Far Cry 5 - Beautiful visuals and outstanding soundtrack

I started playing Far Cry 5 a few days ago and I'm utterly impressed by the visuals and music.

The environment looks so great with the beautiful animated vegetation, trees and lighting. I often found myself just wandering around and enjoying the assets. I'm playing on Xbox One, which according to Digital Foundry, is the platform where the game looks "the worse" though. I'm still very impressed.

Beside the visuals, what reeeeaaaally stands out to me is the music. Ubisoft uploaded the soundtrack, so I recommend to give it a try.

Anyone else enjoying Far Cry 5 here?

 

im busy working in unity with my ipad to have fun lol... literally using my ipad with unity, zbrush, substance, etc.
my brother bought fc5, he just said the game was alright lol

 

I'm playing it on an Xbox One X and a 65" 4K UHD TV so I'm playing it in Native 4K. The visuals really are fantastic, even from afar (jumping in a sea plane and flying around the terrain). I'm not crazy about the super blown out bloom when going from an interior to exterior... sometimes just standing outside and looking into a doorway, then panning the camera and boom..all white fading back into normal. The effect is really overkill.

The music does a good job of matching the locale and atmosphere so it seems to blend pretty seamlessly. Some of the UI/UX is confusing as hell... almost too many options so it took me awhile to figure out how to specify which NPC I'm assigning to help me, and there's not much indication of when they "die" so you'll just notice they're not around and you can't summon them to help you.

Overall though, I'm really loving the game. It's a ton of fun. Even the little stuff like fishing off the pier, driving around a tractor, flying a sea plane or helicopter, hunting game... are just satisfying. That being said... there are a couple of areas that feel disjointed, and in one case trying to do a mission, completed a different story mission in the process, and got transported over 2K meters from where my other mission was. And, when liberating compounds, you'll sometimes expend a lot of ammo, but if the last Peggie gets killed, it shows the brief "liberated" cut scene, then warps you down into the compound and the bodies are all (except for the occasional stray) gone so you can't loot ammo.

 

It's really cool. Btw, how to create such seamless open world in Unity?

 

By doing what developers do.

Developing.

 

By streaming content in and out of the scene as the player gets close and far away.

 

It really is fun. I found myself just fishing at every pier I came across.

What I find a bit sad though, I can't tell whether I can enter a building. I actually have to walk up to that door, just to find that this particular building is decoration only, and there are just way too many buildings that are deco only. That makes the world less believable for me, I want to be able to enter just any building I want to find loot.

Dying Light did a better job on that end. I believe I was able to enter just any building I wanted. I hope Ubisoft is going to improve in that area, but I have little hope.

 

There is a GDC talk available, that scratches the surface on that topic. The following talk is based on Far Cry 4, but I believe Far Cry 5 is improved technology of what they had already.

Spoiler: Adaptive Virtual Texture Rendering in Far Cry 4

Spoiler: Rendering the World of Far Cry 4

The Asset Build System of 'Far Cry 5'
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1025444/The-Asset-Build-System-of

Terrain Rendering in 'Far Cry 5'
https://gdcvault.com/play/1025480/Terrain-Rendering-in-Far-Cry

Far Cry related sessions on GDCVault
https://www.gdcvault.com/search.php#&category=free&firstfocus=&keyword=far+cry&conference_id=

 

I'm not particularly fond of PUBG but they did get right that all buildings have interior

 

The AI gets a bit wonky at times too... I liberate an area... then I'm talking to an NPC getting a mission and out of nowhere a gd bear flies in and takes out the NPC... then I have to slay the bear and revive the npc.

 

Yeh I cannot handle DayZ because I keep expecting to be able to enter rooms and levels of buildings which are blocked. Miscreated has a lot of the buildings able to be access on each level.

wow sounds pretty realistic to me! damn bears no respect for a good story line

 

It is, but it forces me to listen to the same dialogue again.

 

i havent seen anything in the game that interests me all that much

 

Like Ghost Recon, Houdini engine was the procedural base tool
https://www.appleglory.com/the-procedural-world-generation-of-far-cry-5/

 

Fun , but very quickly borring if you play in solo, quest are quickly repetitive, gameplay is shooting with some extra actvities. They should take a look at Zelda BOT and find ideas about more world interactivity and destruction.
Far Cry is intended to be played in coop.

