his sympathizers usually gloss over that he's still brutal dictator who commits human rights abuses for his own amusement and lives in luxury while the rest of the country is destitue.

* DracoInLeatherPants: Pagan Min is this in a lot of fan's eyes. Played with, because while the game presents Pagan Min as a psychopathic despot, the rebels he's fighting against aren't that much better [[spoiler:and according to the ending, are [[WouldHurtAChild even worse]]]]. Pagan Min also has some PetTheDog moments, which show there is a human being underneath the crazy. The fact he personally likes and respects the player character helps matters. [[spoiler: You can let him go in the end.]]

** The "Buzzsaw" signature weapon. On top of the regular MG-42 machine gun's blistering rate of fire, it boasts near-maximum damage per bullet (on par with a heavy sniper rifle), enabling it to kill pretty much every non-heavy human enemy with one shot, and heavies in a short burst to whatever body part you prefer to aim at. Combine that with the Buzzsaw's ridiculously huge 400 round belt, ridiculously fast reload, ridiculously high accuracy even during hip-firing (did I mention the thing [[UpToEleven also has an optical scope for pinpoint long-range precision]]?) and its ridiculously weak recoil, and you have a mid-game weapon that can and will brutalize everything the game throws at you at any range with contemptuous ease, from rhinos over trucks and helicopters to heavy gunners and entire armies of elite soldiers. It's also ridiculously easy to unlock - liberating all 17 bell towers on the map is a cakewalk compared to unlocking the next-best machine gun, the Ripper, which requires Ajay to conquer all four fortresses and isn't nearly as powerful. There's literally nothing stopping players from grabbing a chopper and consequently the Buzzsaw the moment they break through into the northern part of Kyrat, thus turning the entire rest of the game into a CurbStompBattle for everyone on the receiving end of this gun - except maybe for the cash to buy it, but money is ridiculously easy to come by and by that point you're probably swimming in it, as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qabWT_bHic here]].
** The Hunting Syringe makes the Camera redundant in many circumstances, as it automatically tags every enemy and animal within a certain distance. It also disables one of the [[KungFuProofMook Hunters]]' main advantages, as they will stay tagged for the duration of the syringe's effects.

* IdiotPlot: [[spoiler: The entire plot, and all the pain in it, occur because Pagan Min and Ajay's mom both never explain ANYTHING.]]

* MagnificentBastard: [[BigBad Pagan Min]] is the charismatic [[EvilOverlord dictator]] of Kyrat, who started off as the son of a mid-level crime boss. Inheriting his late father's resources and taking the name "Pagan Min", his ambitions led him to Kyrat, helping the Royalists drive out the Nationalists before killing the Royalists' heir and taking Kyrat for himself. Seducing the Golden Path's spy, Ishwari, the two fell in love and sired a daughter, Lakshmana, resulting in Golden Path leader, Mohan Ghale, killing Lakshmana, Ishwari then killing Mohan in retribution. When Ishwari's son, [[PlayerCharacter Ajay Ghale]], arrives in Kyrat to place her ashes next to Lakshmana, Pagan Min warmly welcomes Ajay before exposing Darpan as a Golden Path Spy. He also has his body double travel throughout Kyrat, to distract the Golden Path into killing him, while he would later appear live on television to discredit them and expose the [[TheStarscream traitorous]] Yuma Lau's whereabouts so they can kill her for him. When Ajay confronts Pagan Min, the latter offers him a choice; he can kill him or allow Pagan take his mother's ashes to Lakshmana. Should Ajay choose the latter, Pagan Min tells him about the Golden Path's atrocities and gives Ajay Kyrat before making his exit.

