How do you recommend a Ubisoft game whilst maintaining the “Fuck Ubisoft” position?
Carefully, with caveats, and by leading with “Fuck Ubisoft and all that, but Far Cry 5 is a pretty decent game.” This is cognitive dissonance made into a recommendation format. The official Grumpy Old Gamer position on Ubisoft remains hostile following Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ protagonist choices and broader corporate practices. However, Far Cry 5 is a genuinely enjoyable co-op experience set in rural Montana where you shoot cult members with help from a bear named Cheeseburger. The contradiction isn’t resolvable. You can hate the publisher whilst enjoying specific products. The alternative is missing good games because the publishers are terrible, which punishes yourself more than corporations who don’t notice individual boycotts.
Why Montana Cult Shooting Works
Far Cry 5 abandons the series’ traditional exotic locations for a rural American setting where a Christian doomsday cult has taken over a Montana county. The setup immediately works for players tired of being tourists in foreign conflicts. You’re liberating American soil from domestic terrorists who’ve brainwashed locals, stockpiled weapons, and prepared for the apocalypse they’re actively trying to cause. The enemies speak English. The setting feels grounded despite the absurdity. The cultural familiarity creates a different tone than previous Far Cry games set in tropical islands or fictional Himalayan countries.
The four-antagonist structure also improves pacing by dividing the map into regions controlled by different lieutenants serving the main villain Joseph Seed. Each lieutenant has a distinct personality and methods—John Seed focuses on forced confessions and psychological torture, Faith Seed uses drugs and manipulation, Jacob Seed runs military training through conditioning. The variety means liberating different regions feels narratively distinct rather than a repetitive mission structure across identical content. The nonlinear progression allows tackling regions in any order, creating replayability through experiencing story segments in different sequences.
The resistance meter system driving story progression also integrates open-world activities into narrative advancement. Liberating outposts, destroying cult property, and completing missions all lower the regional resistance meters. When the meters hit thresholds, story missions trigger advancing the regional narratives. This creates a sense that open-world chaos meaningfully affects the story rather than existing as disconnected side content. The downside is forced story progression when you’d rather keep causing mayhem, but the integration is stronger than typical open-world games where the main story and side content exist independently.
Cheeseburger the Bear
The Guns for Hire system letting you recruit AI companions includes specialist fighters, regular resistance members, and Cheeseburger—a diabetic grizzly bear who mauls cult members on command. The bear isn’t a joke character or a gimmick. It’s a legitimately useful combat companion that tanks damage whilst killing enemies efficiently. The absurdity of watching an 800-pound grizzly charge into a firefight mauling cultists whilst you provide covering fire never gets old. Cheeseburger alone justifies the recommendation because having a literal bear as a battle companion is exactly what open-world games should provide.
The other specialists include a helicopter pilot, a sniper, a demolitionist, and other archetypes providing tactical variety. However, none match Cheeseburger’s immediate appeal. The bear represents Far Cry 5’s willingness to embrace absurdity whilst maintaining a mostly serious tone. The game doesn’t wink at the camera about how silly having a combat bear is—it treats Cheeseburger as a legitimate companion whilst players enjoy the ridiculous scenarios that emerge. This tonal balance works better than Far Cry games that lean too hard into either self-serious military fantasy or over-the-top parody.
The Co-op Advantage
Far Cry 5’s co-op implementation elevates rather than dilutes the single-player experience. The entire campaign supports two-player co-op where a second player joins the host’s world with full access to weapons and abilities. The open-world structure means co-op partners can coordinate strategic approaches or cause independent chaos across the map. The vehicle variety including helicopters, planes, ATVs, and boats means co-op pairs can divide roles—one player flies whilst the other shoots, one drives whilst the other mans the turret.
The co-op also transforms encounter difficulty by enabling tactical coordination impossible with AI companions. A human partner can provide covering fire whilst you flank, synchronise attacks on outposts, or revive you when you inevitably get mauled by wildlife you didn’t notice whilst focusing on cultists. The shared chaos of co-op Far Cry creates stories—unexpected explosions, wildlife attacks, vehicle mishaps—that single-player can’t match. This is why Far Cry 5 specifically gets recommended over Far Cry 6 despite the later entry having newer features. The co-op implementation is better.
What Far Cry 6 Got Wrong
Far Cry 6 launched three years after Far Cry 5 with Giancarlo Esposito as the dictator antagonist and a larger map in a fictional Caribbean nation. The gameplay loop should have been better through iteration. Instead, it felt worse in ways difficult to articulate. The gunplay felt less satisfying. The progression systems added complexity without depth. The story took itself more seriously whilst being less interesting. The removal of climbing towers was advertised as an improvement but the replacement systems for revealing the map didn’t feel better—just different.
The comparison demonstrates that newer doesn’t mean improved. Far Cry 5 represents the series peak where mechanics were refined enough to feel polished whilst the structure remained simple enough to not get in the way of emergent chaos. Far Cry 6 added systems that complicated without enhancing. The supremo special abilities, ammo types, and gear systems created busywork without meaningfully changing how the game played. Sometimes less is more, and Far Cry 5 found a better balance than its successor.
The Ubisoft Contradiction
The recommendation creates an uncomfortable tension between stated principles and actual behaviour. Saying “Fuck Ubisoft” whilst recommending a Ubisoft game undermines boycott rhetoric unless you’re willing to acknowledge that boycotts require sacrificing entertainment, which most people won’t do. The honest position is admitting that corporate practices are terrible whilst specific products remain enjoyable. This doesn’t absolve Ubisoft of criticism but acknowledges the reality that avoiding all products from problematic companies is practically impossible.
The alternative is a performative boycott where you publicly denounce Ubisoft whilst privately playing their games or a genuine boycott where you miss good games to maintain principles. Neither option is obviously superior. The performative version is hypocritical. The genuine version punishes yourself without meaningfully impacting Ubisoft’s revenue. The compromise is selective engagement where you purchase games you’ll actually enjoy whilst maintaining criticism of corporate decisions. Far Cry 5 meets the threshold for selective engagement because co-op chaos with Cheeseburger outweighs principle-based abstinence.
Why This Matters
The recommendation format forcing hosts to suggest games they’d normally avoid creates situations where acknowledged contradictions become content rather than problems to hide. The “Fuck Ubisoft, but…” framing acknowledges the tension without resolving it. This is more honest than pretending consistency is achievable or that boycotts don’t require sacrifice. Sometimes good products come from companies you dislike. Sometimes you buy them anyway because gaming is entertainment, not a moral crusade requiring perfect adherence to principles.
The Far Cry 5 recommendation works because it’s specific: this particular game is good for these particular reasons despite the publisher being generally terrible. The distinction between criticising a corporation and enjoying a specific product is sustainable in ways that blanket boycotts aren’t. You can hate Ubisoft’s protagonist choices in Assassin’s Creed whilst enjoying Montana cult shooting with Cheeseburger. The contradiction is a feature, not a bug.
Is recommending Far Cry 5 whilst maintaining a “Fuck Ubisoft” position defensible cognitive dissonance, or does it expose that gaming criticism is performative when actual entertainment is at stake?
Either way, Far Cry 5 is good. Cheeseburger the bear mauls cultists. The co-op is excellent. Ubisoft remains terrible. All of these things are simultaneously true. The contradiction doesn’t need resolving—it just needs acknowledging whilst you enjoy shooting cult members in Montana with your mate and a diabetic grizzly bear.