 

Digital Foundry just released a PC performance analysis...

 

I'm in the minority in that I thought FarCry2 was the height of the series. I don't see enough different in this one that makes me want to spend any time with it... though the environment looks quite beautiful.

 

I have the advantage of not playing any of the previous Far Cry installments, so this is my first. The environment is nice. The story gets a bit carried a way... the side missions are very repetitive. The map is absolutely huge, with not a ton of variation. Flying is fun, though my helicopter evidently ran out of fuel without warning and started firing off all kinds of beeps and sirens... good thing I had the parachute.

The side missions also go too far, imho. They're grossly inappropriate in many cases. Now, that's fine... I don't necessarily take issue with that, except that in this case it doesn't add anything to the game or story.

 

In FC4 that happens when you are flying too high. It's their version of an invisible ceiling.

 

These graphics are nice, but has nobody seen theHunter: Call of the Wild? It's not a mainstream game, but it blows FC5 out of the water as far as environment goes. The problem I see with FC5 environment is that the forest look very CG -- that is all the trees are straight, there is no deadfall, the bloom is overdone, and the vegetation placement is very procedural.

None of this is really so important to the game for what it is, but if we are talking environments, the bar has already been set higher than this.

As far as gameplay goes, I don't jive with Ubisoft games anymore. This is Ubisoft game right? They always have serious themes but the writing is cartoonish. Irks me. Also, I watched a gameplay video of somebody unloading an entire m4 magazine into a gigantic black bears face before it died. Just seems kind of silly.

 

Is it chocked full of cut-scenes? I'm old and impatient. Wolfenstein put me off of the latest FPS type games in that regard.

 

"Ubisoft knows the recipe by now. Why make a good game every 3-4 years when you can make a lousy one every year for 3-4 years. The money is the same. Other franchises like Assasins Creed and Ghost Recon have suffered the same fate. "

From metacritic user Val-835. I think this somes it up. Whether it's an intentional plan or not, this is what most of Ubisofts games lately feel like to me. Except Siege. That's a pretty good one.

 

Not surprised at the graphics, Ubisoft is known for the amazing graphics.

However I do not buy Ubisoft games or any AAA title from big name companies anymore simply because it is always a cash grabage with garbage gameplay not to mention countless DLC and micro transactions.

I might sometimes buy these kind of games if they go on sale on steam for say $7

 

I think some people are getting confused here. The purpose of Far Cry is not to be a BOTW-type physics simulation (or hunting simulation). Similarly, it's not intended to be taken seriously, and hasn't been since Far Cry 3's running around destroying fields of pot while listening to Skrillex.

Far Cry is (now) about goofy shenanigans with light AI where animals and people interact (i.e. you pit them against each other), stories that may make a pass at saying something meaningful but also have boatloads of camp, and tight gunplay-based gameplay loops. That's just where they've taken the series.

One might dislike that direction (I haven't played any of the games since 3), but acting like they need to "take lessons" from completely different types of games is totally missing the point.

 

If you watch most youtubers gameplay, you'll see they don't pay attention to animals, they just shoot the AI that is a poor AI.
It's a passive gameplay in a sense, animals are already around the bad guys, you have nothing to do when they start attacking them. Interaction with animals was already available in Far Cry 4 and it was more advanced with elephants you could ride.
There is no advanced climbing or environment destructions like BattleField Bad Company proposed for example.

Anyway, there is people enjoying it like that and that do not bother about the game beeing another copy of Far Cry 2 & 3 with same drive and shoot gameplay.

 

I don't know. I wasn't overly high though and was flying straight.

 

In FC4 it felt like they (at least partly) measure the flight hight from the terrain to determine the limit. So if you are close to the limit and fly over a valley you can cross the threshold and get the alarm and stalling. It has happened to me, or at least it felt like that's what happened.

 

I don't disagree that it's very similar to Far Cry 4.

I also don't understand the comparison to Bad Company. When has Far Cry ever tried to be like Bad Company? That would be like complaining that Call of Duty games aren't more like Deus Ex. Different franchises try to do different things. The games within a franchise broadly fit into the same category, even if different iterations are different.

