Far Cry 5

Swiped via ResetEra.

Outlets were invited to play for three hours Far Cry 5. Some preview and interviews:

Waypoint:
- After Three Hours With 'Far Cry 5,' Its Politics Are Far From Clear
- Talking Cults and Culture with the Developers of 'Far Cry 5'(a must read)

PC Gamer: Far Cry 5's Cheeseburger problem (or 'As a magnet for trouble, Cheeseburger points out how Far Cry 5 needs to take a breather here and there')



PC World: Cultists, crossbows, and a trained bear named Cheeseburger

Engadget: 'Far Cry 5' is deeper than you think

Gamespot: How Far Cry 5 Balances Philosophical Introspection And Hunting Bears With Bazookas

Critical Hit: Hands on with Far Cry 5, Ubisoft’s most streamlined sandbox shooter yet

Eurogamer:Let's Play Far Cry 5 Co-Op: CUNNING STUNTS IN HOPE COUNTY (video co-op gameplay)


ShackNews: Far Cry 5 Hands-On Preview: Papa Don't Preach

Geek: Hands (And Politics) On: Far Cry 5 Sure is a Video Game

VentureBeat: Far Cry 5 cult adviser reveals how these fanatics thrive: Follow the money (updated) (preview + interview)

BGR: ‘Far Cry 5’ evolves the franchise without trying to fix anything that wasn’t broken

ComicBook: Far Cry 5 Hands-On: Taming The Troublesome Seed

GamesRadar: So far Far Cry 5 nails what makes the series great, just with added bears

PlayStation Access:Far Cry 5 Co-op Gameplay - Stealth Turns To Mayhem! And bears

Karl wrote:

Hime wrote:By that metric Yoshi's Wooly World is the best game ever made.

That's an interesting statement in and of itself -- there is a school of thought that says that, if Yoshi's Wooly World is the game you honestly enjoyed the most out of all the games you've played, then for you it is the best game.

Take it outside, science boy.

Seriously though your favourite game is purely subjective and doesn't need to be based on any objective metric. When a game is called revolutionary I would have thought an explanation of how it is revelatory beyond 'it's fun and charming' would be quite straight forward.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:BoTW is essentially the Ubisoft open world formula and people think that's the best game ever.

Why, because it has towers?

Yeah, that's probably the defining attribute of Ubisoft open world games as well as the climbing.

The generic Ubisoft formula is an open world that contains huge amounts of things to complete, be that side missions or finding collectibles. The focus is on ticking off content.

BOTW is an open world designed around exploration and discovery. The focus is on gameplay.

BOTW is much more of a sandbox. The only Ubisoft game I'd compare it to is grow home, which was strikingly different from the usual AAA Ubisoft offerings, and the only game I can think of with comparable climbing mechanics.

As I said the Far Cry games are also mostly about the gameplay.

What do you discover from exploration in BoTW that I haven't mentioned? I get that finding things organically is different to going to markers on a map but as discussed how is this different to something like Skyrim or Fallout?

On core gameplay mechanics zelda and far cry are pretty incomparable as they are different genres. We're talking more about game structure right? With the general Ubisoft open world structure as I said being about checklists and content padding, which botw does not follow.

The discovery in botw is the discovery of gameplay mechanics and systems interplay. That's very different to the type of exploration bethesda do, which is environmental and lore discovery. The environment design in botw is mainly to encourage gameplay exploration, which is why I call it more of a sandbox experience.

What discovery though? Just because Zelda doesn't havr checklists doesn't mean that you don't repeat similar tasks. Also is a shrine detector that much of a revolution over icons on a map? It's more satisfying* when you find onr than simply following an arrow but not massively so.

*Arguably more satisfying than that actual shrines.

- Wants explanation of how game is revolutionary
- "No, not that one"

Tafdolphin wrote:- Wants explanation of how game is revolutionary
- "No, not that one"

-Why was Mario 64 revolutionary?
-"It's dead cute"

If charm and joy are enough to be considered revolutionary The Disney Store must be mind blowing.

Hime wrote:What discovery though?

"Wait, that's a thing!?"
"You can do THAT?"
"This is a cool place."
"Damn, that's a tough enemy."

That kind of thing, hundreds of times. I was discovering new things to do/see/fight even after tens of hours.

