[SPOILERS] Far Cry 5

[Karha of Honor]

This is a very specific kind of cult that these people are referencing. This is a doomsday cult built around a very clearly right leaning ideology and extremisit interpretation of the book of Revelations. Based purely on isolationism and militarist survivalist philosophy. I'm sorry, but it is very clear WHO Ubisoft was referencing. Specifically in their takeover of a small rural county and several towns. If the plan involved doesn't sound like what almost happened in Leith, brought to its terrifying conclusion, then I don't know what to tell you.

That is not a stand. That is a pure and simple attempt at lessening the impact of the message. When you make them do all these horrible things but say "at least they ain't racist" you are leaving out a very core drive of motivation. A motivation that specifically denotes what these cults are like, what many of these militia groups are like. They are motivated by race in many cases. Ignoring that does not make it not so. Eden's Gate has no defined political aspirations, economic ideology or even any tangible sense of three-dimensionality. They are crazy, evil lunatics who justify their actions because they think the apocalypse is happening. Why they think that, what motivates them to think that, what drives them to that is never politically explained or alluded to. They just do this stuff because.

It's narrative cowardice is what it is. If the new Wolfenstein games decided to tone down the Nazis' racism in the face of the backlash from Conservatives who felt targetted, I would call them out for the same reasons I state here. That was taking a stand, that was actually holding true to the message. And I hate Machine Games iteration of the Wolfenstein franchise so believe me, I hate praising them for anything. Far Cry 5 got a bunch of lip from the very same people and were quick to step back as fast as possible.

Why? Because they didn't want to damage their image or profit margins. The idea they were targetting a certain group of people of a heinous belief system was soundly denied. They backed off and the game's narrative is lesser for it, not stronger. Because now the bad guys of this game have been sanitized into just another pack of crazies you need to kill. Not alt-right, not racist, just crazy. Crazy loonies is fine, you don't have to think too hard about it because you divorce yourself from them. I'm not insane, therefore, everything these people believe is not what I believe. I don't have to ask uncomfortable questions about my beliefs.

By choosing not to depict racism on part of the villains they decide to remove it as a motivation and potential block to certain individuals buying the game. It allows them not to question anything. That's not taking a stand, that's stepping down.

Aren't the games, by nature, about how humans are fundamentally bad and there's no such thing as justice? You can achieve some good in the games but the games are all about how violence doesn't actually solve things and the majority of conflicts inevitably end up turning both sides into monsters?

The solution presented in this game is to allow a killer and a maniac free reign to keep doing what he does in defiance of the law. It is essentially saying Law Enforcement should've let Bundy and his group stay on that reservation. That the Government had no right to remove them. That America's laws and systems should be ignored in the face of a flagrant violation of civil rights and basic humanity. The plot line you described may have worked in Far Cry 2, but we're not talking about that game, or 3 or 4. We're talking about 5.

How is it a bad thing to enable the residents of Hope County to take back their home from a bunch of crazy people who have done nothing but murder and kidnap their friends and loved ones? How are they monsters for resisting very clear and present dangers to their livelihoods? How are they not deserving of being saved from people who are indeed monsters? What do they do, any of them do, to deserve this? In nothing I've seen in any of the game footage is there proof that taking on the cult is a bad idea that only leads to worse things because things are pretty worse already.

The game FORCES itself to fit a particular storyline. Nothing that occurs in either ending makes sense for a natural progression nor are either satisfying. Both actually contradict each other and make no sense in the given context of either sequence. When a narrative forces in a twist like this to fit a theme, you get JJ Abrams' Into Darkness. The story becomes a checklist that has to fit certain criteria, becoming as generic as anything else. It's just the same story with a different coat of paint. And it is weaker for following a formula that doesn't fit the context of this game instead doing something else and saying something else instead. It says something about these games that ultimately most people gravitate to the crazy spinoff version that was ripping off junk 80s VHS B-Movies than any of the official titles. Mainly because it was actually breaking the formula that was already starting to get stale, specifically because everyone seemed to hate 3's protagonist. 4 avoided it by not making him an asshole half the time. Now 5 makes you either a coward or a hapless victim.

