Far Cry 5

Sometimes being too on the nose when it comes to making a statement with media isn't all that useful since anyone who isn't already 100% on board will get turned off entirely and won't give you the time of day.

But I actually don't think the Far Cry developers really intend to make a statement, they just wanted to make a Far Cry game set in the United States, settled on Montana for ascetic reasons, and then had to construct a semi-plausible scenario that would result in a "Far Cry" style crises in that setting.

Since Montana isn't very ethnically diverse (the only significant non-white population are Native Americans, and even they only make up 6.3% of the population, no other ethnic minority cracks 1%), an outright white-supremacist organization would be tricky since there just aren't all that many non-white people there. There's individuals, sure, but the setting just isn't very conducive to a large-scale racial conflict the way it could be in other states.

But a since a fanatical and violent doomsday cult can directly oppress other white people, that's the direction Ubisoft went in.

Side note: After reading the Demographics information on Montana which, full disclosure, I did not actually know off the top of my head, I do think they should have a small native reservation within Hope County. It doesn't have to be a huge presence in the story, but they have their own corner of the map where they are fighting the cult and they contribute to the fight in their own way.

I like the idea of having a custom character in a Far Cry game, but I'm worried that the character will be less developed unless they are going to implement custom protagonists like how BioWare does it in their RPGs.

While I do think that's somewhat of an inevitability, your character does at least have an explicit backstory as a deputy sheriff. Which will at least provides a certain level of context for what the character is doing in Hope County and how people are going to react to him or her.

He/she better be able to talk. I don't like silent protagonists.

We've been moving towards a bland player character for a while. Ajay Ghale barely spoke and had next to no character development worth noting, in reaction to the negative reception of Jason Brody.

Was there a negative reaction to Jason? I really loved his arc and just felt it was poorly implemented.

Wasn't Montana one of those whites only states back in the day? Or am I thinking of Oregon? Either way the state currently has a bit of a racist problem. Richard Spencer and others make their home in the state and militia groups tend to be exclusively white or close to it.

We do see a black goon and I think I saw a couple black people in the church so this cult is probably not racist.

Well yeah, which is why all the people yelling about such were...premature.

Racist or not it still has a ton of stuff related to the far-right.

Still a damn shame if they turn out to not be racist.

Is it? It shows these ideologies and conspiracy theories aren't exclusive to any one race.

Right wing militia nutjobs are sort of a right wing White American problem. It'd be a hell of a disservice not to recognize the racial issues with these types of people.

The Project at Eden's Gate aren't exactly your standard right-wing militia by any definition. While many do have a religious element to them, this is very much a fanatical religious cult first and anything else second. I could definitely see a situation where they are a-okay with ethnic minorities...as long as they are also members of the cult and therefore subservient to the (white) leaders.

If there is a racism element addressed directly, it will likely be less of a case of them having an explicit white supremacist agenda and more a case of a cult member, as an individual, being a super racist while confronting Pastor Jerome Jeffries.

Or they could be old school racists where you should stick to your "own kind". Think bioshock infinite where the blacks weren't slaves but if they didn't stay in their corner they'd be murdered.

This would've been in development around the same time as the take over of the wildlife reserve and the rise of the militia movement so I'm thinking less trump and more alex jones. I know there isn't much difference there but -shrug-

I just caught an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown from last year on Montana, and it had some pretty good shots of the landscape, so I'm certainly curious to see what this game will do with it.

Although the urban areas were pretty interesting too, former company towns still trucking along, I imagine they won't come into play.

Garcon; Seriously dude knock it off.

Sorry, it's just something I'm real disappointed about. Especially since Ubisoft has gone on about how controversial this is going to be.

It feels a lot like they're playing it safe and not actually trying to take any real risks with the villain choices and are just playing it up for marketing. I don't really appreciate it.

If they wanna make a bold statement with this game like they advertise then they should make one not make some safe play digging at a group that hasn't been relevant for almost decades now.

edited 27th May '17 9:41:29 PM by LeGarcon

Cults like this have been out of the zeitgeist for a while now. Waco was almost 25 years ago. So I have to think that angle is to deflect criticism. They're using cross-like symbols, they deliberately evoke iconography of the Last Supper and their scripture is clearly intended to sound biblical. They've basically been set up to be as close to Christian fundamentalists as they can get away with. Westboro also came to mind immediately when I saw the trailer.

It's not too hard to grasp they're doing this to be deliberately controversial for the outrage hype, while at the same time using acceptable targets. Seeing as Far Cry 3 and 4 leaned left, as does the studio itself, I'm also betting this is someone's grand opportunity for an author tract.

Now, if you want to see a game that in my opinion is pretty good at being neutral in the left-right divide, the team of writers on The Division campaign did a good job on that. The main villain espouses rhetoric from both sides of the political spectrum and can be argued to be an 'either-wing nutjob'. Also different enemy groups are straw boogymen for the left or right.

I'm going to guess they'll be the "cultural racist" type. I.e minorities are more than welcome to join Eden's Gate if they don't act like minorities and accept Eden's Gate's culture as their own.

Garcon: It is controversial. Not only are the enemies a nominally right aligned militia but a religious militia. That is pretty much jumping up and down on a topic that is overtly known to start flame wars and cause family to block each other face book.

Branch Davidans style apocalyptic religious cults haven't been relevant for a long time. They wanna be relevant, bold and controversial? Let us shoot some right wing militia fanatics who are actually still around.

Like said, Waco was 25 years ago.

Most of the modern militia types are drawn along racial lines or Sovereign Citizen type beliefs these dayts. Not religious doomsday cult ones. Lets make them bad guys for once, not someone who's long dead and buried.

edited 27th May '17 9:49:01 PM by LeGarcon

I'm with Teufel on this one. Just setting this game in the United States itself is a recipe for controversy. After all, you're going to spend most of your ammo shooting white southerners. Don't tell me that isn't going to piss some silly people off. As has been noted just a few posts ago, it really doesn't take much to get right-wingers up in arms about some petty cultural issue. As much as they like to bitch about "muh Political Correctness", most of them are looking for an excuse to get mad about something for no good reason.

Garcon; Again No they are not restricted to racial lines, the religious element including dooms day nuts are alive and well. Seriously dude climb off the high horse.

Yeah, I don't think it needs to be that topical. Modern neo-nazis range from all talk, to criminals of varying scales, to individual lunatics.

A cult combined with survivalist militia types (in Far Cry world at least), would more believably have the firepower and manpower to create the typical Far Cry scenario.

edited 27th May '17 10:12:08 PM by Eschaton

Also, just because the cult has black members doesn't mean it isn't racist. Just that it's accepting of black people.

Look, race will probably come up, but is probably NOT going to be the main reason that they are villains.

If they were, they'd probably feel REALLY Bioshock: Infinite-esque.

I'd rather they focused on other angles of characterization and relegate the racism to small, contextual, but powerful moments. Racism, when thrown in as the main character trait, kind of tends to feel really 2 Dimensional in video games. I'd argue this is probably due to bad writing, but still smaller more powerful moments where it comes up would be a smarter move writing wise.