Far Cry 5: trailers, release date, news and features

Update: TechRadar has recently had the chance to go hands on with Far Cry 5 from the very beginning. Make sure you read below to find out what we thought and keep and eye out on the site next week for more Far Cry news and features!

We've also been chatting to the game's development team. Interested to hear about the development of the game from the creative director himself? Check our our interview with Dan Hay. Interested in the game's narrative, characters and the freedom you can expect to have? We also had some time with the game's lead writer Drew Holmes.

Original article continues below...

Far Cry 5 is the latest game in Ubisoft's chaotic first-person open world shooter franchise and thus far it's looking like it may be the most controversial title to date.

Following on from the prehistoric and unexpected Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 5 is returning players to the modern day, this time in America. Specifically, a rural area known as Hope County, Montana.

Hope County has been taken over by a cult of religious fanatics and the game tasks the player with liberating the residents of Hope County and restoring peace and order to the area. Using violence.

Cut to the chase

What is it? The next installment in the open world first-person shooter franchise
What can I play it on? PS4, Xbox One and PC
When can I play it? March 27 2018

Far Cry 5 preview

Recently TechRadar had the chance to attend an event dedicated to Far Cry 5 where we were able to go hands-on with the first few hours of the game. Prior to this event, any opportunity we’d had to play Far Cry had involved being dropped into the game at a point a few hours into the story and while we enjoyed the gameplay, we were left curious as to how Far Cry 5’s main antagonist, Joseph Seed, would be portrayed in-game.

Far Cry is a series known for its antagonists, after all. Now that we’ve had the chance to play the game from the start we can happily say that Joseph Seed may be the most chilling antagonist yet and this might be the series’ most mature story.

Far Cry 5’s opening segment is one which leaves a lasting impression and perfectly sets up the atmosphere of fear in Hope County, the power and reach of The Project at Eden’s Gate, and the menacing threat that is The Father and his family.

Getting off to a strong start

The game opens with you, a rookie deputy, in a helicopter with your fellow officers and a US Marshall. The US Marshall has a warrant for the arrest of cult leader, Joseph Seed, and you’re all gathered together to bring him in. For some reason night has been deemed the best time to do this - great for atmosphere, terrible in terms of practicality.

Landing in the cult compound you make your way through the ramshackle community and aggressive cult members to reach a church, inside which you find a shirtless Seed (as appears to be his wont) preaching to his followers.

The exchange that follows is tense, with Seed telling your group that “God won’t let you take [him]” while his family stands silent behind him and his followers crowd around, waiting for any hint that Seed may ask them to attack. Instead he comes quietly and your sense of unease only increases.

It’s you that presses ‘X’ to slap the cuffs on Seed, you that presses ‘X’ to take him by the shoulder and lead him to the helicopter. It all feels intensely personal and it’s here where you can see the decision to make the protagonist of the game a silent and relatively blank slate is a good one.

No words needed

With a story and setting as potentially inflammatory as this, it makes sense to give the player complete freedom to project their own feelings and reactions onto their avatar. A protagonist who reacts in a particular way could be seen to be pushing a message or moralising or making a value judgement - this completely removes that issue. This time it’s you in the world of Far Cry - there’s no protagonist and their story separating you from the game world and it works.

After this sequence chaos breaks out as you’ve been able to sense it will from the moment the helicopter landed. We won’t go into any details with regards to what happens because we want you to be able to enjoy this opening sequence for yourself - it’s one of the best we’ve seen in a while.

After this, Far Cry 5 the game begins and you’ll find yourself back in pretty familiar territory. As far as mechanics and overall gameplay are concerned, this is very much the Far Cry experience we’re familiar with. Don’t get us wrong, this isn't a bad things and Far Cry 5 does what it does extremely well: the weapons are varied, firing them is extremely satisfying, movement around the game world is seamless and enjoyable.

Something we were pretty glad to see the back of was towers (there’s a funny reference to their prevalence in previous games in one of your first missions). Instead, finding new locations in the game and opening up the map is a far more organic experience while still feeling very familiarly Far Cry.