Say what you will about Primal, at least it TRIED to be different. The main games just seem to be interested in repeating the same forumla again and again, regardless of whether or not it makes sense for the story they are trying to tell. When you try to force in this singular theme into every game, you're basically forcing in a concept that's no different than the damn mystery box. Heck, it's the same device. What's the new Far Cry game's twist on the ending this time? How does our choice end up screwing everyone over? We've come to expect it now and it is stale.

As for my final point, about alt-right gamers actually applauding this game... ugh, fine. You've forced my hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gg6F7V0HDA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zlvEKXTzWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGo9n28L3M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOxGcsCCVe4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77yZpHOrQW0

There, now I got delete a bunch of crap from my history on youtube. The things I'll do to prove a point.

They are motivated by race in many cases. Ignoring that does not make it not so.

Sentence 1 statement.

Sentence 2 Statement.

No quantafication means you fell into the trap of sentence 2.

Not alt-right

Can i get a definition that is relevant for the next 5-10 years already?

[Rodan56]

You quoted my entire thing just to show I made a mistake concerning a double negative I possibly made? Seems a bit excessive. I'll correct it either way but still. As for alt-right, that is the definition many are using within the movement to call themselves. So there you go.

[CharlesPhipps]

You quoted my entire thing just to show I made a mistake concerning a double negative I possibly made? Seems a bit excessive. I'll correct it either way but still. As for alt-right, that is the definition many are using within the movement to call themselves. So there you go.

I think of the Alt-Right as "jackasses on the internet somehow unionizing."

An entire movement based around the nastiness of Call of Duty toxic multiplayer.

In any case, thank you for explaining your opinions at length like you did. I may not agree with all of them but I appreciate the effort.

[Rodan56]

I still have yet to respond to you, I was responding to the person directly above me in the last post. And I still have things to say, specifically because some of the things you accused my position of doing that I take a modicrum of offense to.

Excluding the element of racism from Eden's Gate does not take away a forum of racist sympathy. Like I said, all it does is sanitize them into being another paper thin cult of crazies. They're just generic threats to shoot now. They include everything else about the alt-right mindset. They're hyper religious, they're clear second ammendment proponents, highly isolatinist, anti-government intervention and regulation and extremely rural. Everything else is there save for racism and it does nothing but suggest that such things have nothing to do with alt-right extremist groups and doomsday militias. Justifying their existence somewhat by suggesting that racism is never a factor in anything they do.

While I understand your argument about appropriation of anti-racist texts and works to help promote those very causes it's against, I find the idea that excluding them entirely from any form of entertainment for fear of possibly going down that path is negligent and an aversion of responsibility to discuss these issues. Lindsay Ellis, formerly the Nostalgia Chick, did a great video about this. And I'll even concede that Infinite's mural was used by racist douchebags. But that very image being used by them made it easier to mock and ridicule them, they identified themselves with the villains, who are expressedly painted as villains in the game. Infinite was all the better for exposing racists and their ideology, depicting it as vile and cruel. It did not turn it into a cartoon, it revealed how cartoonish such a view is. A dark vile parody of society. You enter a happy almost Disney-esque utopia and find it rotten at its very core. It was brilliant and brave, because yes, adopting a lot of that imagery was dangerous in the very way you describe, but that does not mean you should never take the risk to expose it.

In any case, Ubisoft didn't exclude racism from their game to make a stand, they excluded it to make their game more accesible and avoid controversy. That's not something to be applauded, it's a crass business decision. One that they've made consistently as it falls in line with their excessive open world game strategy that has bleed into every single on of their titles. So forgive if I don't praise them for taking the easy way out.

As for Wolfenstein, I'll say a lot about the new games and why I do not like them if ever one directly asks me, but I'll never suggest they were wrong for depicting racism in all its horror. Far Cry 5 may not be about racism, but it is about cults and militia groups that lean heavily on right wing extremisit side in their views of religion and government. Excluding racism as a potential factor in their actions is not a weird hill to die on and it is not demeaning to include it. To suggest I'm asking for that is rather offensive to me. It's like saying I shouldn't talk about Feminist issues because reminding women that they face challenges demeans them at large. Games should not be afraid to talk about racism when it is appropriate and in my mind this was the perfect opportunity to do so. Ubisoft chose not to and it is because they are cowardly businessmen first and storytellers second.

