Some of the worst writing ever!

[HunterofClouds]

This is the first time a game's story actually detracts so much from the overall experience that it makes me not want to keep playing. The free roam experience is fun and enjoyable until you realize that every outpost and most side stories are pretty similar, as in go to x and kill y. I suppose that's nothing new in a Far Cry game, but at least that was expected.

That said, the writing in this game is terrible. None of the characters, NOT A SINGLE ONE, is likable or even memorable at all - the silent protagonist included.

Every cutscene is cringe worthy and induced a heated bout of inner struggle as I tried to decide how badly I wanted to just finish the game already versus having to put myself through yet another of the seemingly endless loops of getting captured, somehow getting loose, then murdering every soul in sight and ending up back at a friendly outpost with everyone sucking up to you and singing your praises in the developer's sad and obvious effort to make you feel good about yourself and this sad excuse of a plot.

I did not expect Vaas-level of ingenuity and creativity in writing a villain, but god FC5's villains all sound profound - in that they're profoundly retarded and even more profoundly exasperating. The whole religious and pseudo-political commentary misses by a mile and instead of intriguing or captivating us as the audience, only serves to foster feelings of ridicule and disgust in the same way you'd look at a beautifully seared, delicious smelling fish served to you, only to discover upon parting its belly with a knife that it was filled with worms and parasites. Then the parasites actually reach out to firmly coil their slimy tentacles around your face and start sermonizing to you about the most ridiculously far-fetched fantasies that must actually make sense to a fish-dwelling worm, because to you it is all a load of crap. It even stinks worse than that, too.

Just who wrote this terrible excuse of a plot? Who was in charge of the creative direction of this title? What kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ gave the all-ok to produce crap on such an epic scale? Why foist an otherwise decent game with such a hideous story and characters? It's like they're purposefully trying to build the prettiest boat they can, then immediately proceed to poke as many holes through the hull as soon as all the passengers strap on for the ride.

I, for one, am still desperately treading water as I attempt to negotiate an uneasy compromise between my sanity and my curiosity. The former tells me to stop wasting my time and to stay as far away from this horrible excuse of a story. The latter is helplessly intrigued by just how much worse it can all get as I force myself to continue playing for as long a stretch as I can manage before my vomit instinct kicks in. Gotta say I'm kind of proud of myself, having managed to kill two sub-bosses in the past 3 weeks.

The question that finally lingers in my mind as I attempt to find both the will and the courage to face down the final sub-boss and then finally finish the game is this: How could the writing possibly be this bad? How?

Mind is blown.

[UnKn0wN]

k, I thought the writing and chars were just brilliant, a unique mix of comedy, tragedy and mockery.
the ending is also brilliant but I can see why so many get upset about it.
I dig it, you don´t, not every game needs to be liked by everyone... that said your mind is blown so I think they succeeded. lol

[kaffekoppen]

I'm with OP on this. I also found the writing abysmal, and the repeated abductions are just ways of forcing you to look at the cutscenes because they weren't able to tell a story that fits an open world game.

This is coming from someone who is a fan of the series (or I guess I was). I also think some of the actors did a really good job, which makes it doubly disappointing that it was for such a silly story.

If you look at something like AC: Origins, you have an Ubi game with vastly superior writing and design and a story that isn't constantly in conflict with the open world nature of the game.

By AC: O it seemed like Ubi was doing good things with their open world formula, but now I don't know. It doesn't look good. It's a huge step back not just from AC: O but from FC4.

If they wanted such a rigid story structure with no player agency, they should have made a much more linear game. It just looks like they were so damn proud of their cutscenes that they can't stand the idea of us playing the game at our own pace, or having any influence on the story for that matter.

With a more linear game, they wouldn't need repeated abductions to tell the story in a natural way.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

I gotta be honest, the story made me want to stop playing. Everything outside of the main story was fine to me. The random side stories, the guns for hire and most of the missions we're ok. However the main story and the capture mechanic we're just idiotic. It's easy to have a quest end and you get locked in a bunker and it progresses when you sleep or something. Then the villians are just so bad. I mean so ridiculously bad. Its like whoa, let's get them super close up and give a soliliquey to me in forced interactions that never should happen. Coupled with dumb television broadcast. Then the bliss being a magic drug that allows you to directly hack people's bodies and do whatever you want along and the main character being unaffected by being in it. Then the conditioning portion that even if you see what's coming a mile away, you are locked into doing. It's not like anyone actually cares about that character, you only ever see him once.
I just wish the game's story was better since I did find that the gameplay handled nicely.

[kaffekoppen]

I should add that I enjoyed the silly little side missions and the minor characters, as well as the gameplay (except the damn abductions!).

I honestly think the next Far Cry could be utterly amazing if they embraced what was actually fun about the series rather than forcing a "shocking" story at the cost of the gameplay experience.