** [[spoiler:Mohan Ghale]] was revealed to have crossed it in the past when he killed his wife's daughter [[spoiler:and Ajay's half sister, Lakshmana]] to make an example. It ''does not'' help that the circumstances of [[spoiler:Lakshmana's conception was sending his wife on a Honey Trap mission on Pagan Min in the first place,]] pretty much making [[spoiler:Lakshmana's]] entire existence an act of war.
** Pagan Min, for all [[NobleDemon that's likeable about him]], is not without fault himself as [[spoiler: in retaliation for Dr. Noore speaking out against him, took her family hostage to make Noore work for him by running GladiatorGames. When Noore learns her family was already dead, she kills herself]].
** Noore herself had crossed it along time ago unwillingly by hosting the GladiatorGames by sending innocent people to their deaths and allowing herself to be [[BecomingTheMask gradually brainwashed by Pagan's influence to secretly love hosting these death matches]], all because [[spoiler: Pagan took Noore's family hostage to force her to do so]]. These actions are considered to be beyond redemption for Noore in the eyes of Golden Path leaders Amita and Sabal, who shows NoSympathy at all why Noore did it and ordered her death sentence. Even Noore thinks she's beyond saving and not worth it to pull a KarmaHoudini [[spoiler: after learning her family is dead and she had been tricked to run the Gladiator Games For the Evulz and for nothing all along and decides to kill herself rather allowing herself to undeservingly (at least in her, Amita's and Sabal's eyes) live]].

*** [[spoiler:Amita runs the place by taking over Pagan's drug empire as her own, and enforces slave labor on people, with a newfound communist leadership. What's the first thing we see her doing? ''Ordering children to be recruited into the Golden Path'' to combat the last of Pagan's soldiers. And where's Bhadra? Apparently she was "''sent away''", which may or may not be a euphimism]].
*** [[spoiler:Sabal becomes the fanatical leader who enforces old time laws on the people of Kyrat, kills those who didn't follow their old religious beliefs (which during Pagan's reign was the majority of Kyrat) and executes half of the Golden Path for siding with Amita. He also announces Bhadra to Tarun Matara, which may or may not be a good thing]].

* ThatOneSidequest: The five Shangri La levels are the bane of many a player, mostly because they differ so extremely from how the rest of the game is usually played. You're suddenly saddled with a player character with no armor and only three health bars (if you want more, you need to find up to three hidden collectibles [[BagOfSpilling again and again in every single level]]) who only wields a knife and a pretty weak bow. The levels are absolutely crawling with lethal enemies that also spawn lots of reinforcements while you're fighting them, and since most of them charge you in packs, sniping them all is rarely an option, forcing you into dangerous close combat most of the time. Later on, [[KillItWithFire Scorchers]] begin to show up which require tag-teaming with a quite squishy tiger ally to take down. That all of this plays out in a very unsettling EldritchLocation and is overlaid by your character's frequent, detached, pretentious narration in untranslated Hindi doesn't help the case. Fortunately, only the first level is mandatory to advance the main story, but you need to complete at least the next one as well if you want to unlock a very useful sniper skill, and if you want to enjoy the game's sole real BossBattle, you'll have to endure the whole mission set. And to make things worse, every time you return to the real world you've lost any armor you had, plus up to 100,000+ rupees worth of ammo.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: At the end of ''Valley of the Yetis'' it appears you [[spoiler: turn into a Yeti. Sadly instead of giving some kind of mission that revolves around this where you can plow through cult members and other yetis with super strength, the game just ends]].
** There are also some fans who thought that [[spoiler: not having a campaign at the secret ending where you side with Pagan Min and kill all the terrorists with him]] is this trope.
* ToughActToFollow: The decision to cast Troy Baker as Pagan Min was initially met with skepticism (See above in BrokenBase for details), especially since it was following the excellent display provided by Creator/MichaelMando as Vaas in the previous game. Critics and fans alike consider his performance as one of the game's highlights. It helps that [[spoiler: the character is a whole lot more complex than the initial first impressions of the reveal trailer, especially with his sympathetic back-story]] and that the leaders of the forces opposing him are [[spoiler: downright unlikable]] and have plans that are [[spoiler: no better or even worse than the current narco-state Pagan rules.]] Baker even won awards for the role.

** And of course, the implied support of Pagan Min's drug-running empire by the United States, specifically by the CIA [[spoiler: and Agent Willis]] brings to mind a whole slew of CIA-funded despotic regimes, from Augusto Pinochet's Chile to Manuel Noriega's Panama, given the power to oppress their people and commit horrible acts in the name of American security.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Don't always assume that a dictatorship is bad and don't throw yourself into situation without fully understanding the consequences.