Since you have already spoiled the ending in full, there is no reason to hold back anymore on my vitrol about how it makes no sense and how it is offensive on several levels. Joseph Seed is proven right and justified in everything he has done. He was right to brutalize this county, he was right to be so monstrous, his ends justify his means. That is aborent to me. And in the end, you are cuffed to a bed post with him lording over you as his slave forevermore. And if you're a female deputy, as you can play, the dialogue highly suggests he is going to use you sexually to repopulate the world. The game ends with you and your potential rapist as the only survivors as he lords over you that he was right all along. NO. Just NO. It justifies his cruelty and gives him liscense to doll out more on your character specifically. NO. That is heinous and disgusting and I will not support it ever. Your take on the situation, in my opinion, does not truly capture the absolute horror and disgusting cynical edge the ending conveys. I'm sorry, but I cannot support it in any narrative or cognitive sense.

Also, it only happens if you decide to resist. It makes no sense. How does arresting a cult leader some how trigger the apocalypse? I suppose it further feeds into the idea that Seed is actually right, but again, screw that. No. He is not right and he should never ever be depicted as in the right. Suggesting that God causes the world to end because you want this crazy monster to face justice is, again, morally repugnant to me. As a Christian, as a person who believes in the secular rule of law and as a human being. NO. Depraved and terrible, it exists purely for shock value and to force in the standard Far Cry ending twist, No! Like I said before, making this the end result of one of your choices is stupid because it's just trying to tick off a checkbox for what is expected in these games. It is another element of Ubification and I cannot support it on several levels.

As for the other ending, this isn't intervention in a foreign country. If this was Iraq you'd have an argument there. You are a representative of the United States government acting on behalf of that government on America Soil. This is not interventionalism, this policing, standard and accepted policing. Joseph Seed has broken American laws on American soil against American citizens. Arresting him is the only thing that makes sense. Unless you want to be that upcoming and no doubt terribly biased on the cult leader's side drama series of David Koresh that tries to depict and abusive lunatic as the good guy in that scenario and forward the mistaken and misguided/debunked conspiracy theory that the FBI were the real bad guys in that conflict.

Coming back with the National Guard is suggested to not gonna happen when your character subcumbs to Bliss and apparently is about to kill his or her friends in a bloodfueled rage straight out of the Kingsman. So yeah, Seed wins both times, no matter what you do. And while the cultists themselves may be brainwashed or addicted or simply broken, this does not excuse many of their actions or their cruelty and it certainly does not convince me that the people who are suffering as a result of their actions deserve to suffer. Nor that acting against the cult is somehow wrong. Like I keep saying, forcing the standard Far Cry story to fit this particular context makes the game weaker narratively. We're not dealing with a foreign country, or foreign people, we're on American soil and you are an officer of the law. To suggest that we should let a curle and inhuman monster who is actively hurting American citizens to continue in his actions is disgusting to me and if that is honestly what the game is ultimately saying out of a very poorly justified "violence and war are never ever right in any context" is woefully inadequate to me. Heck, it even seems to suggest that active resistance to such things is bad and we should just let the evil dictator have what he wants.

Sorry, not gonna happen. I cannot agree with that stance and Far Cry 5 is a lesser game for sticking to its standard cynical outlook on humanity instead of acknowledging that for once, just this once, fighting back against the bad guy is the right thing to do.

As for the article you linked, it somewhat agrees with me. Maybe not that the game is cowardly, but certainyl that it doesn't care as much as it should and therefore is left wanting. That is lesser for not trying harder, that it doesn't push the envelope far enough like it should and fails because of this.

None of this was meant to convince you by the way to hate the game. I've come to terms with people just liking or not liking something for various reasons. And I'm hardly going to criticize you for taking enjoyment in Far Cry's story or its gameplay. For me, I feel like I dodged a bullet after asking for this for my Birthday and ended up not getting it. I just don't like the ending or what the game is seemingly trying to say about certain subjects, or in many cases what it decides it doesn't want to say because it chooses not to. I just don't agree with any of this, at all. Simple as that. I apologize if I at all made it seem like I was being aggressive towards you or angry with you. I just didn't agree and I wanted to lay out the whys of it all. This was more about me expressing why I can't get behind the game and defending my reasons for doing so than attacking anyone for finding enjoyment in this. I can't, but good on those who can. I think that's the common ground we can at least reach.

