PaigeFTW: ‘Far Cry 5’ Gets Political
The news that Far Cry was dropping its exotic settings for somewhere a little closer to home was met with … well, we’ll call it backlash.
We’re not in Nepal anymore, Toto — we’re in all-American Montana, and this time we’re disrupting a radical, militarized cult that’s hell-bent on bending a small town to its will. There’s a lot of rhetoric about atonement, apocalypse and taking control of your own destiny in the debut trailer.
Now, there’s nothing specific to be offended about here. It’s implied the cult is at least a kind of radical Christianity, its members are predominantly white and male, and patriotism and nationalism are at least themes in play. But there’s still very little we solidly know outside of some evocative imagery.
Still, with American politics being what it is, people are jumping to conclusions and jumping real fast. A terribly amusing petition sprang up last week on Change.org demanding that Ubisoft alter the game.
“Just change the villains to something more realistic. Islam is on the rise in America, as is the violence of inner-city gangs,” is one such gem, alongside “Even if you insist on making the villains American Christians, consider mixing the races a bit to not target white people exclusively,” and “We Americans have so few games to call our own, and we’re tired of losing them to multicultural bulls***.”
Strange, isn’t it? How we demand that our games exist in a political vacuum, that they ignore the obligations of film and literature to explore difficult topics. It’s always just a game, just a story, just a fantasy — just sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Just let it be fun, these fans say. Why do you have to make everything political?
The unspoken baseline that multiculturalism deviates from is that the straight white man is the hero, the moral center, and the axis around which the world turns. When a game deliberately chooses to include, say, a black or female protagonist instead, it is a political choice.
What people fail to see is that sticking to the conventional is also a political choice.
Here’s to hoping Far Cry 5 actually does something with its unorthodoxy.