* MostAnnoyingSound:
** The people that give out the various Assassination, Eye for an Eye and especially the Hostage Rescue sidequests are ''incredibly'' annoying due to their ceaseless, unbelievably whiny demands for help every time you come within twenty meters of them. It's made exponentially worse by most of the latter waiting ''inside the damn safehouses'', which means almost every time you fast-travel anywhere, you're immediately bombarded with their wails until you accept and finish their quest (and even then they won't leave, and their unending thanks and praises are hardly less annoying). Sure, they're helpless civilians in need of armed assistance, and their requests aren't unreasonable for the OneManArmy under the players' control, but the way they submit their "requests" (or rather: demands) is so grating that only the fact you can't use guns inside safehouses prevents many players from instantly putting a bullet in those guys' heads just to shut them up.
** Predators and aggressive Prey preparing to attack. Be sure to shoot back first!

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Ajay to a lesser extent, some feel that he's a much less interesting protagonist than Jason was in the previous game as he has barely any character development by comparison, while others find him to an improvement overall due to not having Jason's more [[JerkAss offputting]] characteristics.

* DemonicSpiders: Royal Army Hunters, hands down. They can't be permanently tagged with the camera or by aiming at them like every other enemy. They can spot Ajay through brush cover, making stealth attacks exponentially more difficult. They don't bring up a detection meter when they spot the player. They move silently, making them even harder to spot even at close range and an even nastier surprise thanks to the aforementioned missing detection meter. They can charm animals into not attacking the soldiers and attacking Ajay instead, thus turning one of the most useful methods of distraction for raiding outposts against the player. They only use bows instead of firearms, but they're very accurate (and silent) with them and tend to inflict a crap-ton of damage at very long distances while their dozen or so comrades are busy throwing a wall of lead at Ajay without inflicting more than [[ScratchDamage Scratch Damage]]. [[GlassCannon They can't take much punishment in return]], wearing next to no armor, but they can still withstand a dismaying amount of bullets before finally biting the dirt. Even one of those suckers can quickly turn into the biggest threat in any given encounter, and they rarely come alone. You only spotted one Hunter while scoping out that enemy camp? [[ParanoiaFuel Trust me, his buddies are out there, closing in on you.]]
* DesignatedVillain: Pagan Min. We see him lethally stab an underling in his introduction and we are told repeatedly that Pagan Min is a corrupt King doing horrible things to the people of Kyrat by the Golden Path. However, that underling ''shot'' a bus he was supposed to ''stop'' and the people who are stating he does this are essentially terrorists. Any actions Pagan has done has been against these terrorists or anyone that has been helping said terrorists. The Golden Path is also founded on Religion Extremists and not much better, or in some cases, worse than Pagan. Not to mention Kyrat was not doing so well even before he arrived as the country was completely broke and despite having plenty of gold chose to keep it in temples rather than stimulate their economy. This along with Pagan's drug empire practically being the only economy in Kyrat if Amita is to be believed (stating their mines are stripped and their country would be broke without the fields). This all added to the fact that Pagan is nothing but completely nice to the player and was even going to make peace with the Golden Path, [[spoiler: right before the leader murdered his infant daughter]]. Makes one easily [[RootingForTheEmpire root for the Empire]].
** What he does to Noore however, is nothing but KickTheDog. [[spoiler: He kidnaps her family, has them killed, but never tells her about it because he makes her go to work for him under the guise that once he feels she has done enough for him, he'll give them back. Said work involves the ironic hell of making a doctor run a Blood Sport arena. All this for labeling him one of the worst human rights violators in the world.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: In the ending [[spoiler: where the marxist Amita lives, she presides over the beginnings of a forced exodus of people from towns and villages in Kyrat]] in order to enslave and use them as a [[spoiler: forced labor while taking children to have them indoctrinated into becoming child soldiers]] is similar to the actions of Pol Pot and the first weeks in his Marxist dictatorship of Cambodia. In the case of [[spoiler: Amita however, it's heroin cultivation and industrial sweat-shops rather than]] agricultural collectivization.
** Also the plot in general. We have a EvilOverlord dictator who tries to bring the country under his control through wanton violence and [[spoiler: isn't quite the Complete Monster he's made out to be by his enemies]], fighting against a divided LaResistance which at the beginning looked the part but is later revealed to have [[spoiler: devolved from being well-intentioned extremists]] to just being extremists and [[spoiler: turn out to be no better than the tyrant they fight against]]. Seems Ubisoft took inspiration from how the early stages of the Syrian civil war progressed when writing the game.

