And you thought cougars were bad before the nukes...
Unmarked spoilers below.
- The opening of the premiere trailer
really hammers home the horror of what happened: a shot of a farmhouse being leveled by the blast, and the same house burning along with the world around it as animals flee in terror. Combined with shots of a burnt-down forest and footage of the Highwaymen, it's a chilling reminder that the world as you know it is over. - The Twins, Mickey and Lou. They're the leaders of the Highwaymen, and they're as brutal as the job requires. Their first scene features Lou brutally beating a man's head in with her helmet. And then there's her speech to the occupants of Prosperity:Mickey: Listen here, rabbits! You need to understand somethin': the only currency left in this world is power! We're gonna take everything from you, starting with your home! And if we can't take it...Lou: We’ll break it.
- Turns into a brief comedic moment in the actual game where Lou drops the line in an attempt to intimidate the people of Prosperity... only for Mickey to take a moment of silence to roll her eyes at her sister's comment with a "I can't believe you just said that" expression on her face.
- While Mickey's the calmer and more Faux Affably Evil of the two sisters, like Vaas and Pagan Min before her, it only serves to make the occasions she loses her temper and starts shouting furiously all the more terrifying.
- A brief moment in the cutscene when the Captain attends a dinner meeting with the Highwaymen chapter bosses, and Ethan Seed shows up to propose a Villain Team-Up with them. One of the bosses is openly skeptical of the supposed supernatural fruit that Mickey and Lou are interested in, and accuses them of "goin' soft in the head like your Dad". He laughs, Lou joins him in laughing, and then she smashes her plate and stabs him to death with one of the shards.
- The backing track is a discordant trap instrumental that sounds like a gospel song from hell.
- Demon Fishes, sharks, and crocodiles are back to make your swimming a little bit scarier.
- In the mission "Deep Dive", Selene tasks you with going into John Seed's partly flooded bunker to retrieve her lost field kit. You see it on a platform not far below you, so you jump down... and the platform gives way, dropping you into the drink below. You then need to explore the old bunker and flood it to escape. The whole time, Selene is giving comments and advice over your radio, and she mentions that there are probably crocodiles. Nonsense, you think. Selene's a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander to begin with, and crocodiles are probably only in the expeditions. There can't be any in Hope County, can there? You'd be dead wrong.
- One of the expeditions you can take is to the destroyed shell of the Paladin with notes from Sam Fisher about his tracking of an "empty arrow,"* which had been tracked to somewhere in Montana, and the Paladin's subsequent crash when the nuclear detonations of the Collapse knock it out of the sky. Even more notes reveal the destructive results of the global nuclear war, with large pieces of Europe, the U.S., China, and Russia obliterated and Korea, Palestine, and Israel literally just erased from the map. The last note from Sam indicates he is going to find passage east to locate his daughter in New York. Along with the implication that Fourth Echelon team was unable to stop the Collapse from happening because they were simply too late, it also seems to provide further evidence that the entire event was engineered by someone, possibly even Joseph himself...or at the very least, someone that Joseph knew...
- Monstrous Animals, which are unlike anything seen in previous entries in the series. They come in several varieties (including cougars (seen above), bison, boars and bears) and make their lesser counterparts look like kittens and puppies in comparison. Not only are they dangerous and aggressive, they can easily tank bullets, arrows and even heavy explosives unless the player can hit their small weak points. Luckily, they only appear in a few isolated spots on the map and are fairly easy to avoid, which is great because going after them without at least a couple tier 3 or 4 weapons is a good way to end up lunch.
- With the inclusion of the dagger, takedowns are now more brutal than ever thanks to the highly detailed sounds of stabbing into someone's neck or spine. I hope the people who didn't like the takedowns in Far Cry 5 involving entirely blunt weapons are happy.
- Your first meeting with Ethan Seed features him going into a disturbing rant about the Captain discovering Joseph's Bible, and that it should have been him. Which should serve as a perfectly creepy Establishing Character Moment.Ethan: Do you know what that is? The Word of Joseph. His teachings, his guidance, his wisdom... and his madness. I've searched everywhere for this book. Joseph said the one who found it would be 'ordained by God to be the true ruler of Eden...' And you are the one who returns it to us. It should have been me. I'm the one they turned to when he disappeared into the North. I'm the one who has held this family together. I'm the one they chose to lead! I have protected them from the locusts and the snakes! I have kept us all alive and safe within these walls! Not the old man! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
- And then he flips a tree-stump pulpit over in his anger. Really, you can't blame the Captain for stepping back as soon as he does this. This guy is Vaas levels of insanity.
- The Final Boss is pretty nightmarish. A gigantic shadowy monster with creepy red eyes, basically a recoloured version of a Yeti from Far Cry 4. And just like the Yetis, this monster Was Once a Man mutated by a mysterious supernatural plant. Who was it? Ethan Seed.
- Also, that moment just before Ethan turns into a monster. After swallowing a bite of the forbidden apple, he gags and grunts violently, his veins go black, and for a brief moment, Ethan has to grab onto Joseph's neck to stabilize himself. Apart from the fact that he's clearly undergoing a Painful Transformation, given that Ethan was explosively arguing with his father right before he bit into the apple, you could be forgiven for thinking he's going to kill his father.