[CharlesPhipps]

I still have yet to respond to you, I was responding to the person directly above me in the last post. And I still have things to say, specifically because some of the things you accused my position of doing that I take a modicrum of offense to.

I'm sorry and hope you realize I don't intend any offense, just disagreement.

Excluding the element of racism from Eden's Gate does not take away a forum of racist sympathy. Like I said, all it does is sanitize them into being another paper thin cult of crazies. They're just generic threats to shoot now. They include everything else about the alt-right mindset. They're hyper religious, they're clear second amendment proponents, highly isolatinist, anti-government intervention and regulation and extremely rural. Everything else is there save for racism and it does nothing but suggest that such things have nothing to do with alt-right extremist groups and doomsday militias. Justifying their existence somewhat by suggesting that racism is never a factor in anything they do.

That's kind of the thing there, though, isn't it? That's what they are. We're running in a bit of a circle because they're NOT the Alt-Right. They're explicitly established as a hippie doomsday Christian denomination which is not meant to be represent either political spectrum but is a mash-up of Jonestown, the Branch Davidians, and Manson. Even then, their primary purpose is to serve as the antagonists inside a video game where you murder the hell out of them.

Inspirations for Eden's Gate Article: http://www.alphr.com/games/1008724/far- ... y-of-cults

You also are establishing them as a hyper-religious, 2nd amendment proponents, and isolationist when that describes the PROTAGONISTS as well. The game takes a stance that none of these are bad things and explicitly neutral. That is not watering down the message, that is establishing the message is not what you think it is. It may be a message you disagree with, "Not All Preppers" is how one anti-Far Cry 5 person spoke but the conflict is between rural American preppers and gun enthusiasts versus an evil cult of drug-using religious extremists.

Eli and the Whitetails are a bunch of nutty people who live underground but are the Big Resistance to Jacob's terrorist group. Jacob's group, notably, is explictly fascist and very different from Faith and John's so you could argue his Apocalypse-style, "Cull the Weak" should be racist but at the end of the day the group exists as a bunch of people to be shot.

While I understand your argument about appropriation of anti-racist texts and works to help promote those very causes it's against, I find the idea that excluding them entirely from any form of entertainment for fear of possibly going down that path is negligent and an aversion of responsibility to discuss these issues. Lindsay Ellis, formerly the Nostalgia Chick, did a great video about this. And I'll even concede that Infinite's mural was used by racist douchebags. But that very image being used by them made it easier to mock and ridicule them, they identified themselves with the villains, who are expressed painted as villains in the game. Infinite was all the better for exposing racists and their ideology, depicting it as vile and cruel. It did not turn it into a cartoon, it revealed how cartoonish such a view is. A dark vile parody of society. You enter a happy almost Disney-esque utopia and find it rotten at its very core. It was brilliant and brave, because yes, adopting a lot of that imagery was dangerous in the very way you describe, but that does not mean you should never take the risk to expose it.

Growing up in rural Kentucky, I can tell you about the places where the KKK and actual racist militias exist and the thing about them is they are often driven by the fact they like the outlaw status of being the "bad guys." To quote back to that Roger Ebert article, the Klan doesn't recruit people who are interested in being good and upstanding citizens but those attracted to the violence and hate. It's something of a variant on the old adage, "You can't make an anti-war movie by depicting actual war since the violence, danger, and horror are what attract people to it."

But going into the Eden's Gate issue, they are meant to be just targets in the game and that kind of hits the larger issue of whether or not a game which is meant to be a silly shooter hurts the larger subject by tackling real life people then reducing them to walking targets. In Infinite, you're playing a homicidal war criminal Booker who murders not only the racists but also the revolting Irish and black citizens of Columbia.

There's a "both sides" element to the game which couldn't get into deeper discussion because it was fundamentally a game about killing people.