* EvenBetterSequel: To ''Far Cry 3'', with fans citing the verticality, various returning features from ''Far Cry 2'' and less heavy-handed writing as improvements.

** The "Buzzsaw" signature weapon. On top of the regular MG-42 machine gun's blistering rate of fire, it boasts near-maximum damage per bullet (on par with a heavy sniper rifle), enabling it to kill pretty much every non-heavy human enemy with one shot, and heavies in a short burst to whatever body part you prefer to aim at. Combine that with the Buzzsaw's ridiculously huge 400 round clip size, ridiculously fast reload, ridiculously high accuracy even during hip-firing (did I mention the thing [[UpToEleven also has an optical scope for pinpoint long-range precision]]?) and its ridiculously weak recoil, and you have a mid-game weapon that can and will brutalize everything the game throws at you at any range with contemptuous ease, from rhinos over trucks and helicopters to heavy gunners and entire armies of elite soldiers. It's also ridiculously easy to unlock - liberating all 17 bell towers on the map is a cakewalk compared to unlocking the next-best machine gun, the Ripper, which requires Ajay to conquer all four fortresses and isn't nearly as powerful. There's literally nothing stopping players from grabbing a chopper and consequently the Buzzsaw the moment they break through into the northern part of Kyrat, thus turning the entire rest of the game into a CurbStompBattle for everyone on the receiving end of this gun - except maybe for the cash to buy it, but money is ridiculously easy to come by and by that point you're probably swimming in it, as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qabWT_bHic here]].

** The M79 grenade launcher is nearly silent and has an incredible range once you get a feel for the arcing. It makes a better sniper rifle than any actual sniper rifles, and it's not hard to clear outposts with it while never being detected. [[MythologyGag It also counts as a sidearm]].

** [[spoiler: Mohan Ghale]], has revealed to have crossed it in the past when he killed his wife's daughter [[spoiler:and Ajay's half sister, Lakshmana]] to make an example. It ''does not'' help that the circumstances of [[spoiler:Lakshmana's conception was sending his wife on a Honey Trap mission on Pagan Min in the first place,]] pretty much making [[spoiler:Lakshamana's]] entire existence an act of war.

** Should you [[spoiler: choose Sabal or Amita as the new leader of the Golden Path, they both have their own crossings after the game. An earlier foreshaowing example is when whoever you sided with, asks you to kill the other, making the first step to crossing the horizon]].
*** [[spoiler: Amita runs the place by taking over Pagan's drug empire as her own, and enforces slave labor on people, with a newfound communist leadership. What's the first thing we see her doing ? ''Ordering children to be recruited into the Golden Path'' to combat the last of Pagan's soldiers. And where's Bhadra? Apparently she was "''sent away''", which may or may not be a euphimism]].
*** [[spoiler: Sabal becomes the fanatical leader who enforces old time laws on the people of Kyrat, kills those who didn't follow their old religious beliefs (which during Pagan's reign was the majority of Kyrat) and executes half of the Golden Path for siding with Amita. He also announces Bhadra to Tarun Matara, which may or may not be a good thing]].

* TheScrappy: Rabi Ray Rana, for his often disgusting speeches which always seem to come around to his odd fascination with shit. Alongside this, once you take over a radio tower, you're pretty much stuck with Rabi's broadcasts over any actual music. It doesn't help that he tends to repeat himself.

** After being [[spoiler:left for dead by Willis]], you automatically begin the mission "Don't Look Down". All your equipment is removed as [[spoiler:you've been captured by Pagan and Yuma. You need to escape Durgesh Prison]]. What makes this difficult is the process of finding enough stuff to make a grappling hook [[StealthBasedMission without being spotted by]] the hallucination demon. You can't kill him as you have no Machete. As you make your way down the mountain, you have limited supplies to get past the guards. You still don't have a Machete, but you do at least get some throwing knives. The Heavy Mooks absolutely cannot be dispatched with subtlety.

* {{Fanon}}: A great deal of fans considered the shortcut ending where you [[spoiler:waited like a normal person in 13 minutes then Pagan returned and took you to your sister's altar to place your mother's ashes]] the ''true'' ending. This is because of a combination of SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments in this ending and the ridiculous amount of DarknessInducedAudienceApathy in other endings.

