Back when Far Cry Primal was announced, I was so very confused. So soon? What's the new theme going to mean? Is it a full game? Those were all answered, but the confusion still sits with me. Then something happened to remind me not to take the internet all that seriously. In between the confusion, and optimism, somewhere down the line people felt they knew the game so well as to instantly start absolutely hating on it for the same reasons they did pre-released Far Cry 4 ("Ew, its a reskin"). Well exactly as I predicted, what they were really doing with Far Cry 4 was improving and adding over top of a game everyone loved. Turns out it worked, it was great, and in fact tied for my GOTY 2014 spot as an incredible experience compared to the FC3 entry I felt mixed about. However... Primal is still weird. Its taking that same idea in a different direction. Its still building and adding, but its also going hard on a far different theme and thus also taking out things and recontextualizing lots of the foundation. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but this close to release, its got me well enough as to hold off of Dying Light (yet again) and ponder on it a bit. I thought I really wanted to think out loud some more on it and post all the weird, good, and bad I'm finding in this.
The good...
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| This is just great |
So how do you turn a first person shooter into a pre-historic game without guns? Well the bow and arrow is a good start, then there's throwing spears, but it mostly comes down to some fictional liberties and melee combat. I think it'd be fair enough to just ditch the label FPS at this point. Instead they've gone out of their way to re-invent or even completely add new elements. Animals can now be tamed and added to a pool of animals you can sort of collect and then summon forward, changing the field of battle through their pros & cons. You've got an entire new dimension of combat to learn through them, essentially figuring out which of your furry pals does what and where they'll be best suited. Plus it sounds like each weapon can have a ranged variant with its own effect, like clubs being stun based throwing weapons.
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| Better than a pistol |
Other things have been added and omitted entirely, some of which is really good. The hunting and wildlife has supposedly been more enhanced with predator and pray being more of a focus, you can track animals, and even pit animals up against each other. Radio towers that people got fed up with are ditched completely, with fog of war and outposts (bonfires) playing over their elements instead. While I don't know a lot about it (as I want some surprises) there's also a tribe system at play. Previous events where you walked around and bumped into a hostage event now come off as more of an AC:brotherhood style rescue to get new people at your aid. They will end up contributing to some higher cause to help you in the end.
The bad...
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| Disappointment? |
People are all bashing it in for being a "reskin". Somehow even when you do a completely rare (if not just outright ignored) setting, you change one of the basic principles of the genre, and you add entirely new features or recontexualize everything, its still somehow considered the same game. WOW internet. Still despite their shallow perception that's so unexplained and out of the left field that its no wonder Ubisoft doesn't take internet feedback very seriously, there's actually still a grain of truth to it. Its a tiny grain, but its there and comes with some doubts. For starters... what the hell is with the melee system? It looks exactly the same as before. You run up to people and either hack at them until the splat down, or it connects into some kind of excessive chain animation. You know what would be nice for a melee centric game with no guns? How about a melee system with some actual effort put into it. Its lazy re-implementation of the same melee system because it seems easier to do that and get inventive with non-melee methods, than to actually make melee combat something special. That's a real shame.
Of course, then there's just the fact that some inconsistencies come into play. They oddly enough wanted to make the game so realistic that you can't have dinosaurs or an actual language, yet they apparently don't mind owl recon bombers. Yes, owl recon bombers. Oh and you're the one flying them thanks to what I think is some kind of shaman given power. Yeah, that's waaaaay more of a stretch in logic compared to "we wanted dinosaurs, because we think that makes games fun!" or "well they speak English because a lot of people hate being stuck reading subtitles". Even for the sake of fun, owl bombers is a bit... weird. Wanna know why its there? Well, it seems like tradition is why. Far Cry 3 and 4 took off loving and inspiring other games to integrate in a recon system before you sneak about. By taking you back before history, you tend to lose actual recon equipment. So what do they do? Well animals was an inventive companion system, so they decided to make super birds that make it somehow even easier than a telescope. Its a seemingly automatic sky vision scope that sure does the job way easier and less interesting than a scope ever did.
Oh and about animal companions, did you know taming them is as easy as throwing them meat and pressing square? Yeah, reminds me why AAA is slipping away from the vocal favor of gamers. They don't want us to have to think, or try anything interesting or it might scare away the masses. If it can be answered with a context prompt, then so be it. Such a huge missed opportunity to sit there and decide beast taming was left up to a one button push and an abundance of meat. Its clear they want to do something special, and flesh out various areas for it, but they seem terrified to take anything too far. In the end, they want you to feel amazing for doing so little. away from FC3's first idea of putting a rookie in front of a gun and having him be just amazing while his military trained brother dies at the start. Its funny to think this is the same franchise that introduced a unique concept as gun jamming at one time. They had to change that, but now they're on this kick of empowering the player. That's fine, but only if you empower their ability, rather than do it by limiting their actions. Here, its limiting their actions to make earning any animal a cake walk.