Shield surfing.
Mounting bears.
Lynels.
Mounting lynels.
Dragons.
Beating a guardian.
Reflecting a guardian's beam back at it.
Lord of the Mountain.
Finding and solving the first of each type of korok puzzle.
Eventide.
Overworld shrine puzzles.
etc.

Sure, these are just things in the game just like tons of games have things in them. Nothing super amazing about most of them honestly, but the real magic in BotW is that the game very rarely explicitly tells you about the things you can find or do, it simply trusts you to go explore the world and discover what's possible. And on top of that the game world is simply really well designed. There's always something potentially interesting and new wherever you are and whichever direction you're traveling. It gets old after a while, sure (any game does), but that freedom to go wherever you feel like going and to be almost guaranteed a good experience is rare.

I still can't get over how much the game trusts the player. It's perhaps especially a breath of fresh air for the Zelda series, but there are very few games that place this amount of trust in the player ("Oh, you want to ignore almost the entire game and go straight for the final boss? I don't mind. Have fun.").

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:On core gameplay mechanics zelda and far cry are pretty incomparable as they are different genres. We're talking more about game structure right? With the general Ubisoft open world structure as I said being about checklists and content padding, which botw does not follow.

The discovery in botw is the discovery of gameplay mechanics and systems interplay. That's very different to the type of exploration bethesda do, which is environmental and lore discovery. The environment design in botw is mainly to encourage gameplay exploration, which is why I call it more of a sandbox experience.

What discovery though? Just because Zelda doesn't havr checklists doesn't mean that you don't repeat similar tasks. Also is a shrine detector that much of a revolution over icons on a map? It's more satisfying* when you find onr than simply following an arrow but not massively so.

*Arguably more satisfying than that actual shrines.

As I said, the discovery of mechanics and systems interplay. If you want an example there are plenty, like rain stopping bomb arrows from detonating but increasing the effectiveness of shock arrows, or freezing meat by dropping it in the snow.

I turned the shrine detector off immediately, I much preferred finding the shrines entirely myself.

BotW's open world is so good because the game exists within the game. In BotW when you climb a Ubi-tower, you have to look out for things that look interesting to you and make note of them yourself. In FarCry a load of points just appear on the map automatically and are added to the checklist. When you get a sidequest, you are told what you need to do and where you should to go within the context of the world. For example, one of my favourites has a couple of treasure hunters describing the location of a chest geographically. You have to find it yourself. In Skyrim a quest marker appears where you need to go.

BotW has you spend your time looking at and exploring the world, in Skyrim or Assassin's Creed it feels like you spend more time playing the mini-map or the quest marker than the actual game. I remember playing GTA and realising I was driving by the GPS, only glancing at the other 90% of the screen (ie, the actual game) occasionally to make sure I didn't hit anything. Zelda is the complete antithesis to that.

FYI I actually really dislike the towers in Zelda, mainly because they mar the beauty of the landscape, but also because I'd like if they'd found a way to further subvert the traditional Ubisoft open world.

Vanilla WoW used to have minimal sign posting / quest markers. The quest log would give you a round about description of where you had to go and it was up to you to locate it. The game eventually shifted to waypoints and I was much thankful. The former method is all well and good but it helps if the process is as painless as possible. Unfortunately that wasn't the case in vanilla WoW and I just ended up searching for missions via Thottbot.

Holy gooseberry fool Thottbot

OldSoulCyborg wrote:

Hime wrote:What discovery though?

"Wait, that's a thing!?"
"You can do THAT?"
"This is a cool place."
"Damn, that's a tough enemy."

That kind of thing, hundreds of times. I was discovering new things to do/see/fight even after tens of hours.

Shield surfing.
Mounting bears.
Lynels.
Mounting lynels.
Dragons.
Beating a guardian.
Reflecting a guardian's beam back at it.
Lord of the Mountain.
Finding and solving the first of each type of korok puzzle.
Eventide.
Overworld shrine puzzles.
etc.

Sure, these are just things in the game just like tons of games have things in them. Nothing super amazing about most of them honestly, but the real magic in BotW is that the game very rarely explicitly tells you about the things you can find or do, it simply trusts you to go explore the world and discover what's possible. And on top of that the game world is simply really well designed. There's always something potentially interesting and new wherever you are and whichever direction you're traveling. It gets old after a while, sure (any game does), but that freedom to go wherever you feel like going and to be almost guaranteed a good experience is rare.

