Let’s talk about the ending of Far Cry 5 (article from Polygon - spoliers)

[SavageHedgehog]

Let’s talk about the ending of Far Cry 5
24 comments
Warning: Things get pretty ridiculous
By Russ Frushtick@RussFrushtick Apr 2, 2018, 12:30pm EDT
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I enjoyed myself for the vast majority of Far Cry 5. Ubisoft Montreal made an extremely fun sandbox and loaded it with all sorts of wacky tools of destruction.

I was also able to tune out the game’s story almost entirely. Because, as you may have heard, it’s really gross and terrible. Contrary to the exceedingly well-honed dialogue and character arcs of Far Cry 4, this game is just filled to the brim with obnoxious monsters lacking any semblance of charisma or motivation. Whenever the game forced me into comically frequent kidnapping sequences, I knew I was in for a solid 10 minutes of charmless rambling and slow-walked cutscenes.

But then they’d end, and I’d be back outside marching around Montana’s countryside with my bestie bear and cougar (arguably the best companions, given their lack of dialogue). I knew how to have fun in this world, and step one was tuning out every human ever.

[Warning: The following contains major spoilers about the end of the campaign in Far Cry 5.]

But when it came time to wrap up the game’s campaign, there was a small part of me that held out hope. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a reason for all of this grossness? Some clever twist or thoughtful examination of the human psyche that would justify listening to gratuitous stories about baby murder and children eating their own parents?

Big nope on that one.

There are actually two endings to Far Cry 5 (not counting the Easter egg alternate ending at the beginning).
THE ‘BAD’ ENDING
Far Cry 5 - Hope County Sheriff Whitehorse behind the wheel Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft

After taking down all of Joseph Seed’s lieutenants, you approach him at his church in the midst of his armored compound, where it seems he’s captured all your cop buddies. Seed makes you an offer: If you decide to walk away, he’ll let you all go without a fight. Granted, he has still brainwashed all your other friends, and he’s keeping them, but those three you came with? Yep, you can take them and leave.

So you do, and upon driving away, the gruff sheriff character mentions that he’s just going to drive to Missoula, Montana, the closest city, and call in the National Guard. It’s actually a pretty great plan. Almost like what they should have done from the jump, right?

Unfortunately, as you’re driving away, the sheriff flips on the radio and the song “Only You” comes on. If you’ve been half-paying attention to the story, you’ll remember this as your “KILL EVERYTHING” trigger from some post-hypnotic suggestion sessions you went through.

The sheriff turns to you and asks if you’re OK. And then the screen cuts to black, with just the eerie tune running through the credits.

Honestly, it’s not the worst ending. It’s cute. Meaningless, but cute in the way that a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie might end.

It also makes all of your actions throughout the game essentially pointless.

Which is fine, considering it’s the “bad” ending. We don’t expect much from bad endings, as they’re noncanonical. So much so that when the credits finish, your checkpoint puts you right before you make the final decision, so you can do it ‘right’ this time. So let’s do that.

THE ‘GOOD’ ENDING
Far Cry 5 - Joseph Seed standing in front of Project at Eden’s Gate flag Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft

The good ending starts off in exactly the same way, but instead of deciding to walk away, you “RESIST” Seed. This kicks off one of the goofiest final boss fights in recent memory.

All of your companions have been infected with hyno-sludge and turn on you. You then have to shoot them until they are half-dead, whereupon you can run up to them and revive them, and then they are nice again. Because sure.

Once you’ve done this 12 times, you can finally damage Seed. He is downed shortly thereafter. And that’s when the real fun begins.

Seed, apparently, has a nuke. And he blows up Montana with it. Cooooooooooooooooooool.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. To wake up and realize that this had been a ‘bliss’-fueled nightmare. But nope, it doesn’t seem like it. You proceed to race through the flaming remains of Hope County, rushing to the bunker where it all began. Once there, you get knocked out, only to wake up with Seed standing over your caretaker’s unconscious or dead body.

