I'll be honest, I was not interested in Far Cry 5 at all. The setting seemed uninteresting after the majesty of the environments in the previous entries and the return to a modern setting felt like a step back after Primal. I was also fatigued by the Far Cry formula, a formula I believe Ubisoft perfected in Far Cry 4. When the reviews came out, I was surprised to hear how the game had shifted to a player-driven exploration system to unlock locations and quests. I wondered if Ubisoft had found the same open-world magic that the team behind Zelda: Breath of the Wild had discovered.
Picking the game up, I was absolutely right. If you rush through Far Cry 5, you likely won't find much to change your opinion of the series. This is a game, however, that expects you to adjust your habits to meet its particular rhythm, a game that has learned from the best open world games of the last year. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that the company made such big changes: Assassin's Creed: Origins was similarly saddled with series fatigue and really blew me away with the lessons it had learned from similar games, especially The Witcher 3.
A game this dense deserves to be savored. There is a ton of hidden and secret content in Far Cry 5, but there are an equal number of systems that are kept deliberately obtuse from the player, things ꧅you'll only discover if you've got the time. Or, if you let me take the time for you!
24 Searching For Sasquatch 𒆙
Ubisoft may be taking a page out of Rockstar's mystery book with the mystery of the Sasquatch in Far Cry 5. Players have found a remote cabin that kicks off a Prepper Stash quest, following in the footsteps of a Hope County resid🧸ent who thinks he's on the trail of Bigfoot. Follow the quest, and you'll find the hunter's corpse and some weird, too-big footprints in the mud nearby. Things get weirder once you get inside his shelter🃏.
There's a map on the wall with plenty of locations around the Whitetail Mountains which the hunter has planned to investigate or has eliminated as possibilities. Players hav🌳e been , eve𒉰n going so far as staying in certain spots overnight to see if anything pops up. It may be nothing, or a clue to forthcoming DLC.
23 ☂ 💯 Mysterious Radio Static
This is a new one, Kotaku , and is an even more mysterious and creepy hidden secret than the hunt for the Sasquatch. Player Co🉐lby reported hearing weird static coming from his car radio that sometimes sounded like someone, or something, crying out in agony.
The static and accompanying groans sound a lot like Silent Hill to me.
, with the help of the Far Cry subreddit, has been chasing down leads trying to figure out where, exactly, the transmission occurs and what it might be leading them towards. In a game as dense as Far Cry 5, there is a possibility this is a just a glitch caused by too many emergent systems emerging at once but, with the ღhigh number of people able to recreate Colby's 💟findings, it could be much more.
22 Alien Gun
Larry Walker is the tinfoil hat-wearing nut of Far Cry 5. In a game built around conspiracy theorist extremists, Larry stands out only for h🅰olding onto the 90s staple of conspiracy theories: aliens. You find Larry trapped in his own homemade electrical prison and he sends you all over Holland Valley looking for pieces of alien technology.
Larry's story is the key to the mystery of the crop circle visible on the map at , which is itself a reference to science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury. Completing all Larry's tasks gets you the Magnopulser, a weapon 🐈that acts like a Force Push at medium range and completely dusts your targets into a red mist when close-up. It'll also vape any loot or cash they're carrying, so don't use it if you're low on cash.
21 Pr😼ess Nothing To Win
Far Cry 4 made waves upon release with the revelation that there was☂ a 'secret' way to beat the game pretty much right away at the beginning. When your buddy is dragged away from a feast to be tortured by dictator Pagan Min, Min asks you to stick around for about 10 minutes and "try the crab rangoon." Thing is, you can do just that and Min will come back about ten minutes later, let you spread your mother's ashes, and roll credits.
Far Cry 5 has a similar sequence, though it isn't as funny or surprising. You are given the task of handcuff🍸ing cult leader Joseph Seed by pressing a button. If you don't do it, after a few minutes the Sheriff will back down and the four of you will🅠 walk away from the church, leaving the Seeds in peace.
20 ꦆ Immersion Mode
"Immersive" HUD options are becoming a major feature in triple-A releases these days. We are finally in an age where the graphics are so good you can glean most of the information you need just by looking at the game environment. The "Pro" HUD option in Zelda: Breath of the Wild turns ofᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚf everything except your health and stamina meter (Which only pops up when you use it) and 𓃲the game is so well designed and has such simple visuals that everything you need to know is right there in the game world.