A more organic experience

To find new places you can, of course, simply come across them while you’re exploring or pick up maps when you find them. But you can also talk to the characters that populate the game world and use the gossip and stories they offer you to find out more about where you may be needed. Because of this they feel less like static (and fairly useless) NPCs waiting to give you information and more like they’re living the game world.

Far Cry 5’s narrative is a lot more organic too. While it’s a linear story, the way you move through it is completely up to you thanks to the introduction of resistance points.

The game world is split into three regions - each with its own leading cult member and resistance meter. To the rugged north lies Jacob Seed and his military operations, to the east by the river is Faith Seed with her Bliss and workforces, and to the open plains of the south west is John Seed and his reapers.

You can enter the regions in any order, move back and forth between them as you please and complete any missions you like in those regions. On the surface this an almost galling amount of freedom that could make it impossible to progress through the main story in a timely way. Fortunately, pretty much every action you take in the game has an impact on your resistance points.

Rescue civilians, destroy cult property, liberate outposts or complete main story missions - all of these actions will catch the attention of the cult leader in that region and increase your resistance points. As your resistance points increase, so does the aggressiveness of the cult members in the region. Eventually they’ll come looking for you and when the meter reaches full, the cult leader for the region will come after you for themselves

We liked this approach not only because it feels natural but because it means that nothing in the game world feels pointless. There may be icons spattered across a map but all of them allow you to work through what appears to be an engaging main story. Unfortunately not feeling pointless doesn’t cancel out the risk that these missions will feel repetitive.

Bears for hire

Something we made frequent use of was the guns/fangs for hire function. Across the game world you’ll find random NPCs you can recruit to your cause as well as more prominent game characters with specific skills and storylines to follow. There are those who specialise in stealth like Jess, or pilots like Nick - whatever play style you like there’ll be a character that works well with it.

These characters are varied not just in terms of skill but in personality and background. They’re entertaining and their storylines can be serious and heartbreaking or madcap palate cleansers. This does create some tonal tension that doesn’t always sit well, though - there are some truly horrific and brutal sights in Far Cry 5 and we winced more than once at things we saw. To go from walking past hanging and crucified bodies to taking part in some wild stunt driving missions feels somewhat wrong. It breaks up the doom and gloom, certainly, but it undermines the threat of the cult and the tragedy of what’s happening.

We were told before our session started that as well as Boomer the dog, players can also recruit Cheeseburger the diabetic bear to their side. We tried our hardest to get to the bear before our play session was up but unfortunately we were unsuccessful - we did however find a bobblehead likeness of him in a lumber mill which will have to tide us over for now. We will befriend that bear, though he is yet another example of some tonal dissonance.

As we mentioned before, the protagonist in Far Cry 5 is intended to be you which means there is some character creation involved. For the first time you can choose your sex and the basics of your appearance which includes skin tone, hair color and style, clothing and basic face shape. It’s not an overly complicated character creation system but it’s neat and satisfying.

Far Cry 5 is a game that gets off to a thrilling start and while the freedom it offers from the get-go can feel somewhat overwhelming it’s very thrilling. It just remains to be seen whether it can maintain that momentum over a longer period and stave off mission fatigue.

Far Cry 5 trailers

At its PlayStation Showcase at Paris Games Week 2017, Sony showed off a brand new trailer for the game focusing around its co-op gameplay. It looks like the multiplayer mode will preserve every bit of the mayhem of single-player, allowing you to play through the whole campaign with a friend.

You can watch the trailer in its entirety below, or read on for everything else we know about the game – including more details on that co-op gameplay.

At last year's Ubisoft E3 conference, we were treated to two new trailers for Far Cry 5, one of which featured more controversial and thematically-revealing cinematics, while the other depicted actual gameplay. You can watch both of them for yourself below:

Our first look at Far Cry 5 came on Monday, May 22 when Ubisoft dropped the first teaser trailer for the game.