I still can't get over how much the game trusts the player. It's perhaps especially a breath of fresh air for the Zelda series, but there are very few games that place this amount of trust in the player ("Oh, you want to ignore almost the entire game and go straight for the final boss? I don't mind. Have fun.").

I had a lot more of those exploration moments in Fallout 3, it peobably helpsthat there was some narrative and the loot meaningful. I agree with you about the design though, Nintendo are masters at giving you just enough of a glimpse of something that you want to investigate. As you said, what you actually find isnt wildly different from conventional open world games.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:On core gameplay mechanics zelda and far cry are pretty incomparable as they are different genres. We're talking more about game structure right? With the general Ubisoft open world structure as I said being about checklists and content padding, which botw does not follow.

The discovery in botw is the discovery of gameplay mechanics and systems interplay. That's very different to the type of exploration bethesda do, which is environmental and lore discovery. The environment design in botw is mainly to encourage gameplay exploration, which is why I call it more of a sandbox experience.

What discovery though? Just because Zelda doesn't havr checklists doesn't mean that you don't repeat similar tasks. Also is a shrine detector that much of a revolution over icons on a map? It's more satisfying* when you find onr than simply following an arrow but not massively so.

*Arguably more satisfying than that actual shrines.

As I said, the discovery of mechanics and systems interplay. If you want an example there are plenty, like rain stopping bomb arrows from detonating but increasing the effectiveness of shock arrows, or freezing meat by dropping it in the snow.

I turned the shrine detector off immediately, I much preferred finding the shrines entirely myself.

Agreed, the attention to detail is wonderful. Much like MGS5 the fact that the wonderful mechanics are used in an open world means there is less use for them than the more focussed games in their respective series.

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:As I said, the discovery of mechanics and systems interplay. If you want an example there are plenty, like rain stopping bomb arrows from detonating but increasing the effectiveness of shock arrows, or freezing meat by dropping it in the snow.

I turned the shrine detector off immediately, I much preferred finding the shrines entirely myself.

Agreed, the attention to detail is wonderful. Much like MGS5 the fact that the wonderful mechanics are used in an open world means there is less use for them than the more focussed games in their respective series.

MGSV is the only other game I've played that I would put on par with BOTW for the depth and detail of mechanics that can all interact and work together. Perhaps the difference in experience with BOTW is how much you felt the game structure/open world design brought out those mechanics and encouraged experimentation with them. As much as I hail MGSV as probably the best third person shooter I've ever played mechanically, I think it fell down on its open world and mission structure. In contrast I think BOTW's open world is excellent at encouraging differing uses of its systems.

BOTW's open world is very player-driven and emergent. The more "focused" experience you talk about maybe reflects a desire for a more authored approach? I think this is the intention of the shrines, where there are very much intended solutions to the puzzles that give the player a more authored experience of the game mechanics, but they are still open to an amount of experimentation and (with some clever thinking) alternate solutions. The biggest failing of shrines I think is in their flavour - the repetitive and uninspired design. The beauty of BOTW's open world is in stark contrast to the blandness of the shrines, which helps make that player-driven half of the game more enjoyable than the authored shrines. I don't particularly see that as a gameplay issue - if you kept the level design the same but reskinned some of the shrines as caves, I think people would have liked them more.

Where I think BOTW succeeds the most though is in the few places that find a middle ground between the two approaches. The great plateau is one, which you can see by how much closer people's experiences are there than when exploring the rest of the game (everyone talks about how great cutting down the trees to bridge the crevasse is, for example, or how they solved surviving the cold with either the doublet, food or use of fire). Another is Eventide Island, which is a more authored microcosm of BOTW as a whole. I also think Hyrule Castle works really well because it has a more "wide linear" design.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:As I said, the discovery of mechanics and systems interplay. If you want an example there are plenty, like rain stopping bomb arrows from detonating but increasing the effectiveness of shock arrows, or freezing meat by dropping it in the snow.

I turned the shrine detector off immediately, I much preferred finding the shrines entirely myself.

Agreed, the attention to detail is wonderful. Much like MGS5 the fact that the wonderful mechanics are used in an open world means there is less use for them than the more focussed games in their respective series.

MGSV is the only other game I've played that I would put on par with BOTW for the depth and detail of mechanics that can all interact and work together. Perhaps the difference in experience with BOTW is how much you felt the game structure/open world design brought out those mechanics and encouraged experimentation with them. As much as I hail MGSV as probably the best third person shooter I've ever played mechanically, I think it fell down on its open world and mission structure. In contrast I think BOTW's open world is excellent at encouraging differing uses of its systems.