“You’re my family — you’re all I have left now,” he says.

And then the game ends.

After the credits, the lovely, idyllic load screen of Hope County is replaced by the charred remains of a nuclear hellscape. Sure you can reload a save and everything will be good as new, but we’ll consider that another noncanonical ending, since it’s never explained or discussed.

Nope, you won the game — and for your troubles, the state (and maybe the world?) got blown up.

If this ending appeals to you, we probably can’t be friends. That it’s a dark conclusion is not even the problem. It’s just dumb. Pointless. It feels like all my efforts were for naught, and it even tarnishes a lot of the fun I had, since it all got blown up anyway.

The cynical part of me thinks this is an unfortunate sequel setup, where the next game in the Far Cry series will take place in a bombed-out America. Because Fallout makes a lot of money.

Actually, I almost hope it’s that. Capitalism is at least a better excuse than emo art school nihilism.

Update: Shortly after publication, a Ubisoft rep reached out with a correction on the ending.

“Wanted to clarify that in reality, the ending has been hiding in plain sight. Joseph Seed continually says that the end of the world is approaching. The radio news broadcasts hint of a larger problem unraveling outside of Hope County as the game unfolds, like increasing tensions and a world in chaos, stating that nuclear war seems imminent.”

While I don’t doubt this was the intent of the ending, in 30 hours of playing I never heard one of these broadcasts. It also doesn’t really change the tenor of the game’s nihilistic, what-was-the-point ending, and might even make it worse. I guess wacky ol’ Joseph Seed was right about the collapse of civilization. Hooray?

[SavageHedgehog]

Originally posted by DeadSlash:

Originally posted by SavageHedgehog:

Voice my opinion in thread is spamming? I never said I hate far cry 5, just the ending and dozen force captureds.

First of all, admitting it's your opinion is a big step for you, since the good bulk of your threads are quoting other people, so bravo to you for admitting you have an agenda and this is your opinion.
Second of all, yes. When you copy and paste the same reply in 3-4 threads, it's spamming.

It must be so distressing to know that nary one person gives a fat frogs arse about things you write on your own, and ignore your "thoughts" in 4 out of 4 threads you spam it. It must be so sad to know you will only get a response when you post someone else's thoughts.

So sad :(

I was not spamming, I was voicing my opinion on the threads

[Rikiya]

Bad ending needs more kaboom. Wait till we get to Mars!

[Frogshackle]

I've never skipped cut-scenes in a video game before this one but I could not hit ESC fast enough to blow past the tedious, long-winded nonsense that amounted to NOTHING present in this one.

Such a contrast of fun and interesting support characters and side-quests vs. a flaming garbage pile of a main story/villains.

[MEMEoff]

It is quite ironic that the only choice you can make in this game in order to get a "good" ending is essentially not to play this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game at all.

[Alpharius Nox]

Originally posted by MEMEoff:

It is quite ironic that the only choice you can make in this game in order to get a "good" ending is essentially not to play this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game at all.

And that's the whole theme of the game . . .

[MEMEoff]

I understand that this is the theme of the game. I can even agree that there were hints about the outcome, although they were presented poorly.

However, this is the third time we have "Bad ending is player's fault because he(she) chose the path of violence in the name of self-defined justice which only made the world worse" theme in a far cry game. Isn't it a time for something new? Even if you argue that this is a core topic of a far cry series, then how do you explain the fact that it is implemented so much worse than in previous installments? Annoying or at best boring secondary antagonists with generic phrases, numerous plot holes, forced and repetitive story missions and... ending(s)?

Ah yes, our favourite endings. The "good" one and the "bad" one, lmao. Although I have to agree that "walk away" ending is probably the most degenerate and infuriating ending that scriptwriters could have invented, so it can be considered a "bad" one. At least nukes looked epic. If FC3 & 4 offered us some sort of good ending, here we have a choice between an epic trash and a sad trash.