In any case, Ubisoft didn't exclude racism from their game to make a stand, they excluded it to make their game more accesible and avoid controversy. That's not something to be applauded, it's a crass business decision. One that they've made consistently as it falls in line with their excessive open world game strategy that has bleed into every single on of their titles. So forgive if I don't praise them for taking the easy way out.

As for Wolfenstein, I'll say a lot about the new games and why I do not like them if ever one directly asks me, but I'll never suggest they were wrong for depicting racism in all its horror. Far Cry 5 may not be about racism, but it is about cults and militia groups that lean heavily on right wing extremisit side in their views of religion and government. Excluding racism as a potential factor in their actions is not a weird hill to die on and it is not demeaning to include it. To suggest I'm asking for that is rather offensive to me. It's like saying I shouldn't talk about Feminist issues because reminding women that they face challenges demeans them at large. Games should not be afraid to talk about racism when it is appropriate and in my mind this was the perfect opportunity to do so. Ubisoft chose not to and it is because they are cowardly businessmen first and storytellers second.

Eh, there's a huge number of libertarian militias and anti-government groups who get lumped into the Right Side of the political equation but the simple fact is they're fundamentally anarchist groups. America's Right versus Left is screwed up as a classification due to the Two Party system where wildly divergent philosophies are technically allied or put on one side of the spectrum or the other even when the part is, "Tear the government completely down."

I also disagree that racism is an explicitly a part of the rural prepper ideology. A lot of preppers ARE mind you but Vermont is one of the biggest libertarian prepper hot beds and is incredibly leftist (it also is a very racist state but leans Far Left--one of the oddities again of America's legal system).

Since you have already spoiled the ending in full, there is no reason to hold back anymore on my vitrol about how it makes no sense and how it is offensive on several levels.

Yeah, sadly I don't know how to hide spoilers on this.

Joseph Seed is proven right and justified in everything he has done. He was right to brutalize this county, he was right to be so monstrous, his ends justify his means.

Given Joseph gets every one of his followers killed this is just wrong and you're mischaracterizing the ending. Especially since Joseph says God sent you to punish him.

That is aborent to me. And in the end, you are cuffed to a bed post with him lording over you as his slave forevermore.

Well, you've escaped many Seed members before but in this case, Seed says you'll both leave soon. Either way, tragedies happen.

And if you're a female deputy, as you can play, the dialogue highly suggests he is going to use you sexually to repopulate the world.

Given he says the exact same thing to a male deputy, this is your addition.

The game ends with you and your potential rapist as the only survivors as he lords over you that he was right all along. NO. Just NO. It justifies his cruelty and gives him liscense to doll out more on your character specifically. NO. That is heinous and disgusting and I will not support it ever. Your take on the situation, in my opinion, does not truly capture the absolute horror and disgusting cynical edge the ending conveys. I'm sorry, but I cannot support it in any narrative or cognitive sense.

Again, Joseph Seed got the entirety of his congregation killed. Literally, over 10,000 people. He utterly failed not only to save his congregation but his immediate family as well.

Which you, personally, murdered.

Also, Joseph had the opportunity to kill or assault you but didn't because God said you came to punish him--and since Ubisoft is God, he's correct.

The ending is a tragedy because both of you wanted to save the people of Hope County and all you did was make sure the two people who hate each other most survived.

Also, it only happens if you decide to resist. It makes no sense. How does arresting a cult leader some how trigger the apocalypse?

This is a failure of Ubisoft. Moscow is destroyed by nuclear terrorism in the game (implied to be North Korea) and that triggers a nuclear war between the US and Russia.

THE NUCLEAR WAR BETWEEN MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awuvu3VNTJY

I suppose it further feeds into the idea that Seed is actually right, but again, screw that. No. He is not right and he should never ever be depicted as in the right. Suggesting that God causes the world to end because you want this crazy monster to face justice is, again, morally repugnant to me. As a Christian, as a person who believes in the secular rule of law and as a human being. NO. Depraved and terrible, it exists purely for shock value and to force in the standard Far Cry ending twist, No! Like I said before, making this the end result of one of your choices is stupid because it's just trying to tick off a checkbox for what is expected in these games. It is another element of Ubification and I cannot support it on several levels.