BOTW's open world is very player-driven and emergent. The more "focused" experience you talk about maybe reflects a desire for a more authored approach? I think this is the intention of the shrines, where there are very much intended solutions to the puzzles that give the player a more authored experience of the game mechanics, but they are still open to an amount of experimentation and (with some clever thinking) alternate solutions. The biggest failing of shrines I think is in their flavour - the repetitive and uninspired design. The beauty of BOTW's open world is in stark contrast to the blandness of the shrines, which helps make that player-driven half of the game more enjoyable than the authored shrines. I don't particularly see that as a gameplay issue - if you kept the level design the same but reskinned some of the shrines as caves, I think people would have liked them more.

Where I think BOTW succeeds the most though is in the few places that find a middle ground between the two approaches. The great plateau is one, which you can see by how much closer people's experiences are there than when exploring the rest of the game (everyone talks about how great cutting down the trees to bridge the crevasse is, for example, or how they solved surviving the cold with either the doublet, food or use of fire). Another is Eventide Island, which is a more authored microcosm of BOTW as a whole. I also think Hyrule Castle works really well because it has a more "wide linear" design.

I dont know what to say man, I think the attention to detail is phenominal but I don't see how it affects the 'gameplay loop' significantly outside of certain combat scenarios and it actually becoming a hinderance when the rain halts progress. The things you actually do in the open world; collect korok seeds, beat shrines, hunt animals and kill baddies is not wildly different from other open world games.

For me, the core Zelda portions were good compared to most games but not up there with the best in the series. It's still a spectacular open world game but for me just a slightly better interpretation of things I've already done in other open world games.

I think for me the way in which I'm doing those things is much more important than the things I'm doing. I guess I could say it succinctly as I wasn't exploring the mechanics to beat enemies, I was beating enemies to explore the mechanics. It's the attention to detail as you put it that kept me enraptured for so long, not the amount of content.

That to me feels very different to how I'd play an Assassin's Creed game for example, where after 5 hours I'll be comfortable and familiar with the core gameplay and my main driver is then the satisfaction of completing things. Still fun if I enjoy the gameplay, but lacking the constant discovery I found in BOTW.

OrangeRakoon wrote:I think for me the way in which I'm doing those things is much more important than the things I'm doing. I guess I could say it succinctly as I wasn't exploring the mechanics to beat enemies, I was beating enemies to explore the mechanics. It's the attention to detail as you put it that kept me enraptured for so long, not the amount of content.

That to me feels very different to how I'd play an Assassin's Creed game for example, where after 5 hours I'll be comfortable and familiar with the core gameplay and my main driver is then the satisfaction of completing things. Still fun if I enjoy the gameplay, but lacking the constant discovery I found in BOTW.

But seeing as the only way you can use those mechanics consistently is in combat, how is the variety vastly different to Far Cry when I can go into a combat scenario guns blazing, get in close with stealth and take people down silently, snipe from a distance, use wild animals, etc? The details in BoTW are fantastic but getting extra damage with a shock arrow in the rain is still just shooting something with an arrow. Things like throwing a metalic object into a camp during a thunder storm are fantastic but strapping explosives to a vehicle and driving it into an enemy camp are just as fun. You have a point with Assassins Creed as the options are more limited but just the nature of it being an open world game means that there are usually options to a scenario.

I can understand why people like the organic approach to discovery but could you not just turn off the map icons? There is also the negative side that the options to mark the map in BOTW are incredibly limited so you have to remember where things are and if you haven't found something after exploring the map there is no option but to go throigh the whole thing again. I like the sound of the new system in Far Cry 5 as a half way between the two systems.

Hime wrote:But seeing as the only way you can use those mechanics consistently is in combat, how is the variety vastly different to Far Cry when I can go into a combat scenario guns blazing, get in close with stealth and take people down silently, snipe from a distance, use wild animals, etc? The details in BoTW are fantastic but getting extra damage with a shock arrow in the rain is still just shooting something with an arrow. Things like throwing a metalic object into a camp during a thunder storm are fantastic but strapping explosives to a vehicle and driving it into an enemy camp are just as fun. You have a point with Assassins Creed as the options are more limited but just the nature of it being an open world game means that there are usually options to a scenario.