Sid Meier has once said: "A game is a series of interesting choices". This game offers you story-related choice two times: one at the start (which is a SECRET choice, copypasted from the previous game) and one in the end, which is not really an important choice since your two main goals in this game - saving friends and defeating Seed - are not achieved in either ending. All the precious NPCs that you were saving and interacting with are getting rekt anyway, so your input doesn't matter here too. So it brings us back to the start, where you can refuse to arrest Joseph and end the game semi-peacefully. Hope County is gonna get raped but it doesn't matter since (I quote you here) it was the only right thing to do because Joseph said: "And I saw, behold it was a white horse... and hell followed with him" & "God will not let them take me" and Sheriff said: "Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone". Those 3 phrases apparently were clear hints to wait 5 minutes while the "Press ENTER" prompt was present. Well, it is obvious that I was too blind to get the message and scriptwriters from Ubisoft have brilliantly outplayed me. After pressing ENTER, you don't have any influence on the story - you are killing cultists in numerous ways and places until the end. You don't have an option to stealth this game or to finish it peacefully - the only way you can actually play through the game is to annihilate peggies.

As you imply, the endings are there to tell the player that it's his(her) fault that the outcome was so bad. Allright. If we include all what I said before into it, we get the real message from geniuses at Ubisoft: "The endings are depressive and unsatisfying because the player has become a violent killer, but since the only way to play our game is to violently kill cultists, it means that the player is an awful person and made a terrible choice because he decided to play our game".

What an example of great design and storytelling. Well done, Ubisoft. In the future, once I feel an urge to spend 60$ for a bunch of incompetent storytellers and game designers to tell me that I'm an awful person, I will simply buy new far cry.

Sorry for a wall of text, guys. I have just finished my first blind playthrough and needed to vent off anger & frustration somehow. I still liked many gameplay mechanics in this game, but I don't (and probably won't) want to replay it since I know I'm gonna get kidnapped every 30 minutes to enjoy another beautiful speech from a member of Seed family. Overall, really disappointed since the game has solid foundation.

[Dr Nighty]

The ending makes sense, joseph was right / and we were wrong, now let's see how the alien DLC turns out to be, i'm sure it is linked to the ''resist'' ending.

[halbermensch999]

Far Cry 5 has the worst endings in all of gaming history
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/04/11/far-cry-5-has-the-worst-endings-in-all-of-gaming-history/

Perhaps already posted..

[kaffekoppen]

Originally posted by Alpharius:

Originally posted by MEMEoff:

It is quite ironic that the only choice you can make in this game in order to get a "good" ending is essentially not to play this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game at all.

And that's the whole theme of the game . . .

And that was the theme of previous Far Cry titles as well. It doesn't feel particularly fresh at this point, especially when 3 and 4 did the same thing better.

Originally posted by halbermensch999:

Far Cry 5 has the worst endings in all of gaming history
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/04/11/far-cry-5-has-the-worst-endings-in-all-of-gaming-history/

Perhaps already posted..

The title is overly dramatic but there are some good points in there. I thought the ending to Mass Effect 3 was worse, by the way.

[J4n1]

Only way to win, is to not play.
Is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ lesson from stupid people.
Things get better only when people try to make them better, removing yourself from having any influence almost never has any positive effects.

[DeadSlash]

Originally posted by halbermensch999:

Far Cry 5 has the worst endings in all of gaming history
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/04/11/far-cry-5-has-the-worst-endings-in-all-of-gaming-history/

Perhaps already posted..

That's a horrible article. When they describe the walk away ending, they say there is "absolutely no narratively justified reason whatsoever, to walk away from the utterly defeated Seed." That ignores the fact that your 3 fellow officers are on their knees execustion style, and you have what, 9 guns pointed at you?

They talk about that ending like in real life nobody would take the option to walk away with their friends and get help vs. taking on 9 guns pointed at you from inside 20 feet, and barrells to the heads of your 3 fellow officers.. This is clearly written by a kid that thinks Die Hard movies are a documentary.

