Skip to main content

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

The first frontier.

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.

The implication is obvious, these are not our homes, our landscapes, our places, but those that belong to a wide variety of others. Far Cry has stretched this otherness to include not just generalised African revolutionaries and tattooed Islanders but even humanity's own prehistoric ancestors. You might say that, despite the recent games in the series being developed in Canada, the American identity of their audience has always been baked-in from the start. This is the world as seen through American eyes, a staging ground for expeditionary violence and unrestricted touristic freedom. Even the name of the series points to a world defined by distance and difference.

'Home', then, is an idea that has always been implied in Far Cry, a ghost landscape that is hidden beneath each of the exotic locales the series has presented. Much like the military backgrounds that the games' characters tend to have, all-too-neatly justifying their ability to handle firearms like seasoned soldiers, so this never-seen background of an American home acts as a neat way of framing the landscape we are playing in as "exotic".

I'd even go so far as saying that both this invisible landscape of an undefined American home, and the gestured at military backgrounds of many of the games' protagonists both serve the same purpose as the originator and justifier of the games violence: in Far Cry we solve problems with shooting because that's what we know how to do, and solving those problems is our responsibility because we represent America in its role as international problem solver. Ubisoft have tried to soften the unpalatable nature of this narrative over the course of the series, with Far Cry 4 casting the player as a protagonist born in, but estranged from, their Nepal-stand-in Kyrat, but they couldn't resist having him flee to America for most of his life before his return. It's as if all of the games exist in a world of only two landscapes, defined by the classical and deeply unpleasant colonial split of occident and orient. If someone is not in one they must be in another. This logic is unable to imagine anywhere else a refugee of Kyrat like Far Cry 4's Ajay Ghale could go.

So what does it mean when these two cross over? When the landscape of home and the exotic other overlap? What then is the origin point of the games' inevitable violence? The clue once again lies in a frame, a word, as problematic and politically fraught as the term 'exotic' and equally linked to the idea of landscape. That word is frontier. From repeatedly appearing in press coverage to the game's writer Drew Homes himself praising Montana's sense of 'frontier', this is a term that has come to be a key descriptive term for Far Cry 5's landscape. And what is fascinating about watching this term evolve in relation to the game is that it shows the series' inability to move past the colonial imagination of the world, even when turning its sights to its own occident.

Montana was of course, less than 150 years before the contemporary setting of Far Cry 5, a true frontier. In fact, in was one of the most violent and contested territories in the US, a battleground between the Native American tribes who had lived among its landscape for generations and the usurping colonial forces of the US Army. As you may know, it was in Montana that the infamous General Armstrong Custer fought and lost the battle of Little Big Horn. And it was in Montana, six years before, that 230 members of the Piegan Blackfeet tribe, mostly consisting of unarmed women and children, were massacred by US army cavalry and infantry in one of the worst events of its kind. Montana was the site of a string of battles in both the Sioux and Nez Perce wars, and one of the greatest stockpiles of Bison in the Northern US, with 17 million thought to be in the state in 1870. In less than two decades of hunting by America colonisers they would be extinct.

By framing Montana as a frontier, Far Cry 5, willingly or not, evokes this history. Far Cry 5's enemies are not Native Americans, they are instead religious extremists. But the games' choice of Montana as its 'frontier' cannot be separated from the history of that landscape and that word. It is a stark reminder that landscape is never the neutral ground we might cast it as. As Kenneth E. Foote puts it in his book Shadowed Ground: America's Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy these "sites of violence" are "inscriptions in the landscape" - they are written into the narratives of the land. So how does the virtual facsimile of Montana in Far Cry 5 relate to the real shadowed mountains of Montana? It is, of course, full of violence, over-flowing with it. As with each of the landscapes Far Cry had chosen before, this is not so much an expanse of natural territory as it is a playground. Everything is implicated into the constant ebb and flow of combat and conquering, from the wildlife that supply, fuel and even stage ad-hoc interventions into the games gun battles, to the bluffs and valleys that dictate the lines of sight, paths of assault and covered ground from which to choose your shots.

It is a landscape returned to a previous state, that of the frontier. It is a familiar American fantasy, one seen in The Last of Us and The Walking Dead - that the landscape of the US might become lawless once more, might be returned to the symbol it once was, of expansion, of mystery, of escape. A frontier. This idea, that the American landscape contains within it a core of violence, of unknowable distance, is one that has been explored almost comprehensively by the writer Cormac McCarthy. In his books, from the apocalyptic future of The Road to the contemporary decay of No Country for Old Men, he has two subjects, landscape and violence. And it is in his magnum Opus, the violent chronicle of a band of 'Indian Hunters' Blood Meridian that he most accurately sums up that connection, through the voice of the satanic Judge: "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way." As the Judge later adds: "War is God."