I can understand why people like the organic approach to discovery but could you not just turn off the map icons? There is also the negative side that the options to mark the map in BOTW are incredibly limited so you have to remember where things are and if you haven't found something after exploring the map there is no option but to go throigh the whole thing again. I like the sound of the new system in Far Cry 5 as a half way between the two systems.

I'd argue the mechanics discovery in BOTW is not limited to just combat (it may sound silly but going from accidentally dropping an apple near my horse and seeing him eat it, to feeding him a carrot out my hands and realising it gave him an endurance boost, is a stand-out moment of discovery for me). But yes, perhaps it isn't vastly different for you, I think mileage will certainly vary depending on how you play other open world games. Hopefully I've just explained how my experience with BOTW was quite different to almost any other open world game I've played because of my approach to it and the way I felt driven to play it.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Hime wrote:But seeing as the only way you can use those mechanics consistently is in combat, how is the variety vastly different to Far Cry when I can go into a combat scenario guns blazing, get in close with stealth and take people down silently, snipe from a distance, use wild animals, etc? The details in BoTW are fantastic but getting extra damage with a shock arrow in the rain is still just shooting something with an arrow. Things like throwing a metalic object into a camp during a thunder storm are fantastic but strapping explosives to a vehicle and driving it into an enemy camp are just as fun. You have a point with Assassins Creed as the options are more limited but just the nature of it being an open world game means that there are usually options to a scenario.

I can understand why people like the organic approach to discovery but could you not just turn off the map icons? There is also the negative side that the options to mark the map in BOTW are incredibly limited so you have to remember where things are and if you haven't found something after exploring the map there is no option but to go throigh the whole thing again. I like the sound of the new system in Far Cry 5 as a half way between the two systems.

I'd argue the mechanics discovery in BOTW is not limited to just combat (it may sound silly but going from accidentally dropping an apple near my horse and seeing him eat it, to feeding him a carrot out my hands and realising it gave him an endurance boost, is a stand-out moment of discovery for me). But yes, perhaps it isn't vastly different for you, I think mileage will certainly vary depending on how you play other open world games. Hopefully I've just explained how my experience with BOTW was quite different to almost any other open world game I've played because of my approach to it and the way I felt driven to play it.

I didnt have any of those moments but can imagine that would be pretty cool. I watched lots of videos about the little details in BOTW and the intricacy of the systems and consistency in the world is genuinely incredible, one thing that comes to mind is that holding an elemental weapon has different affects like an ice weapon will cool you down in hot environments. I think I'm starting to understand more what you guys mean about the world now in that things just react in a way you think they would like fire cooking or burning things, animals eating food, cold reacting to heat, electricity to water, etc. I was listening to Giant Bomb on the way home and I can't remember the exact phrase but it was something like it's great that modern games withold information by design to make discovering things a big deal. Yeah, I think I get why that stuff would make the world of BOTW more engaging compared to the often janky Ubisoft worlds full of NPC's with horrendous voice acting.

I think for me this style of game does have some negatives in that you can miss massive portions of the game. Now I get this can also be kind of exiting when you've put a load of time into something to then learn that there are still things you haven't seen but when the flip side is that when you've miss a shrine or a giant fairy and there is no obvious place to look it's a bit frustrating. Also I was very dissapointed with most of the classic Zelda stuff like the lack of proper dungeons or puzzles and never really understood how I would get better weapons, if I needed to upgrade armour, etc which made it difficult to get into any sort of rhythm. In that regard the checklist gameplay loop might be more shallow but it's easier to get in a grove of 'do this to get more of these to get better at that so I can now do this'. As long as what you're being asked to do is fun I enjoy those systems.

As I've previously said most of the stuff you're asked to do in Zelda is enjoyable, just not up there with the best in ther series and I've obviously not been able to disassociate that dissapointment from the positives of the open world.

Wrong thread Monkey Man, I'm pretty sure this is the BotW argument surprisingly civil discussion thread.

The season pass stuff looks way more interesting that the main game.

Mafro wrote:The season pass stuff looks way more interesting that the main game.

I was just thinking this

Just like Blood Dragon was the best part of 3

Blood Dragon was ace. I keep forgetting it's on the XB1 BC so I might pick it up again some time. I rented Far Cry 3 and really didn't like it at all but 4 was really good and wasn't filled with a cast of unlikeable banana splits like the previous game. With this one it's a shame they clearly don't have balls to delve into the politics that they were initially trying to sell the game on.