5) Far Cry
Best Far Cry Games Ranking
Credit to the first game in the Far Cry series for kicking things off, but after what came before it, it may not entirely stand the test of time. Considering when it was released, the original Far Cry looks pretty great and it sold the jungle environment very well. The enemy AI is mostly intelligent, and the weapons have a good balance between them.
But when you look at where the series has gone, the original Far Cry doesn’t feel quite as right. Despite being open ended, many areas are trial and error, and are designed to be done in a way that just isn’t fun. Enemies are painfully stupid when you’re close up, and the checkpoint system…well, the less said about that, the better. There’s also the disappointing story, with characters that either weren’t likable or just lacked personality, and a protagonist with a truly awful looking lau shirt.
4) Far Cry 2
Best Far Cry Games Ranking
The second game in the series is a marked improvement over the original Far Cry. Enemies are more responsive, it looks even more gorgeous, and Africa is a perfect setting for the series. It was a unique departure from both the open world and shooter genres.
Unfortunately, the game’s biggest stumble lies in its own plot. Once you choose which badass mercenary to be, you go to Africa and get malaria…but you’re nursed back to health by the very guy you’re trying to kill. So maybe calling you a “badass mercenary” is a bit of a stretch. That’s really about all you’ll get from the plot, which doesn’t give you much to work with most of the time. But even that doesn’t matter, since it’s so unimportant that you could forget things as you go along.
The draw here comes from the atmosphere, but sometimes it can go too far. At times, Far Cry 2 can be so slavishly committed to realism that it makes the gameplay very not fun. Contracting malaria every 20 minutes or having your guns and vehicles jam is a tad overkill, and for console players, the save system didn’t help matters much. It’s not a bad game, but just when it seems like you’re having fun, it feels like it’s putting you in hardcore mode before you’re truly ready.
3) Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
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Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon sounds like something that a fanfiction writer would think of while bored one afternoon: “Man, I really dug Far Cry 3, but I feel like it’s missing something…I know! It needs Michael Biehn, an 80s synth vibe, and giant dragons!” Much like how Kingdom Hearts showed us that Disney and Square Enix was a much better combination than we were expecting, so it goes with Blood Dragon.
Despite having the Far Cry 3 title, Blood Dragon has no relation to the base game, which is a bit baffling, to be sure. But while the title is a bit confusing, the game itself is a blast, feeling like a modern game that was made for old retro game fans. More than the indie 2D games that try to evoke nostalgia for Mega Man or Castlevania, Blood Dragon leans on that nostalgia factor hard, from the synth soundtrack to the CRT scanlines and soft fuzz static. Biehn’s deadpan delivery meshes nicely with the 80s action film script, and it’s hard not to laugh at pressing the right stick to flip the bird or at lines like “Lady Liberty taught me that winners… don’t use drugs.”
Thankfully, Blood Dragon has the gameplay to back up its looks. While it’s essentially a copy-paste job of the base game, there’s no denying the appeal that comes from shooting Daft Punk with sci-fi rifles. The titular Blood Dragons add some danger to things, but whether or not it’s fun to exhaust all your ammo and explosives to avoid getting turned into Kyle Reese’s Pieces is going to fluctuate. Still, for $20, Blood Dragon is great and shows that the series doesn’t necessarily need to lean so hard on gritty character stories of survival to work.
2) Far Cry 4
Best Far Cry Games Ranking
Not many predicted just how quickly the series would grow after the release of Far Cry 3. As the year was winding down and everyone had decided what were their favorite games of that year, Ubisoft slyly put it in at December. People ended up latching onto it and as the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Hence Far Cry 4.
It’s unfair to compare games, but FC4 really does feel like FC3 with the Pacific Islander undertones swapped for Buddhism. The shooting, driving, stealth, and craft system all feel like they were lifted wholesale from FC3 with little to no adjustments (which is fine, since they still work pretty well). Environments are still beautiful, the level progression is still fun to go through, and there’s still some dark joy in watching an enemy group get torn to shreds by a wild animal. Oh and riding an elephant? Yeah, that’ll never get old.
None of that is bad, but that also means that Far Cry 4 can only occupy the same airspace as its predecessor instead of elevating the series. There’s not a lot that’s terribly new, and what is new either makes things more annoying (animals can be more of a hassle this time around), or just feels thrown in for the sake of it such as gyrocopters that make tailing missions insultingly easy. Most noticeably, protagonist Ajay Ghale and his tale of honoring his mother’s dying wish on the island of Kyrat, fell flat compared to Jason Brody’s desire to save his kidnapped friends from pirates, despite having a fairly solid Troy Baker as the sadistically entertaining Pagan Min. At the end of it all, Far Cry 4 isn’t a bad game, in fact it’s pretty great, but it doesn’t quite have the same spark as before.
Also, eagles. Screw eagles.
1) Far Cry 3
Best Far Cry Games Ranking
Far Cry 3 is a damn great game, but it’s great in a way that’s almost subtle when you think about it. Yeah, there’s all that fun open gameplay and watching pirates get jumped by a tiger, but the draw is also in the Rook Islands and what it does to the player, Jason Brody. The island is as much of a villain as Vaas is, helping Jason shed his doughy privileged rich kid skin to become a guy willing to run over animals and gut dudes without blinking an eye. Vaas tortures Jason’s mind and the island tortures his body, turning the game from sandbox mayhem to survival horror.
The appeal in the gameplay comes less from the combat and admittedly simplistic stealth design, and more from how the game allows you to play however you wish. You could go in guns blazing with an LMG and rocket launcher to free the outpost and gain a new piece of territory. Alternatively, you could snipe everyone in sight with a silenced sniper rifle and release a deadly tiger from a cage to do your dirty work. Or hell, just wingsuit into the outpost and slice everyone’s necks open before they know what hit them. Far Cry 3 doesn’t do a whole lot to revolutionize the open world genre, but it sure as hell knows how to give players incentive to use what’s presented before them.
What’s your favorite entry in the Far Cry series? Let us know in the comments below.
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