Yes, Joseph is a fallen prophet and the game actually makes it clear that Joseph was warned but God has turned against him.

JOSEPH AND THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS: https://www.reddit.com/r/farcry/comment ... h=263aecfd

The sermon on Pastor Jeffries church is Jeremiah 23:16 a.k.a "Do not listen to what prophets are prophesying to you: they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord." Is there a more appropriate Bible passage to speak of?

As for the other ending, this isn't intervention in a foreign country. If this was Iraq you'd have an argument there. You are a representative of the United States government acting on behalf of that government on America Soil. This is not interventionalism, this policing, standard and accepted policing. Joseph Seed has broken American laws on American soil against American citizens. Arresting him is the only thing that makes sense. Unless you want to be that upcoming and no doubt terribly biased on the cult leader's side drama series of David Koresh that tries to depict and abusive lunatic as the good guy in that scenario and forward the mistaken and misguided/debunked conspiracy theory that the FBI were the real bad guys in that conflict.

No, I think the story only makes sense in the Resist Ending. A tragedy about a madman driven insane by the upcoming end of the world and the fact he did incredible evil versus the person empowered by the power of justice to go after him, only to fail to realize the upcoming tragedy is coming.

I think a better ending would have been, after killing Joseph, he tells you about his last remaining Bunker and you move your followers there to survive.

Sorry, not gonna happen. I cannot agree with that stance and Far Cry 5 is a lesser game for sticking to its standard cynical outlook on humanity instead of acknowledging that for once, just this once, fighting back against the bad guy is the right thing to do.

Yep. That's an entirely valid point.

As for the article you linked, it somewhat agrees with me. Maybe not that the game is cowardly, but certainly that it doesn't care as much as it should and therefore is left wanting. That is lesser for not trying harder, that it doesn't push the envelope far enough like it should and fails because of this.

A valid perspective but I do think the game is not trying to be political and if it had been, it would fail for it.

[excalibur]

So far playing this game. I'm having a fun time. It basically parodies itself and pokes fun at a bunch of things. The simple plot is a cult took over an entire county, apparently has a massive infrastructure, enough guns and attack helicopters and boats for that their own separate military branches and also hand waves why the US government isn't on this shit like Waco.

I think certain people were lured in by the promise of it having a message against current political trends, but I think that was a bait and switch for an excuse to do mayhem like any of the previous Far Cry games.

I think Honest Game Trailers described this game perfectly and another channel named No Bullshit went in depth to the faux controversies about it

[CharlesPhipps]

Thanks for the recommendations.

Edit:

Honest Trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB7-tOpnVmQ

Not a big fan of NO BS, though. It's a bit too "stereotypical angry gamer dude" for me.

[Antiboyscout]

Why is it that "representation" and "diversity" stop being good things when it means you can't use a piece of media to bash a conservative strawman.

[CharlesPhipps]

Why is it that "representation" and "diversity" stop being good things when it means you can't use a piece of media to bash a conservative strawman.

Notable fact:

Over sixty woman who blows away the bad guys in her helicopter and is in a relationship with a much younger man without it being treated as weird. Also, still lovely herself.

Grace Armstrong is a black female Olympian and ex-military sniper. She's also a faithful Christian.

Pastor Jeffries, great awesome character. Also black.

Nick Rye, white redneck....also in a loving interracial marriage with a biracial child newly born in the game.

You don't often see these characters in rural American fiction.

3 major female companions who aren't fanservice or love interests.

[Antiboyscout]

Why is it that "representation" and "diversity" stop being good things when it means you can't use a piece of media to bash a conservative strawman.

Notable fact:

Over sixty woman who blows away the bad guys in her helicopter and is in a relationship with a much younger man without it being treated as weird. Also, still lovely herself.

Grace Armstrong is a black female Olympian and ex-military sniper. She's also a faithful Christian.

Pastor Jeffries, great awesome character. Also black.

Nick Rye, white redneck....also in a loving interracial marriage with a biracial child newly born in the game.

You don't often see these characters in rural American fiction.

3 major female companions who aren't fanservice or love interests.

That's my point. This game ticks all the progressive check boxes. Yet progressives are mad that it isn't racist or sexist enough.