FarCry 5: Early Impressions

Having abandoned FarCry 6, I've immediately jumped into the predecessor, FarCry 5. I've noticed that this one was much better received critically, and from the initial setup, I am impressed at how well it is put together. I am also, frankly, astonished that a game that frames white American Christians as the villains managed to be published and sold so well at this moment in time. 

FC5 was released in 2018, and was developed by the Canadian Ubisoft studios in Montreal and Toronto. This is probably key to the setup of the game--I truly struggle to imagine an American studio maintaining support for this particular villain. 

Imagine for a moment if Joseph Smith had founded his church in 2000 rather than 1830, and happened to have been in Montana rather than Utah. Perhaps his last name would have been 'Bundy' or 'Koresh' in this case (In the film he'd be played by Jared Leto), and his followers would have combined their religious zealotry with a radical anti-authoritarian perspective on the Federal government.  Indeed, the game opens with a US Marshal and his deputy (the player character) serving a warrant to the Eden's Gate leader, Joseph Seed. Subsequently, of course, the extraction goes extremely sideways, and the helicopter carrying the local sheriff, deputies, the marshall, the player and Seed crashes. This sets up the initial "on your own" situation that FarCry games depend on. 

From what little specific reading I have done about this specific game, it seems that the game (and it's developers) try to walk that same line of creating a very obvious, specific social commentary, while also not actually making a point that might offend parts of their potential market. Critics have been fairly harsh in describing the 'easily digestible evil' of the Eden's Gate members, but I am not seeing it, so far. To be clear, this game is not subtle, or particularly sophisticated as yet. However, when I think of the current batch of real-world radicals such as the Bundy family, Enrique Tarrio, Thomas Ryan Rousseau, and even certain members of the US House of Representatives, I fail to see the aspect of the Eden's Gate that they would find entertaining to gun down. That is, these Christo-facsists seem awfully familiar to me in the current moment. I have a hard time imagining a member of Patriot Front going home after a tiki-illuminated race-rally, and getting their kicks by gunning down the folks who took over Hope County, Montana. 

We shall see how the game pans out. Perhaps the caricature of evil will become too silly to take seriously - but I sort of feel like what we're experiencing in reality is almost beyond parody anyway.