Far Cry 5 has the option to remove everything at one time hidden away in the "Interface" section of the Options menu. You can turn everything on or off, or select individual items. I like⛎ to switch off everything for walking through the forest or fishing and turn♑ everything on for combat, but experiment to see what works for you.
19 Are They Biting? 🌸
My favorite location so far in Far Cry isn't even marked on the map. The prepper stash "Mayday" sees you climbing, walking, and gr🃏appling up a waterfall, searching a for downed Militia airplane. Once you find it, you can easily wingsuit back down into the Whitetail Val𝐆ley, but if you keep going north you'll find something extraordinary.
In what must be a volcanic crater at the top of a mountain is a peaceful fishing hole surrounded by high rock and sparse tree cover. There are no enemies here, other than an occasio🍨nal Wolf Trainer Cultist and the odd Grizzly Bear and Wolverine, and no gameplay reason to travel this way, other than a "hard" fishing spot. It's an area of natural beauty with no purpose other than to exist and give you a bit of a breather.
18 Need A Little Pagan Min 𝓡In Your Life?
Despite the absolute glut of think pieces flooding the internet about Far Cry 2 being the best game in the series and this hidden gem that only the most sophisticated of gamers can appreciate, Far Cry 4 is considered the best game in the series. With its unique Himalayan setting, memorable villain, and synergy of stealth gameplay with explosive mayhem, 4 still rings in the hearts of a lot of fans.
I still have nightmares about eagles.
Ubisoft went all out on the references in Far Cry 5 and the beloved previous numbered installment in the franchise was not left out of the fun. While many have written about the purchasable Vaas bobblehead you can stick to the dashboard of your car, Ubisoft Club members can also buy a figure of beloved villain Pagan Min, voiced by Troy Baker. There is also a less-obvious reference: the fashion magazines scattered about Hope County referencing Muma Chiffon, the quest giver for the Kyrat Fashion Week quests in 4.
17 Go Primal
It's not just the numbered entries getting the easter egg love: oddball experiments like Blood Dragon and Primal get nods in Far Cry 5, too. While the Blood Dragon reference has been covered elsewhere on this site, the winks towards Primal aren🦩't as obvious. (And one of them didn'tඣ exist until this week!)
First, that brand-new one: This week, members of the Ubisoft Club who owned Primal were given access to a full outfit inspired by the prehistoric garb of that game. That means The Deputy can liberate Hope County in all their loincloth-and-tiger-teeth-necklace glory. A less obvious but much cooler reference to Primal can be found in a cave to the south of Rae-Rae's Pumpkin Farm. (Where you get Boomer, the best video game dog ever.) Frobisher's Cave has a few primitive cave paintings on the walls, just like in Primal!
16 💃 Rattlesnake Island
I don't know for sure if this is an actual, planned secret or just a freaky weird glitch on the part of whatever system governs animal spawning, but there is a tiny island that is just full of deadly rattlesnakes in the White𒅌tail Mountaꦕins.
The sound is like a thousand scaly, deadly cassettes.
While exploring the area behind the Grand View Hotel, where Jacob brainwashes his followers, I took a boat out to the small island with a cabin on it directly to the north. After securing the dock, I went in to scout the interior. That's when I heard them. Not one, or two, or three, but at least five distinct rattlesnake warnings. I used every Molotov I had and b🍸urned that island to black ash.
15 𝓀 Be A Fishing Legend
Video games have been trying to make a decent fishing minigame for years and it just hasn't clicked with me, for whatever reason. Despite Final Fantasy 15's lush visuals and amazing environments, I never had the compulsion to take a breather and go fishing. There's something about Far Cry 5's environments, and how peaceful they are when you're safe from enemies, that makes fishing in FC5 a real joy.
While fishing for profit is obvious, there is a less clear metagame to fishing. Each area's HQ has a board somewhere with 🅷the biggest fish of each type posted. By fishing in areas marked HARD on your map, you can beat those records and eventually earn perk points. You don't get any kind of notification for beating the record, you have to physically go to the board to see if a blue ribbon has been added.