The history of violence buried deep in Far Cry 5's landscape

Editor's note: Once a month we're graced with the brilliant presence of Gareth Damian Martin, author of the zine Heterotopias, creator of upcoming game In Other Waters and, most recently, author of The Continuous City, a book of analogue photography of video games, which is now available for pre-order.

Over the past few months leading up to the games release, there's been a strange sense that Far Cry 5's choice of a US setting means that the now venerable series is 'coming home'. It's something I've seen echoed in the coverage of the game, which is especially strange considering that the series was created in Germany, and originally set in Micronesia, and now sits in the hands of Ubisoft Montreal - the Canadian arm of a French company. How is it that a series defined by a surprisingly diverse set of landscapes, inspired by everything from the South pacific to Nepal could be 'coming home' to the wide-spaces and small-towns of Montana?

Perhaps it stems from the fact that the original game's protagonist, the generically named Jack Carver, was an American (ex-special forces, naturally) stranded far from home. And if anything connects the Far Cry games, beyond the clearing of enemy outposts and hunting of assorted animals, it is perhaps this sense of distance. Exotic is the word Ubisoft uses, often unflinchingly, to describe these various settings.

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