I was not the biggest fan of Far Cry 5. I found it fun-ish if deeply to completely flawed and if I ever have to do a Pilotwings mission in a sandbox murdersim again I’ll lose my mind. Also, I’m pretty tired of killing dogs and I’m equally tired of drug addiction as a trope to motivate bad guys in games. I have thoughts and they are legion. I was still somewhat kinder in my evaluation than my RPS colleagues who (rightly) lambasted it for a terrible story and perhaps the worst ending in video game history. That said, from the moment I loaded up the user maps and map editor on day one, I claimed that this was going to be the most interesting part of Far Cry 5 moving forward. And that’s most of what I’ve been playing ever since. This Jurassic Park map should show you why.
I regret to inform you that I am back on the barrels. I’ll get around to playing Far Cry 5 properly one day, but right now I’m placing explosive barrel on top of explosive barrel, creating a giant, improbable stack on a flat, untextured environment. The original plan was to fill a pit full of explosives and bears, but I quickly hit the limit of how many unsuspecting ursine victims I could stuff into a single grid and things have just escalated since then.
I’ve been a big fan of doing dumb shit in map editors ever since Crysis, and the niche trend of detonating thousands of explosive barrels until your PC crashed. Unfortunately for me, Far Cry 5 is newer and wiser, and seems to have hard limits on the amount of raw explosion that can happen at a given time—almost like it has been designed to not let you set your computer on fire.
Barrels (and grizzly bears) are about as far as my map-editing skills extend. Instead, I relocate to Far Cry 5’s library of custom-made maps. Let’s see what people with actual talent can do.
The first one I download is Terminal, a bounty hunt map created by Ubisoft. Specifically, created by someone at Ubisoft who really loves shipping containers. It’s a pretty cool map—the first part reminiscent of every Call of Duty game that requires you to kill people who are standing around the absurd number of shipping containers. But it’s the second half, as you close in on the map’s sole target, that demonstrates the flexibility of the Far Cry Arcade’s handful of modes.
I find a hatch and crawl through, and emerge into a room full of floating clocks. Things get weirder from there.
I can see my target. I know they’re in a small room in the middle of the map. But the door is locked and I can see no way to get in. It takes a few minutes, but I eventually notice the zipline that extends from a building across the map to the roof of the target’s location. I realise this is more a puzzle than a combat challenge: the real trick was finding how to get to the target. I make my way around, and zipline to the roof, opening a hatch and shooting my quarry.
That was neat, but I was expecting something more inventive from one of the editor’s highest-rated maps. Luckily, the next one I try delivers. Upside Down is a ‘Journey’ map, also created by Ubisoft. The aim is to get to the marked waypoint—ostensibly by fighting your way through a map full of heavily armed cultists. Except this map is empty—it’s just a house, full of regular house stuff. I find a hatch and crawl through, and emerge into a room full of floating clocks. Things get weirder from there—as I make my way through a set of surrealist environments that play with direction and orientation in fun ways.
I leave the Ubisoft-dominated featured picks and search for all top-rated Journey maps. Top of the list is Trial of Pyre by Ekizius. It’s a platforming challenge, and so frequently infuriating that it’s probably a good one. The endpoint is the top of a tower not far from your spawn, but getting to it requires parachuting from the top point of a precarious series of ledges and grapple points built into a nearby canyon. I climb a precariously constructed tower, before a mistimed jump dumps me back to the floor. I ragequit immediately.
I could take out my frustration on some bears in Far Cry 5’s actual campaign. But, what’s this? A P.T. inspired map featuring a looping series of spooky corridors? Yeah, go on then. That’ll be an experience.
Far Cry 5's Hours of Darkness DLC focuses on stealthy survival in the Vietnam War, said Chris earlier this week. Some of that's teased at the start of the South East Asian expansion's launch trailer, before the player is seen blowing things up, dropping choppers from the sky, and rolling around in the dirt with an angry panther.
After some teething issues that hit both Uplay and Steam players—which appear to be sorted now—Hours of Darkness is out now and looks like this:
As someone who quickly tired of the base game's rural Montana, the thought of sleuthing around the jungle appeals to me more than the latter third of the above. This excerpt from Chris' impressions is more what I'm after.
With the exception of jets noisily napalming the shit out of your enemies, Hours of Darkness encourages you to take a stealthy approach to your escape. Rather than the perk unlock system of Far Cry 5, you've already got four perks at the start of the DLC, but you need to make stealth kills to activate them. Make four stealth kills in a row, and you'll have all four perks active. If you're detected by enemies you'll instantly lose those perks until you've made four more stealth kills to regain them all.
The following developer livestream outlines that further still around the 22 minute mark. Here, the player invades an enemy camp, before offing foes with a bow and arrow and bamboo sticks. Look, see:
Check out Chris' early thoughts on Far Cry 5's Hours of Darkness DLC this way. More information on the expansion itself lives on its Steam page.
The Vietnam War is the unlikely setting for Far Cry 5‘s first DLC, released today, through far stranger is yet to come. The ‘Hours Of Darkness’ stars Wendell Redler, the fella in the main game who sends us on a thrilling fetch quest seeking a dozen cigarette lighters, as we revisit a terrible time in his ‘Nam days. Given the sensitivity and insight with which Far Cry 5 explored the allure and dangers of cults, it’s thrilling to contemplate how they might interrogate myths of the- naw, I’m just joshin’ you.
The DLC is supposed to be out now but seems to have hit a snag. (more…)
