During our coverage of E3 2017, I had the opportunity to get some hands-on time with Far Cry 5 during our meeting with Ubisoft. The latest chapter phenomenally popular series takes place in Montana and tasks players with fighting a cult that is taken over a local community.
Starting out armed only with a baseball bat, I made my way down the hill and through a bus that was littered with remains of victims of the cult’s brutality. I was able to liberate a shotgun from the wreckage which helped me greatly when I emerged onto the street in front of a small church and found that various members preparing to harass and very likely execute civilians. Wasting no time I quickly let the lead fly and took down several enemies in short order. Unfortunately for me they called in reinforcements and I soon found myself greatly out gunned. A second play through of this mission saw me do a bit better as I was able to get into the church, but reinforcements soon arrived and surrounded me despite my best efforts.
My third play through opened with me tossing a dynamite stick at a tanker which promptly removed the majority of my enemies in one lightning strike. This in turn allowed me to pick off the stragglers at ease. I found out that I had been in co-op mode during this playtest as my support was learning the ins and outs of piloting an aircraft. He promptly helped me clear the map with a well-placed strafing run which allowed us to progress to the next segment.
For this level, I took command of a semi-truck that had a very cute reference to the villain of Far Cry 3 as my dashboard bobble head. This time out I drove through the town until I got to a more remote area and then proceeded on foot to dispatch enemies as they came toward me in either pickup trucks or when I encounter them on the side of the road which allowed me to liberate their captives.
Crafting was not present during this demonstration so I have to focus more on the run and gun aspects of the game. I was happy to see that it played like prior games and series but gave me some interesting landscape variations from the remote tropical and mountain settings which are punctuated many of the prior games in the series.
The ability to play through the game with co-op mode is a very intriguing option as the ability for one player to essentially provide cover fire of vehicle or sit back and off for fire support will open up several options.
I used a variety of weapons ranging from a shotgun to machine guns and of course my dynamite sticks and bats. I was able to pick up weapons along the way and the game used a regenerating health system so I could recover before pressing on my attacks.
If you have played any of the last three games in the series and graphically you know what to expect which is solid and engaging graphics and a detailed and interactive environment. I’m curious to see how the multiplayer portion of the game will play out and to learn more about the game but based on my play session I can say that Far Cry 5 was definitely one of the better games at E3 2017, and I cannot wait for its release this fall.