The point of Far Cry 5 is not to go radical new directions completely unlike the previous games (iterate and improve, sure, but not completely change it up). The point of Far Cry 5 is to be a Far Cry game.

 

I think what people are upset about is that Ubisoft is turning most of their games into yearly iterations like Madden football games. They remain the same but get slight graphics/cosmetic improvements.

But that's not how most of these games began, so it throws the people who liked the original direction of the games off. Like all the Red Storm tactical shooters -- Ubi turned them into casual yearly (almost) iterations that look more and more like cookie-cutter games coming from the same cutout.

 

I've played 1,2,3 and 5 and 5 was my favorite by far (and the only one I managed to finish!) The plane controls sucked but the helicopter controls were awesome. It was so fun flying around in a helicopter gunship and shooting up hillbilly cultists.

Ran it at ultra and never had one issue, slowdown, or anything. No crashes or game stopping bugs, which in itself is impressive for such a huge game. HATED the drugged effect as it triggered my motion sickness to the point where I just hurried through that part to get it over with. Nothing particularly groundbreaking in it and I literally called the ending five to ten minutes into the game. But it was a hell of a ride from start to finish.

And "Clutch Nixon – Psycho in heaven, angel in hell!"

 

That's pretty common though... look at games like God of War or Uncharted. Each iteration doesn't bring a lot of new anything to the table. Difference being, with those games you're following a continued story of the same character.

 

The only one that's a yearly iteration is Assassin's Creed, and they gave that a year-long break before Origins. Far Cry is getting near there though.

And you do have a point about them changing the games. Far Cry 1 and 2 were very different from the rest, and Siege is nothing like an old Rainbow Six game. Though again, these are definitely not yearly iteration things--they recently announced they have no plans for a Siege 2, that instead they're working on another "Season" or whatever, and I recently saw something about a Wildlands "Year 2."

But no one plays Call of Duty and complains when it plays largely the same. Or Halo or Mass Effect (in fact, in those last two cases the main complaints about the most recent games were that they strayed too far from previous games in the series). Let's judge them on their own merits and not based on totally different kinds of games.

 

Impossible.

A blank universe. Nothing exist. Then there is a single sphere. How big is it? Is it moving?

Elementary -- you are probably already familiar with this -- but it fits.

Especially in the case of sequels and saturated genre's, the only viable way to judge a game is by comparing it to others. My comment about theHunter having a vastly better environment, the only point there was to clue people in to the fact that the bar in that one specific regard is already much higher, because the OP specifically talked about the environment and audio in FC5.

 

I said that poorly. Allow me to say instead - let's not expect them to be something they've never tried to be and never intimated they wanted to be (like a BOTW-esque physics sandbox or hunter sim).

 

Yes, I agree. I am not familiar with the Far Cry series. I think I played the first one back when it was new. If there is any point to my comments on this thread, it's that I generally dislike Ubisoft games because they seem to, IMO, neither push boundaries or refine exisiting mechanics, but instead water-down and rehash things that started out good until they are unrecognizable to the original fanbase.

But big companies have to do things a certain way to stay alive, and their is a market for very casual games like this, so I won't call Ubisoft games crap. Just not my style.

 

Same here, i find it boring and not my prefered game style.
Like COD they have a working formula to make great sales, so they don't want to take some risk and they stick with it.

Far Cry 2 was doing better in some areas than Far Cry 5

 

Thanks for the video. Farcry 2 was damn awesome

 

Far Cry 5 is not the same 3D Engine version from Far Cry 2.
Far Cry 2 engine had more interactivity and destructible things, interactions, even AI was lot better if you watch the whole video.

 

yeah I did watch it that's why I thanked you for it.

 

It's almost tempting to go play farcry2... however I won't bother,I think the development team had more interest in those details than much else about the game design.