In Far Cry 5's landscape, war is also god. Territory, violence and religion are interlocked, as if they were the everlasting paradigms of the American landscape. Perhaps this is why the series turned so readily back to its so-called "home". Here was the perfect epitome of Far Cry's colonialist attitudes, need for violence and worship of landscape. Here was the first frontier of America, the one whose structures of oppression and war would be carried further afield. Far Cry is at home in Montana not because it is the origin point of the series, but because it is the origin point of its values. Here is the landscape in which its violence was born, among tall pines and a famously "big" sky. It is part of Far Cry's path of self-discovery as a series, as it drags its colonial baggage from one landscape to the next, never able to escape the ghosts of war. As the Judge puts it: "all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all."

Read this next

seductrice.net
universo-virtual.com
buytrendz.net
thisforall.net
benchpressgains.com
qthzb.com
mindhunter9.com
dwjqp1.com
secure-signup.net
ahaayy.com
tressesindia.com
puresybian.com
krpano-chs.com
cre8workshop.com
hdkino.org
peixun021.com
qz786.com
utahperformingartscenter.org
worldqrmconference.com
shangyuwh.com
eejssdfsdfdfjsd.com
playminecraftfreeonline.com
trekvietnamtour.com
your-business-articles.com
essaywritingservice10.com
hindusamaaj.com
joggingvideo.com
wandercoups.com
wormblaster.net
tongchengchuyange0004.com
internetknowing.com
breachurch.com
peachesnginburlesque.com
dataarchitectoo.com
clientfunnelformula.com
30pps.com
cherylroll.com
ks2252.com
prowp.net
webmanicura.com
sofietsshotel.com
facetorch.com
nylawyerreview.com
apapromotions.com
shareparelli.com
goeaglepointe.com
thegreenmanpubphuket.com
karotorossian.com
publicsensor.com
taiwandefence.com
epcsur.com
southstills.com
tvtv98.com
thewellington-hotel.com
bccaipiao.com
colectoresindustrialesgs.com
shenanddcg.com
capriartfilmfestival.com
replicabreitlingsale.com
thaiamarinnewtoncorner.com
gkmcww.com
mbnkbj.com
andrewbrennandesign.com
cod54.com
luobinzhang.com
faithfirst.net
zjyc28.com
tongchengjinyeyouyue0004.com
nhuan6.com
kftz5k.com
oldgardensflowers.com
lightupthefloor.com
bahamamamas-stjohns.com
ly2818.com
905onthebay.com
fonemenu.com
notanothermovie.com
ukrainehighclassescort.com
meincmagazine.com
av-5858.com
yallerdawg.com
donkeythemovie.com
corporatehospitalitygroup.com
boboyy88.com
miteinander-lernen.com
dannayconsulting.com
officialtomsshoesoutletstore.com
forsale-amoxil-amoxicillin.net
generictadalafil-canada.net
guitarlessonseastlondon.com
lesliesrestaurants.com
mattyno9.com
nri-homeloans.com
rtgvisas-qatar.com
salbutamolventolinonline.net
sportsinjuries.info
wedsna.com
rgkntk.com
bkkmarketplace.com
zxqcwx.com
breakupprogram.com
boxcardc.com
unblockyoutubeindonesia.com
fabulousbookmark.com
beat-the.com
guatemala-sailfishing-vacations-charters.com
magie-marketing.com
kingstonliteracy.com
guitaraffinity.com
eurelookinggoodapparel.com
howtolosecheekfat.net
marioncma.org
oliviadavismusic.com
shantelcampbellrealestate.com
shopleborn13.com
topindiafree.com
v-visitors.net
djjky.com
053hh.com
originbluei.com
baucishotel.com
33kkn.com
intrinsiqresearch.com
mariaescort-kiev.com
mymaguk.com
sponsored4u.com
crimsonclass.com
bataillenavale.com
searchtile.com
ze-stribrnych-struh.com
zenithalhype.com
modalpkv.com
bouisset-lafforgue.com
useupload.com
37r.net
autoankauf-muenster.com
bantinbongda.net
bilgius.com
brabustermagazine.com
indigrow.org
miicrosofts.net
mysmiletravel.com
selinasims.com
spellcubesapp.com
usa-faction.com