* IdiotPlot: [[spoiler: The entire plot, and all the pain in it, occur because Pagan Min and Ajay's mom? Both never explain ANYTHING.]]

* MagnificentBastard: [[BigBad Pagan Min]] is the charismatic [[EvilOverlord dictator]] of Kyrat, who started off as the son of a mid-level crime boss. Inheriting his late father's resources and taking the name "Pagan Min", his ambitions led him to Kyrat, helping the Royalists drive out the Nationalists before killing the Royalists' heir and taking Kyrat for himself. Seducing the Golden Path's spy, Ishwari, the two fell in love and sired a daughter, Lakshmana, resulting in Golden Path leader, Mohan Ghale, killing Lakshmana, Ishwari then killing Mohan in retribution. When Ishwari's son, [[PlayerCharacter Ajay Ghale]], arrives in Kyrat to place her ashes next to Lakshmana, Pagan Min warmly welcomes Ajay before exposing Darpan as a Golden Path Spy. He also has his body double travel throughout Kyrat, to distract the Golden Path into killing him, while he would later appear live on television to discredit them and expose the [[TheStarscream traitorous]] Yuma Lau's whereabouts so they can kill her for him. When Ajay confronts Pagan Min, the latter offers him a choice; he can kill him or allow Pagan take his mother's ashes to Lakshmana. Should Ajay choose the latter Pagan Min tells him about the Golden Path's atrocities and gives Ajay Kyrat before making his exit.

*** [[spoiler: Sabal becomes the fanatical leader who enforces old time laws on the people of Kyrat, kills those who didn't follow their old time religious beliefs (which during Pagan's reign amounts to a majority of Kyrat) and executes half of the Golden Path for siding with Amita. He also announces Bhadra to Tarun Matara, which may or may not be a good thing]].

*** Whether or not it was put in after this, Pagan manages to call out those that assumed before being sure, telling Ajay via radio that, despite how he looks, he's actually into women, but there was only one person for him in the world.
** An understandable complaint is for the developers' decision to scrap [[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-06-11-far-cry-4-to-also-skip-playable-female-character-due-to-workload playable female characters]] at the last minute because it was too much work, echoing a similar controversy over comments Ubisoft made for [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity another game]] (although they have since clarified on that one). Controversy over the PortingDisaster of a third Ubisoft game, VideoGame/WatchDogs, which was technical issues-based, raised questions of whether the UnfortunateImplications have more to do with overall incompetence and poor resource management than actual sexism or not.

** The Golden Path is probably named after the real life terrorist group, Shining Path.

** The inclusion of feminist marxist rebel, named [[WebVideo/FeministFrequency Amita]], raised more than a few eyebrows from some who viewed it as either a good or cruel joke, but given that Amita is a somewhat stereotypical Indian female name and her feminism is only a part of her vision of modernised Kyrat, they're simply looking into the character too much.
** Western-educated man who has his own career oversea before going back to his birth land and being named as heir to political and governmental position. I am not sure that description more fittingly describe Bashar Al-Assad or Ajay Ghale. Maybe I am reading too much.

* MostAnnoyingSound: The people that give out the various Assassination, Eye for an Eye and especially the Hostage Rescue sidequests are ''incredibly'' annoying due to their ceaseless, unbelievably whiny demands for help every time you come within twenty meters of them. It's made exponentially worse by most of the latter waiting ''inside the damn safehouses'', which means almost every time you fast-travel anywhere, you're immediately bombarded with their wails until you accept and finish their quest (and even then they won't leave, and their unending thanks and praises are hardly less annoying). Sure, they're helpless civilians in need of armed assistance, and their requests aren't unreasonable for the OneManArmy under the players' control, but the way they submit their "requests" (or rather: demands) is so grating that only the fact you can't use guns inside safehouses prevents many players from instantly putting a bullet in those guys' heads just to shut them up.