The 40-second trailer didn't offer much of an idea of when the game is going to be set, but it did tell us where: Hope County Montana.

Far Cry 5 release date

After a small delay we know the game will be available from March 27 2018.

News and features

What's the story?

The game will this time revolve around a religious cult in the USA called The Project, which rises up to take control of the town of Hope County when your character arrives in town.

You'll play a deputy sheriff trying to take them down. The leader of The Project is Joseph Seed, who calls himself The Father, and he resolutely believes that the end of days is coming and it's up to him to save the town whether they like it or not.

Gameplay

This will be an open world adventure like previous Far Cry titles with a range of vehicles you can use to explore, ranging from trucks and sports cars to gun-equipped planes and boats.

Hunting and driving

According to Ubisoft, vehicles and weapons will be customizable (more than they've been in any previous Far Cry game) so it'll be interesting to see what we'll be able to do with them.

Hunting will also make a return, with players able to fish and shoot at wild animals they encounter while exploring.

Guns for hire

There will also be a guns for hire element to the game.

Each of these recruitable characters has their own back story and motivations so the player will have to interact with them and form relationships to convince them to help rather than have immediate access to them.

Once they're on your side, you'll be able select these companions to join you in the game world. Some of them are specialist story-driving characters with a distinct skill to offer and it's up to you to decide which one compliments your play style most. Other companions are simple run-and-gun types who you'll find wandering the world and be able to add to your roster of helpers.

When they're fighting alongside you, you can direct them using simple d-pad controls, instructing them which enemies you'd like taken out without having to do the work yourself.

It's an interesting and game-changing feature for Far Cry as it adds some much-needed variety to the otherwise not-much-changed combat.

Character creation

Players will be able to create their own character in Far Cry 5 with a choice of gender and a small degree of appearance customization.

Co-op

Far Cry 5 will have a fully integrated co-op mode which was revealed at Paris Games Week 2017. Pretty much as soon as you complete the game's initial tutorial you'll be able to play the entire campaign with a friend online, who will appear as a Friend for Hire.

You'll be able to share ammo and health packs and if you're feeling brave you can switch on friendly fire and run the risk of shooting one another in chaotic shoot-outs. There won't be any random matchmaking here – you can only play with people already on your friends list.

When you do play together only the host player will be able to accept missions as well as recruit and lead any additional Guns for Hire. The second player, however, will still be able to retain their player progression (not their world progression) and retain all money, guns and perks they might earn.

Resistance points

Each region in the Far Cry world is headed up by one of the Father's cult leaders and it's up to you to draw them out and take them down for yourself.

This time around the narrative and smallest side quests are neatly threaded together meaning that everything you do in Hope County will contribute in some way to building up something called resistance points.

As you build your resistance points in a region you'll draw the attention of the cult leader tat runs it. Gather enough and you'll bring them out to face you.

Naturally, taking part in big story missions will garner more resistance points than small actions like rescuing a town person from the side of the road in a randomly generated optional mission but everything you do will push you forward meaning no matter how you decide to play the game one day, you'll still be building towards something.

E3 hands on

In the E3 demo for Far Cry 5, the very first thing we encountered was by far the biggest addition and change to the franchise in a while - guns for hire companions.

Before we started our mission we were given the choice of three companions: Grace Armstrong, a sniper able to provide accurate long-distance cover; Nick Rye, a pilot who can swoop in with his plane to drop bombs and spray devastating machine gun fire; and Boomer, a dog well-suited to stealthy take downs and a genuine sense of in-battle companionship.

Though we were tempted to go for Boomer (because who doesn’t love a canine companion in a video game?) we went for Nick, certain that he was the most capable of causing chaotic and widespread damage. We were not wrong.

Choose your companion

Once our companion was selected we were dropped into Fall’s End, a town in Hope County overrun by the game’s villainous religious cult and in desperate need of our help. You start the level from an advantageously high position and we were able to survey the chaos and devastation the people of Fall’s End were experiencing at the hands of the cult.