Still those subtle little things like being able to shoot individual branches off a tree and have more destructible objects with more physics at play and different ammo types interacting with the world along with wall penetration ..it all adds up for a more immersive experience... more than realistic graphics if you go by gameplay > graphics, certainly made for a nice singleplayer experience and sandbox world ...just a shame screwbie soft have always been anti-modder.. if there games were even a little bit like the Arma3 etc series for map, mission, scripting, server modding it could be really good or provide a good base for someone else to make something better. I can see why alot of it got lost as doing multiplayer and coop just adds to the complication details of syncing that stuff. Maybe that interactive level of detail will return, be nice if Unity had tree support that was nextgen game ready in terms of not just being pretty static objects that are neither destructible nor flammable etc.. ie achieves what farcry and crysis had 10 years ago for singleplayer sandbox worlds. Stuff like that should be looked at along with the Unity terrain tech improvements.

 

There's this game you should check out, called Far Cry 5. Might have a few things you're interested in.

 

Unity is multipurpose, they won't create a framework for a specific game genre like FPS, it would mean creating some AAA game base and that won't happen, it's up to you to buy plugins for a specific game genre or code it yourself.

I looked at someone play test the arcade mode, most of the maps made by users was bad, the only good enough maps was made by Ubisoft and he find the arcade was far away from the game solo quality you can also play as coop.
But yeah, that's a cool map editor that could be interesting with lot of options if some skilled users are able to make interesting enough level design.

 

Thanks for sharing - good soundtrack!

Hmm - maybe you meant Gears of War? I played through all God of War (except on vita) games from beginning to end and personally thought they all iterated and had very large improvements in mechanics and gameplay, not even mentioning improved tertiary elements in lighting, render tech, cloth, textures, FX etc.
Maybe 2-3 was smaller increments compared to 1-2 because mostly (remember) GoW 1 was stationary camera ala old Resident Evil games, but imo God of War games have had solid iterative improvements over all it's games.
I think the span of time will result in the new God of War being largely more up close compared to the quasi-top down of past games and adventure based like Horizon ZD, which will ultimately result in strong story driven gameplay, though the story was always strong in past God of War games.

Disclaimer: I might be a bit of a God of War enthusiast, but "F" Zeus and those terrible balance on the beam levels in GoW1, and the equally terrible ride on the griffon levels in GoW2.

 

I definitely meant GoW. Yes it iterated, the story grew, it added, but it was iterative. Conceptually very similar between iterations. That being said, I certainly don't see that as a negative. I like games that have a successful model and iterate on it, and I loved the GoW series! In fact, I appreciated the iteration.. they were largely small iterations on mechanics between each version, but that kept things in check and believable with the character. It felt more like "growth" and not just suddenly a bunch of new stuff the character can do.

 

Just finished the game. It was really beautiful and had a great story. The best weapon for me was the bow and arrow, especially the explosive ones. Waiting for far cry 6 as the as far cry 5 has unfinished story.

 

Oh, in what way?

I don't think that any pair of FarCry games thus far have had any relation to one another as far as story is concerned. If they've left it open I suspect it's to sell season passes rather than the whole next game.

I haven't played it, but FarCry 5 definitely pushes at least one boundary.

In many games, movies, and so on there's a white American dude galavanting around in some other part of the world saving people with his violence, machismo and general superiority. This is one of few games where Americans are bad guys in America, and if you don't think that pushed any boundaries then grab some popcorn and look up some online discussions about it.

Even mechanically, changes may not be significant but I do believe that they do refine what they're doing from iteration to iteration. I think the main issue there is that both open world games and FPSs now have well-entrenched best practices and/or player expectations, and deviations from those are often quite subtle. You'd have to be familiar with a bunch of such games to spot the differences, but they can still have a significant impact on the overall experience of a game.

But... on that note... what's with the sudden saturation of open world games prominently featuring bow-and-arrow combat? (FarCry, Tomb Raider, Horizon...)

 

Eh, I don't care enough to speculate about entertainment culture and whether or not Ubisoft really did anything risky at all.

About bows and arrows, probably because it seems "hardcore", although most of the time the bows are no different than guns. Or in the case of Horizon, a laser gun. For awhile there survivalism was all the rage when Fox news got all the poorly educated's believing obamy was going to end the world, so I think its just a by-product of that.

 

All I have to say to the bow and arrow trend is: I've been waiting for that since Thief: The Dark Project.

 

I can't say I agree with that. Yes, bows are ranged weapons, but that's about where the similarities with guns end. They're variable power, the projectiles move much more slowly than bullets, and there's no automatic variant.