Picture a moment in space and time. It can be anywhere and anywhen. It could be aeons ago, long before the first upwardly mobile fish ever unlocked the ability to walk on land, or it could be a few centuries into the future, during the 31st term of President Trump Al Saud. However far-flung the scenario, frame it in your mind and I'll make you a promise: Ubisoft is there. Ubisoft has always been there. Waiting for you, with a sackful of fast travel points and upgrade materials, pop-up escort missions and fluidly chaining takedowns.
If Far Cry: Primal is proof of anything it's that there is no epoch that can't be translated into the affable lingo of the Ubisoft open worlder, give or take the odd period idiom. The "explore, destroy, colonise" rhythms of previous Far Cries settle into place around this one's Stone Age premise like a white blood cell engulfing an exotic bacterium. What, were you expecting a mere 10,000 years to really change anything, other than the names we give to things like grenades, grappling hooks and throwing knives? Ha ha ha! It is already too late.
A rather downbeat opening, that, for a review of a game I would otherwise deem "fun". But the critical drawback of Primal's dramatic set-change is that the recycled mechanics, narrative beats and themes really do stick in the craw. It's deflating because if you squint, you can just about see the shape of something radical through the tissues of a spin-off seemingly knocked out to hold the fort while Far Cry 5 gestates: a hunting sandbox that mixes Ubisoft Montreal's knack for accessible tactical combat with the stringency of a true-blue survival sim, and which turns Far Cry 3's love affair with clashing AI variables into a game about mastering an ecology.
0 comments:
Post a Comment