* ThatOneLevel: The [[StealthBasedMission second half of City of Pain.]] While Amita's version of City of Pain is easier, Sabal's version on the other hand made first-time players infuriated to no end due to rescuing slaves actually being mandatory and the guards are much harder to dispatch without raising the alarm (which fails the mission). Not to mention [[CheckpointStarvation checkpoints are scarce.]] [[spoiler:The best hint is to realize that the ''only'' prisoners you can safely rescue without setting off the alarm are the marked ones - you'll just have to ignore any other ones you see if they're not marked.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: Depends on how you interpret the "Execute" and "Negotiate" endings. You have the option of opening fire with your M1911, put a bullet into Pagan Min's head and calling it a day, or you can negotiate terms of surrender. If you choose "Execute", you're now a hero and the Golden Path rules Kyrat, great. Or is it? In the "Negotiate" ending, [[spoiler:Pagan Min outright tells you that his last will and testament involves giving you ownership of all Kyrat, which he would have done in the first place if you had stayed with him instead of joining the Golden Path. Some fans will argue that being a dictatorial ruler backed by a gang of artistically cruel, backstabbing, civilian killing psychopaths is less preferable than taking over the country by earning it through violence and helping out fellow comrades. Until it turns out that the main character's father went insane and killed Pagan Min's and Ishwari(his wife)'s daughter, which caused him to go off the deep end and start killing people in droves to ease the pain. In addition to this, it's implied that the new leader of the Golden Path will slowly go drunk with power, in part because the other leader is not there to rein in their destructive impulses, and turn Kyrat into a fanatical zealous state or an industrialized slavery hellhole]]. Not to mention, you really DID have the option of just stopping at the very beginning of the game, unlike ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine''; Pagan Min will [[spoiler:give you Kyrat, just like he promised. Though, being under the tutelage of Pagan Min might be worse for Ajay's mind than killing thousands of soldiers.]] Basically, there's no real "good ending", every choice involves compromise of some sort.
** Though you ''can'', in fact, have your crab Rangoon and eat it [[spoiler: if you have the foresight to bring a rocket launcher to the final showdown, anyways. And then, after the ending, you can find the surviving Golden Path ruler and kill ''them'' too, if you wish, leaving Ajay as the only possible heir to Kyrat. Should he stay or should he go?]]

* FanonDiscontinuity: A great deal of fans considered the shortcut ending where you [[spoiler:waited like a normal person in 13 minutes then Pagan returned and took you to your sister's altar to place your mother's ashes]] the ''true'' ending. This is because of a combination of SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments in this ending and the ridiculous amount of DarknessInducedAudienceApathy in other endings.
** Of course, even here, those thirteen minutes are filled with the screams of the man Pagan left to torture.

* GoddamnedBats: Predators in general. They're all easily dispatched, but very annoying. Scoping out an outpost? The game generates a tiger, and you're immediately spotted. Cutting cross-country? One pack of wolves generates and goes down just in time for another pack to pop up. Just walking down the road? The game decides your full health bar should be a bar lower with a random, unprovoked eagle attack.
* IdiotPlot: [[spoiler: The enttire plot, and all the pain in it, occur because Pagan Min and Ajay's mom? Both never explain ANYTHING.]]

* TheScrappy: Rabi Ray Rana, for his often disgusting speeches which always seem to come around to his odd fascination with shit. Alongside this, once you take over a radio tower, you're pretty much stuck with Rabi's broadcasts over any actual music.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The main page quote from Pagan Min is an invoked, in-universe example. Is Ajay really a constantly put-upon AccidentalHero who tried to make the best of a bad situation and honor his dead mother? Or is he just another amoral killer in a country full of them, using whatever lame excuse is on hand to indulge his selfish power fantasies? It should be noted that Pagan Min may be projecting as Ajay Gale does countless missions to protect the locals, defend the innocent, and otherwise incur good karma.

** Did Sabal really believe that Darpan was beyond saving, despite only a room away with only a handful of enemies guarding him, but having only limited time and the more important Ajay to save, or did he [[spoiler:exploit a chance to remove extra competition to leadership of the Golden Path?]] Did he rescue Ajay out of loyalty to Mohan Gale's memory or [[spoiler:because he thought Ajay would be inclined to support him against Amita?]] Both? Is Amita's accusation that he intends to marry the Tarun Matara true? If so, is it to secure his claim over the country or to ''become'' Mohan Ghale.

* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Ajay to a lesser extent, some feel that he's a much less interesting protagonist than Jason was in the previous game as he has barely any character development by comparison, while others find him to an improvement overall due to not having Jason's more [[JerkAss offputting]] characteristics.