Far Cry Should Double Down On What Made It Great, Not Become Another Live Service

The way that clusters of island natives in Far Cry 3 shudder at the sight of a tiger strolling through their village, the way that a military presence is more keenly felt in Far Cry 4 when I skip over liberating an outpost to go do some other activity that I’m sidetracked by – sure, these mechanics are artificial in some way and the world can be rolled back by simply loading another save, but they feel real, and that’s what matters. Far Cry doesn’t need multiplayer to keep me playing and to keep me returning, it just needs to contain an engaging open world that asks questions of the player along the way.

I’m of the belief that Far Cry started to go downhill with 5, and while that and New Dawn were still good fun to an extent (the less we talk about 6, the better), they started to feel less alive than the three or four games that came before them. Wildlife didn’t have as much of an impact, having control of radio towers and outposts didn’t change the feel of the world and how it operated as much – and generally speaking, I just felt less of a reason to keep returning. Those older Far Cry games were far from perfect, especially looking back through a modern lens, but there’s so much potential to build on what was started back then. Ubisoft should take those systems and expand on them, not strip them away like in Far Cry 5 onwards – or turn the whole thing into a live service like the company seems to be planning.

Look, I know Ubisoft’s multiplayer comment may be a bit of a throwaway one, and I really don’t know what Ubisoft’s plans are with Far Cry 7. Maybe multiplayer will breathe life into the next Far Cry, maybe it will give the world a more dynamic feel. But what about in a few years’ time when Ubisoft abandons the live service – we’ve seen in Hyper Scape, XDefiant and more that the company is definitely willing to walk away from a multiplayer game and leave it unplayable in the process. I’m still playing Far Cry 3 over a decade on, and I want that option of returning to a Far Cry world years down the line to always be there.

As long as the next Far Cry has a proper story campaign element, I’ll probably give it a shot – I suffered through the mediocrity of Far Cry 6 just to see it through its conclusion. But, if 7 becomes a live service game that I have to ‘keep up with’, I just don’t know how interested I’ll be in doing that. Build an offline world that feels dynamic and chances are I’ll play your new Far Cry for years, Ubisoft. Have the game rely on multiplayer, and well, there probably won’t be much game to go back to once the world has moved on.