In my case, “you are a two man army” because I always play these in coop.
Another no gameplay trailer. Thumbs down.
It’s been the same gameplay for the past few games in the franchise. The only major exception being Primal.
Hope all the red clouds mean plenty of trippy drug sequences.
Both those trailers were awesome and I am on board for this. Looks like it could be a mixture of trad wilderness and urban settings.
Also they really have doubled down on the Tropico theme. “I am El Presidente!”.
Oh man… I REALLY wish they’d drop those damn things. SOO bloody frustrating. Hate, hate, hate them!!! Seriously.
I mean, it looks cool, and this is a game that I’ll buy pretty much whatever they show, because, well, Far Cry. I’m always conflicted a bit though with this franchise.
The basic premise of the games requires a frontier-like environment, a sort of liminal space on the fringes (at best) of order and structure, where the player can more or less plausibly be a free agent, where violence is common, and where we can accept the presence of scads of weapons floating around. For most of the games, they’ve gone to developing countries/areas. For FC 5, they went to a remote Western part of the USA, and while the set up was even less believable than those for the other FC games, they kinda/sorta made it work with the backstory stuff (dysfunctional government and a world sliding towards nuclear war). And it was so pretty no one cared.
The propensity for third-world backdrops, though, gets problematic.While there are some variations, the games usually feature some conflict between “good” indigenous people and “bad” interlopers from outside (again, FC 5 is a bit of an exception, unless you figure the cultists play the role of outsiders, which is a hard sell given how the cult consists of people largely recruited from the area). There are two problems (for me at least) with this set up. One, the indigenous people are exoticized, romanticized, and generally turned into stereotypical "native villagers, with quasi-mystical traditions/religions and often near magical abilities (at least with their “wise men/women”.) Two, you, the sophisticated outsider from “civilization” end up being the Great White Savior (even if your character isn’t white, or male). You are an archetype, just as the “natives” are an archetype. And this relationship is awkward at best, cringeworthy at worst.
Any of this keep me from playing the hell out of these games? Nope. But there is a growing literature looking at how indigenous people are portrayed in games now. A lot of it focuses on strategy, particularly 4x games, where “barbarians” or “natives” end up being just targets or inconveniences, and the player plays the role, mutatis mutandis, of what in our world we call the colonialist or imperialist power. It’s actually kind of creepy when you think of it. (On a side note, there is a game on Steam EA about the Ameriican West from the Native American perspective, called This Land is My Land. Haven’t seen it, but the description is intriguing.
I made a thread about that game, but I think no one bought it because it didn’t go anywhere. Reviews were not encouraging.
Nope, hasn’t been released yet. Just another janky early access crap.
That is an issue, I think. The resources needed to make a good game don’t magically diminish just because you have a good purpose or needed narrative perspective. And gamers are under no obligation to buy or play games that, well, aren’t good games, even if they support the concept behind the game. They are free do to so, and some may well decide it’s like a donation to a cause, but in general, the same rule applies in games as it does in music or movies: the art has to be good, then you can add the messaging.
The biggest difference with games though is that while Hollywood and the music industry and publishing world have long ago carved out space for “message” products, and people don’t look askance at, say, a movie with a distinct POV, the game business has been slow to make that shift. Too many troglodytes who somehow have become convinced that hyper-macho, misogynist, violence-glorifying, neo-liberal shilling, and openly jingoistic game design is somehow “not political,” but featuring a gender fluid person, or a Native American perspective, is injecting something into games something that shouldn’t be there.
Wow, just watched the official trailer. Esposito totally doing the scary version of Gustavo Fring. Pretty cool that they snagged him for the role and likeness.
The roiling red clouds remind me of Bliss.
No one should be reminded of Bliss. Bliss is the worst fucking game mechanic ever.
exactly.
You can say a lot of things about Ubisoft games, but man - Their trailers are really, really cool! And I don’t mostly watch intros in games anymore, but these? I adore them!
My thoughts exactly. My heart sank when I saw that.
There’s a non-scary version?
I know you are mostly joking, but I tend to share the real aspects of your frustration. When there is something that can easily be documented, something for which there are plentiful sources and examples, and which actually looks wicked cool in reality, why the hell would you make up something fictional or use an inaccurate version? There’s no upside.
I don’t know how anyone can expect me to pay for this software when the screw on the fuel gauge is a flathead when EVERYONE knows they changed that for the model D2 of this fighter. It completely ruins any facade of reality and it might as well be Pac Man instead of a high fidelity simulation.
(what? This isn’t the Usenet flight sim group?) Oh - Never Mind. ;)
Actually I do too. ;) Drives my wife crazy.