It’s become a staple of the franchise for Far Cry to feature some kind of unexpectedly bizarre drum trip missions that take players to another world that seems like a hallucination or figment of the mind. No, I’m not talking about burning the hemp fields in Far Cry 3 (as cool as that mission was). For that game it was Citra’s drug trip missions during the story and in Far Cry 4 it was acid trips given by Yogi and Reggie. Even Far Cry Primal had psychedelic missions that took you on a hallucinatory journey.
At last week’s Far Cry 5 preview event, the last thing I expected to come across was the psychedelic Far Cry 5 drug trip missions. It was during the co-op portion of the session. We were headed to another mission across the map when hunters caught up to us and the screen blacked out. We’d been captured by one of Joseph Seed’s heralds–his brother, Jacob Seed. Strapped to a chair, we were forced to listen to Jacob’s words and watch violent imagery of bloody wolves eating other animals as they flashed across a projector screen. Suddenly we were in another realm. Jacob was testing us, brainwashing us, training us for the cult army.
The world burns and glows red. A timer counts down, prompting us to kill in order to keep the timer up and stay alive. When we awake, everyone around us is dead and the resistance is cleaning up the mess. We’re the only ones who made it out alive, and after some hesitation, we gain new allies and new information about the region.
The World is Weak is just one of the Far Cry 5 drug trip missions, assuming that the game follows the formula of previous games. At this point we don’t know if all of those missions will be identical or if they may change somehow. If there’s some kind of brainwashing or indoctrination done by each of The Father’s siblings, each one could potentially offer something very unique. We don’t have much longer to wait. Far Cry 5 releases March 27.
The preview event also revealed the ability to rescue and recruit a bear named Cheeseburger. We’ve got a full video of the process, including some deadly action from the adorably named beast. We also got a look at some of the character customization options, something new to the Far Cry series. Ubisoft also announced some external media to flesh out the story of the Eden’s Gate cult, including a prequel book and a short film called Inside Eden’s Gate.