This was probably a good move as it made us feel a little less guilty about the bombs we were planning to rain down.

After scrolling through the weapon wheel to select our preferred weapon (the biggest and most dangerous-looking one, obviously) we jumped straight into the thick of the action and started firing bullets.

Unsurprisingly, the cult members reacted immediately and started running for cover, firing back. It was at this point that we started to question our decision to jump straight into killing every enemy in sight, a self-doubt that was exacerbated by the Ubisoft representative who delicately reminded us that a more stealthy approach was also an option.

It was at the point where we were cowering behind the shell of a truck, however, that we decided to employ the skills of our companion Nick Rye. Targeting one of the cult members in the center of the town, we pressed the button that would direct Nick to fire from his plane. Moments later, a satisfying explosion took place and we were saved the trouble of disposing of several enemies at once.

Knowing Nick was there for back-up made it much easier to take the brazen but exhilarating combat approach of walking straight into the open and shooting down enemies with abandon.

Creating safe spaces

Because of this, we were able to liberate Fall’s End fairly quickly, after which it became a safe place we could explore and interact with NPCs. After chatting to another possible companion, the barmaid Mary May, we made our way down to see Nick Rye to try out another form of combat in the game: aerial dogfights.

On the way to see Nick, we came across a woman being harassed by members of the cult at the side of the road. Random encounters like this in the game will be common and though you won’t have to stop and intervene to help every towns-person you see, it’s hard not to.

Aerial combat

When we finally took to the skies, we found Nick’s plane fun if slightly dizzying to use. The sheer amount of guns the thing is kitted out with make you feel invincible but chasing another plane through the sky in first person left us looping through the air for far longer than our sense of balance was comfortable with.

It became frustrating that we couldn’t zoom out for a wider view of the sky to find our enemy more quickly, though perhaps if we’d been more willing to slow the plane down we may have found the whole experience less stressful.

Familiar combat

Aside from its new guns-for-hire feature and the controversial setting, Far Cry 5 doesn’t really do much to change up combat. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and there’s definitely a sense of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’ There was never anything wrong with Far Cry’s first-person controls.

With the addition of companions, things have been made a little more interesting as you feel like you have a powerful trick hidden up your sleeve when combat feels like it’s becoming overwhelming.

In addition to this, it’s an easy way to add diversity to combat - it’s up to you to pick the companion that suits your play style most and depending on who you choose could genuinely affect the way you decide to tackle a particular area. Had we taken sniper Grace as our companion, we wouldn’t have been nearly so gung-ho as we were with Nick.

Forming relationships

Aside from what we experienced, we were told by the Ubisoft representative that recruiting companions and forming relationships with them would be a big and interesting part of the game. It's up to you, then, to secure the companions you'd most like to have on your side and, more importantly, keep on your side.

Aside from using companions in single-player mode, players will also be able to bring their friends into the game to fight alongside them in co-op mode.

Far Cry 5 will also feature the hunting elements we’re used to seeing in the franchise and wild animal encounters will again be another danger in the game world, as well as religious fanatics. Players will be given the chance to create their own character at the beginning of the game, determining gender and appearance.

From our brief time with the game we got the sense that Far Cry’s controversial new narrative, combined with the more varied combat enabled by the new guns for hire feature, has the potential to breath fresh air into the long-running series.

Is there a Far Cry 5 season pass?

There sure is! Far Cry 5 will have a season pass that will give players access to three pieces of DLC.

We can safely say that this isn't the kind of DLC we would have expected, but it certainly channels the spirit of the Far Cry series. There are three DLC packs confirmed and between them they'll take players back in time to the Vietnam war, pit them against zombies in the ultimate b-movie, and even take them up to Mars (yes, the planet) to go head to head with some Martians.

While purchasing the game's season pass will guarantee access to each of these packs, it'll also give players Far Cry 3: Classic edition. On consoles this'll be the game's single-player content, while on PC it'll be the full game.