hypoallergenicdogsnames.com
dailyupdatez.com
foodphotographyreviews.com
cricutcom-setup.com
chprowebdesign.com
katyrealty-kanepa.com
tasramar.com
bilgipinari.org
four-am.com
indiarepublicday.com
inquick-enbooks.com
iracmpi.com
kakaschoenen.com
lsm99flash.com
nana1255.com
ngen-niagara.com
technwzs.com
virtualonlinecasino1345.com
wallpapertop.net
casino-natali.com
iprofit-internet.com
denochemexicana.com
eventhalfkg.com
medcon-taiwan.com
life-himawari.com
myriamshomes.com
nightmarevue.com
healthandfitnesslives.com
androidnews-jp.com
allstarsru.com
bestofthebuckeyestate.com
bestofthefirststate.com
bestwireless7.com
britsmile.com
declarationintermittent.com
findhereall.com
jingyou888.com
lsm99deal.com
lsm99galaxy.com
moozatech.com
nuagh.com
patliyo.com
philomenamagikz.net
rckouba.net
saturnunipessoallda.com
tallahasseefrolics.com
thematurehardcore.net
totalenvironment-inthatquietearth.com
velislavakaymakanova.com
vermontenergetic.com
kakakpintar.com
begorgeouslady.com
1800birks4u.com
2wheelstogo.com
6strip4you.com
bigdata-world.net
emailandco.net
gacapal.com
jharpost.com
krishnaastro.com
lsm99credit.com
mascalzonicampani.com
sitemapxml.org
thecityslums.net
topagh.com
flairnetwebdesign.com
rajasthancarservices.com
bangkaeair.com
beneventocoupon.com
noternet.org
oqtive.com
smilebrightrx.com
decollage-etiquette.com
1millionbestdownloads.com
7658.info
bidbass.com
devlopworldtech.com
digitalmarketingrajkot.com
fluginfo.net
naqlafshk.com
passion-decouverte.com
playsirius.com
spacceleratorintl.com
stikyballs.com
top10way.com
yokidsyogurt.com
zszyhl.com
16firthcrescent.com
abogadolaboralistamd.com
apk2wap.com
aromacremeria.com
banparacard.com
bosmanraws.com
businessproviderblog.com
caltonosa.com
calvaryrevivalchurch.org
chastenedsoulwithabrokenheart.com
cheminotsgardcevennes.com
cooksspot.com
cqxzpt.com
deesywig.com
deltacartoonmaps.com
despixelsetdeshommes.com
duocoracaobrasileiro.com
fareshopbd.com
goodpainspills.com
hemendekor.com
kobisitecdn.com
makaigoods.com
mgs1454.com
piccadillyresidences.com
radiolaondafresca.com
rubendorf.com
searchengineimprov.com
sellmyhrvahome.com
shugahouseessentials.com
sonihullquad.com
subtractkilos.com
valeriekelmansky.com
vipasdigitalmarketing.com
voolivrerj.com
zeelonggroup.com
1015southrockhill.com
10x10b.com
111-online-casinos.com
191cb.com
3665arpentunitd.com
aitesonics.com
bag-shokunin.com
brightotech.com
communication-digitale-services.com
covoakland.org
dariaprimapack.com
freefortniteaccountss.com
gatebizglobal.com
global1entertainmentnews.com
greatytene.com
hiroshiwakita.com
iktodaypk.com
jahatsakong.com
meadowbrookgolfgroup.com
newsbharati.net
platinumstudiosdesign.com
slotxogamesplay.com
strikestaruk.com
trucosdefortnite.com
ufabetrune.com
weddedtowhitmore.com
12940brycecanyonunitb.com
1311dietrichoaks.com
2monarchtraceunit303.com
601legendhill.com
850elaine.com
adieusolasomade.com
andora-ke.com
bestslotxogames.com
cannagomcallen.com
endlesslyhot.com
iestpjva.com
ouqprint.com
pwmaplefest.com
qtylmr.com
rb88betting.com
buscadogues.com
1007macfm.com
born-wild.com
growthinvests.com
promocode-casino.com
proyectogalgoargentina.com
wbthompson-art.com
whitemountainwheels.com
7thavehvl.com
developmethis.com
funkydogbowties.com
travelodgegrandjunction.com
gao-town.com
globalmarketsuite.com
blogshippo.com
hdbka.com
proboards67.com
outletonline-michaelkors.com
kalkis-research.com
thuthuatit.net
buckcash.com
hollistercanada.com
docterror.com
asadart.com
vmayke.org
erwincomputers.com
dirimart.org
okkii.com
loteriasdecehegin.com
mountanalog.com
healingtaobritain.com
ttxmonitor.com
nwordpress.com
11bolabonanza.com