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| *sigh* Really guys!? |
Finally, the last thing I wanted to moan a bit about, is actually what they didn't copy from the other games. Some of us actually want sequels to improve by keeping/improving the good, weird right? I guess I just want a bigger "reskin"? Anyways for a full launching $60 game with roughly the same looking world size and campaign, we're losing the multiplayer and map editor, as well as the co-op multiplayer. Now the PvP multiplayer sounds fine. I mean they pretty much screwed over the loyal community twice, and don't seem to be in a hurry to fix stuff, so might as well just stop wasting money on it. Its especially complicated when you change the entire theme to something that just wouldn't work... again, mostly because the melee isn't very functional. However the map editor is a franchise staple and was very close to perfection. They had a great MP one in far cry 2 & 3 that was loved, then an amazing single player or co-op variant in FC4. So it was getting real good, and now without MP, there was less to worry about adding. Nope, its just not happening, and I can't seem to find any reason why. I really tried to look into that one, couldn't find it. Yet FCP's team is calling this a full project, and a serious game. There's even a $70 version, so you could technically be paying more for less. I wasn't big into anything extra but the map editor, but this is still just a bad value and I feel it must be noted. I loved FC4's multiplayer, but again I can tolerate its absence. The map editor? That especially strikes me as a bad sign. These were one of the only guys that did it (but thanks for securing the future Doom), it was a loved feature, and now there's this smaller compact game that is showing up faster and charging the same without it? Seems like they decided to cut it all out to push FC near an annual status, and I have that nagging feeling we wont see it come back now. In the end the game truly does look like it should be slightly off the normal price, not raising or meeting it.
Conclusion...
In the end, I don't know whether Primal is a wise investment for me. If I take it in, it'll probably be over Dying Light. Maybe I can rent one or the other and figure something out. However on the whole, the situation reminds of almost like what people say about indies, except this is more of a AAA alternative. Instead of a small group making a tiny unique project on a budget, Ubisoft seems to be using Far Cry 3's formula and engine as a cheap base to make a still fairly expensive experiment. There's a lot of refreshing ideas and thoughts put into it, and I bet there's some good heart to it all, but they're still sitting there trying to make sure this thing sells to the masses to make it worth their marketing time. They're still trying to put out another big open world game, and still following various formulas they think tick the boxes off for mass consumers. However there's still just an undeniable charm of something special and different in place... well, okay I guess undeniable to sane individuals, but I'm trying my hardest not to take the "ew, reskin! My grandma could have modded this and made it free." crowd seriously.
Far Cry has normally been getting increasingly better for me as it goes on starting from 2 (1 is in its own territory of awesomeness and flaws). Far Cry 2 was fun, but got dull as it went along. Far Cry 3 was overrated and had some frustrating nitpicks, but was still a lot of fun and I finished it. Blood dragon was crazy cheesy fun, but felt a tad bit too short and underbaked to take very seriously (Oh and that was an actual reskin, but don't tell the internet, they loved Blood Dragon the most). Then Far Cry 4 happened. I ignored the idiots who just cried about it being Reskinned DLC quality, and for very good reason. Far Cry 4 turned out to not only fixed everything I hated about 3, but it kept giving me more and more surprises and fascinating additions. It gave us arenas, dynamic firefights and hostage rescues, sidequests that had context, environmental story telling that made the world feel like more than a hallow sandbox, the story and choices were great, the stealth so well-tuned that I can consider it among action stealth games like Dishonored & MGS, the separate mystic campaign was fun, and the map editor simply amazing and perfectly accessible. It was a blast, and became my GOTY for that year technically (but barely) beating the Wolfenstien game I spent so much time telling people would be the best thing ever. I consider it not only amazing, but honestly its one of the best if not THE best and most content stuffed FPS games you can get on current systems even now to this day.
However I think that's where the improvements end, and as I look at Primal I'm having a hard time seeing it beat that. It doesn't seem to have the same character to it, lacks all the side activities that caught my eye, we know it lacks everything outside the main campaign, then there's just that inconsistency. When I saw FC4 I knew what it was doing and I cheered it on, and was still amazed and surprised by it. When I see FCP, I think they're truly confident and all, but I get that same feeling people do with a new IP... we don't know where it'll go ourselves, and we only have the base ideas and know there's likely some clumsy flaws left in the way. This probably wont be a killer full blown sequel, and its kind of sad that something as good as FC4 will probably stay at FC4. Maybe it doesn't need to be though. I'll still judge it as its own thing, and hopefully it'll turn out fine. Heck, maybe its theme will somehow lend it to just being more fun at its core and it wont need the extras to beat FC4. Who knows?
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| Is it fun in its own way though? |
The part of me that really wants this would love it for a lot of reasons. The unique setting, a whole new world to explore full of shamans and tribal conflicts, the novelty of various animal companions that fight at your side (as well as just the full bestiary that such a system would need), and of course what few fun things may be left to surprises like the tribal system and learning how to cope with the weird setting's unique traits. Maybe the night time is really fun since it takes a bit from those survival games now? Heck I just recently found out you can set a furry animal on fire, and that's just... strangely satisfying to think of trying in a game. On the other hand, there's a part of me that's just annoyed with some things and I'm not sure that's a good sign this early. I'm annoyed with some shallow systems I can clearly see, and question certain other priorities. I mean a lot of it comes down to that comparison again where you have incomprehensible voice work, yet owl bombs. Seeing voices thrown out the window removes a lot of the eccentric characters, and strong voice work the series has had going for it lately, as well as just the typical annoyance that comes with being glued to subtitles. In the previews already I'm sometimes feeling a disconnect with the words and the actions because once you read their story bits, you're left waiting for them to act and wondering where the proper timing for it was supposed to go. Meanwhile I can't help but feel like I'm losing some of their visual personality because I'm focused on the bottom of the screen rather than their hand and face gestures, which look really important when I do see them. Yet despite all that trouble and risk for something authentic, they want to make recon even stupidly easier as a substitute for lacking the scope? Oh and beast taming is just a joke. That's just... not even fun, why did they do that? Moves like that are just frustrating to see, and I can't help but wonder about the game. Will I overcome the lame super-conveniences like one button animal taming, and generic "survival vision" #46 in order to enjoy throwing a club across an outpost, or am I better off slogging through Dying Light's similar set of pros & cons? I just don't know. We'll find out soon enough. I really hope it does end well though, because it would be a real shame to see this concept go to waste.
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| Its still up in the air... |
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