Yo.

And I'm a semi-Far Cry convert. The first two never piqued my interest, but I got on board with 3. Loved 4, and even before I've finished it, I'm thinking of replaying 5.

Great graphics, beautiful landscape, great writing and particularly stellar voice acting. Did they break a bunch of new ground in gameplay mechanics? Not really. Just enough twist to freshen up a bit.

Haven't played co-op yet, but I like the companion system. They've adjusted the crafting system since you're not really in a remote location. The perk system is actually useful. I'm having a ball.

They really doubled down on outposts this time. I have a rack of them to complete. Love getting the prepper stashes. Good ole problems solving with proper rewards. Even the arcade mode has promise, but I've only played a couple of maps.

One complaint: the guns could be better. I mean, they have a kick ass collection of guns, but some are locked or more expensive just for a simple skin. Like the AR rifle you have in the beginning of the game is about as powerful of an assault rifle in whole game once you compare the stats. So you'll spend thousands of dollars on an AK just to have an AK essentially. Same with some of the pistols and shotguns. I'm maybe 40% of the way through the game, and I just tricked out my first rifle with an extended mag, scope and supressor. For armored enemies I switch to a different weapon altogether.

But damn. Tooling around fictional Montana is a certified hoot. And there are the usual trippy, psychedelic aspects of the game that have been present over the last two installments.

Really good game and effort from the folks at Ubisoft.
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"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

it does look way better than 3 and 4, which counts for a lot in games like these. there is still too much stuff happening. i can't walk 20 feet on the road without getting into a firefight, or walk about 30 seconds in the forest without getting attacked by a wild animal. they also dropped the ace assault rifle, which was my go-to weapon in 3 and 4. i'm having fun but i can't shake the feeling that i did all this stuff before a few years ago in 4

I really liked 4, but after a while it was a grind to hunt animals for crafting materials. Here, perks serve the same purpose of being able to upgrade your holster and your abilities, and getting them is waaaay more fun than looking for a specific animal to kill and skin just to get a new quiver.

Plus I love that they dumped the skinning an animal animation. And you can play Far Cry Arcade to get perk points if that's your style.

I will agree about the busy-ness in some parts of the game. In the beginning when the cult had planes hunting for me, it got annoying not being able to drive anywhere without being strafed. It gets a little better later on, but they do keep you on the edge of your seat.
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"To Each His Reach"

but.....

Fuck aliens.

i like the implementation of more organic discovery and the ability to tune the interface to your liking. the skill system is probably improved from previous games but still kind of exploitable (skill mags in prepper stashes, specifically.) like i said i'm still having fun playing. i wish the balance of enemies and random encounters was a *little* lower than it is to inject a little more realism into it. but that might go against the weird dichotomy of recent far cry games with very convincing open worlds and acts of evil offset with these really goofy random encounters where a bunch of AI routines are butting heads

anything comparable to either of those?

it's still far cry. outposts are the best part and there are a lot of varied outposts in 5. the game is a little buggy but looks fantastic (mostly). there is a real dearth of guns compared to 4, which is disappointing. we don't need 2 AK47s and 2 magnum revolvers. i want the ACE rifle and desert eagle back!

you can get animal AI companions that you can order to attack and send to waypoints. not sure if that was in primal as i didn't play it. you could probably 5 as close to primal as possible by only using bow/arrow + melee + animals

if you plan on playing 5 get the 2x animal skins perk first and do adelaide's missions + the followup mission with her gentleman companion. the 2x skins perk will give you more money than you know what to do with early on and completing adelaide's mission chain unlocks a speedy attack helicopter which greatly aids traversal and makes doing the passive missions (mainly "destroy x vehicles") much easier

the flight suit provided me a ton of fun previously as did the visuals of the ladscapes.. from the sounds of it the graphics have improved and the mechanics I liked still exist.. I'm a sucker for freeworld games and this series has been solid in delivering that.