It’s always interesting to hear the decisions that go on behind-the-scenes during the video game development process. After all, games are made and broken because of these discussions, and what happens in them greatly affect how we play the games later on. For the last few months, we’ve been writing a lot about Far Cry 5, how it’s a very open game with painstaking detail put into it. But if may surprise you that at one time, the game was actually meant to be very linear.
In an interview with HipHopGamer, Creative Director Dan Hay and Associate Producer Phil Fournier talked about the game has changed, as well as how the game is now in regards to what the player can do. Hay notes that they really wanted to make it so that the player can “craft the story they want”. Which again ties into the openness of the game, which makes it very interesting that they were considering a linear approach to it at one time.
After all, not only does that contradict what previous Far Cry games had done, but also, it kind of contradicts what Ubisoft has done recently as a company. Many of their titles and franchises pride themselves on their open-world nature. Even the “lesser” games, or ones that don’t have as much of an open world have a lot of freedom.
Thankfully, Far Cry 5 seems to have gotten back on track, for the fictional Hope County is a place filled with life both natural and man-made. And as such, you have the ability to do what you want, when you want to. If you want to focus on the main quest, fine. Else, you can wander the terrain of Montana and see where the game takes you.
Far Cry 5 arrives on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on March 27th.