It's literally the mentality of that drunk guy at the party that everyone hates "Nah, I wouldn't walk away, I would bounce a rock off Seed'd head, it would ricochet off and knock away the guns pointed at my friends, I would throw a ninja poof ball rescue them from the smoke... then I would use my MMA to render all 9 unconcious, then I'd arrest Joseph Seed. That's how I would take on 9 armed soldiers and save 3 hostages and arrest a cult leader."

[Alpharius Nox]

What I cannot fathom, is why people IGNORE everything the Seeds say?
In any fictional universe, you should probably take seriously the things that characters say.
Especially if they are a Doomsday cult in a fictional world.
Because more than likely they will turn out to be right.
Just because they never have in our universe is no good reason to ignore them in fiction
If you do that, for whatever irrational reason you can come up with, you're wrong.

You can't say, "Cult leaders always ramble on IN REAL LIFE!".
That's an invalid argument for a fictional universe.
And this seems to be the core of the reason so many people were dumbstruck by the end.
It's a fictional story, not a documentary, stop with the comparisons of reality.

Of course "in real life", every damn fictional story ever written would be irrational.
But that's why it's FICTIONAL!
This doesn't mean that a story can be limitless irrational.
But it does mean that a story can use elements that would be totally irrational in our world.
The writers of Far Cry 5 did not go beyond that limit.
Because everything in the story makes absolute sense within the universe that they operate in.

Please stop whining because the ending made you feel sad.

[Cpeerson2020]

Originally posted by Alpharius:

What I cannot fathom, is why people IGNORE everything the Seeds say?
In any fictional universe, you should probably take seriously the things that characters say.
Especially if they are a Doomsday cult in a fictional world.
Because more than likely they will turn out to be right.
Just because they never have in our universe is no good reason to ignore them in fiction
If you do that, for whatever irrational reason you can come up with, you're wrong.

You can't say, "Cult leaders always ramble on IN REAL LIFE!".
That's an invalid argument for a fictional universe.
And this seems to be the core of the reason so many people were dumbstruck by the end.
It's a fictional story, not a documentary, stop with the comparisons of reality.

Of course "in real life", every damn fictional story ever written would be irrational.
But that's why it's FICTIONAL!
This doesn't mean that a story can be limitless irrational.
But it does mean that a story can use elements that would be totally irrational in our world.
The writers of Far Cry 5 did not go beyond that limit.
Because everything in the story makes absolute sense within the universe that they operate in.

Please stop whining because the ending made you feel sad.

Ummm because they really gave you nothing to validate anything the Seeds said for one. Two would be when your using the end of the world or the world is on the brink of collapse, even normal people would at least mention these things in passing. There aren't any non cultist even mentioning anything happening about the world outside the valley. Like Random civilians could just even hint at that would lend credence to the radio broadcast about Russian/NKorea which in turn would lend credence to the Seeds. And I am talking about small stuff like " Geez you see what happened to russia on TV?" or "First NKorea, then Russia and now the Peggies" would go miles to adding credence to what the peggies were saying.

Ubi took a chance and tried to be edgy with the ending and it fell flat with a lot of people. Your asking us why we ignored the Seeds, because they were murderous, torturing psychopaths with zero credibility. Why should we believe them? Yes its a fictional world but even in fictional worlds you have to provide some credibility to the characters claims especially crazy ones. Its like Charles Manson saying "People taste like pork.", why would we belive him hes crazy. But if Jeffrey Dahmer said the same thing, even being as crazy as ole Charlie, he has credibility because well he ate people.

[Alpharius Nox]

Originally posted by cpeerson2000:

Originally posted by Alpharius:

What I cannot fathom, is why people IGNORE everything the Seeds say?
In any fictional universe, you should probably take seriously the things that characters say.
Especially if they are a Doomsday cult in a fictional world.
Because more than likely they will turn out to be right.
Just because they never have in our universe is no good reason to ignore them in fiction
If you do that, for whatever irrational reason you can come up with, you're wrong.

