I haven’t played enough Far Cry 5 yet to really craft an opinion on it as a whole, but from the few hours that I’ve managed to dig into, I do have some thoughts.

Far Cry 5 is, just as its predecessors, a fun game to play.  As long as you’re on board with the Far Cry formula of snapping necks, shooting dudes and getting animals to eat people, then I think you’ll have a good time with it.  Aside from some leveling progression weirdness, most of the changes in Far Cry 5 are pretty well thought out and welcome.

The big talking points that I’ve seen a lot of players and outlets touch on is the story Far Cry 5 tries to tell.  What could’ve been a game with something interesting to say turned out to be mostly tepid in its approach.  Honestly though, I’m not too surprised by that.  While Far Cry 5 was definitely in the position to make a statement, I never really believed or held out hope that it would.

That’s not to say that I’m not having fun with the game, but there is something that Far Cry 5 does that really doesn’t sit well with me. There is a really grim depiction of people from Montana or Montana-esque regions that it really leans into.  I’ve only played like 4 or 5 hours so far, and I’ve already run into several major quests about someone talking about a truck or other vehicle that really meant a lot to them, and could change the tide of things.

It seems like a cartoon vision of Midwestern America and its citizens that is quite frankly, kind of gross.  It says so much about how little Far Cry 5 thinks of these people.  Like, I get it, “They love their trucks, how funny those rural folk are.”  It all just feels like one giant Jeff Foxworthy bit most of the time.

While I’ve seen one or two characters so far that aren’t gigantic caricatures, for the most part I’m not too confident in the storytelling that’s yet to come.  Like I said though, Far Cry 5 is fun to play, so I’m definitely going to see it through to the end, even if it partly is just to see how bad this can get.