You can't say, "Cult leaders always ramble on IN REAL LIFE!".
That's an invalid argument for a fictional universe.
And this seems to be the core of the reason so many people were dumbstruck by the end.
It's a fictional story, not a documentary, stop with the comparisons of reality.

Of course "in real life", every damn fictional story ever written would be irrational.
But that's why it's FICTIONAL!
This doesn't mean that a story can be limitless irrational.
But it does mean that a story can use elements that would be totally irrational in our world.
The writers of Far Cry 5 did not go beyond that limit.
Because everything in the story makes absolute sense within the universe that they operate in.

Please stop whining because the ending made you feel sad.

Ummm because they really gave you nothing to validate anything the Seeds said for one. Two would be when your using the end of the world or the world is on the brink of collapse, even normal people would at least mention these things in passing. There aren't any non cultist even mentioning anything happening about the world outside the valley. Like Random civilians could just even hint at that would lend credence to the radio broadcast about Russian/NKorea which in turn would lend credence to the Seeds. And I am talking about small stuff like " Geez you see what happened to russia on TV?" or "First NKorea, then Russia and now the Peggies" would go miles to adding credence to what the peggies were saying.

Ubi took a chance and tried to be edgy with the ending and it fell flat with a lot of people. Your asking us why we ignored the Seeds, because they were murderous, torturing psychopaths with zero credibility. Why should we believe them? Yes its a fictional world but even in fictional worlds you have to provide some credibility to the characters claims especially crazy ones. Its like Charles Manson saying "People taste like pork.", why would we belive him hes crazy. But if Jeffrey Dahmer said the same thing, even being as crazy as ole Charlie, he has credibility because well he ate people.

They gave you plenty, you just chose to ignore it.
Or you don't understand how narrative works.
Considering that Joseph, and the Heralds, are the main antagonists in the story, it's probably a good idea to pay close attention to what they say to you, even if you don't agree, like, or it makes you soil your panties. Had you done that, at all, the ending, the theme, and everything about Far Cry 5's story would have made perfect sense.

They were telling you the entire time the world was coming to an end.
Just because you chose not to believe them, doesn't mean the writers suck.

[Cpeerson2020]

Originally posted by Alpharius:

Originally posted by cpeerson2000:

Ummm because they really gave you nothing to validate anything the Seeds said for one. Two would be when your using the end of the world or the world is on the brink of collapse, even normal people would at least mention these things in passing. There aren't any non cultist even mentioning anything happening about the world outside the valley. Like Random civilians could just even hint at that would lend credence to the radio broadcast about Russian/NKorea which in turn would lend credence to the Seeds. And I am talking about small stuff like " Geez you see what happened to russia on TV?" or "First NKorea, then Russia and now the Peggies" would go miles to adding credence to what the peggies were saying.

Ubi took a chance and tried to be edgy with the ending and it fell flat with a lot of people. Your asking us why we ignored the Seeds, because they were murderous, torturing psychopaths with zero credibility. Why should we believe them? Yes its a fictional world but even in fictional worlds you have to provide some credibility to the characters claims especially crazy ones. Its like Charles Manson saying "People taste like pork.", why would we belive him hes crazy. But if Jeffrey Dahmer said the same thing, even being as crazy as ole Charlie, he has credibility because well he ate people.

They gave you plenty, you just chose to ignore it.
Or you don't understand how narrative works.
Considering that Joseph, and the Heralds, are the main antagonists in the story, it's probably a good idea to pay close attention to what they say to you, even if you don't agree, like, or it makes you soil your panties. Had you done that, at all, the ending, the theme, and everything about Far Cry 5's story would have made perfect sense.

They were telling you the entire time the world was coming to an end.
Just because you chose not to believe them, doesn't mean the writers suck.

So you blow off any reasoning we provide and your only answer to the "Why should we believe them?" is because? Righhht........