Yesterday, I strolled up to an encampment full of tribesmen hastily sharpening their spears with fragile flecks of flint before whistling with my fist raised high, siccing my bloodthirsty sabretooth onto the unsuspecting sods. It tore into every exposed ligament while I torched the huts with my fiery two-handed club, before beating the stragglers over the head while gathering up their precious resources. It’s an exhilarating jaunt that feels raw and bloody, with the only goal in mind being to better your own people, even if that means tearing them down. It’s a free-for-all on a grand, brutal scale, and that’s exactly why Far Cry Primal is the best Far Cry of the bunch.
I’ve not quite got the same soft spot for 3 that so many seem to. I recently delved back in to see what the hype was all about, and I don’t get it. Vaas is overrated, being snuffed out before he ever gets interesting, while the story is long-winded, feeling like it's finally coming to a conclusion before huzzah, you’re only halfway through. It’s a lot of fun in parts, and the gunplay is a treat, but I was desperate for it to end. I never get that feeling with Primal – yet it’s the black sheep of the series, the underdog that’s so often cited as Far Cry’s worst, but that’s wrong on so many levels. Not only is it the best Far Cry, but it’s also one of the better open-world games out there right now.
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The only goal is to better your tribe. You have a small growing settlement that you expand by cultivating resources and upgrading the huts while also recruiting new key members that bring new intelligence. This in turn lets you craft new items, and all while saving countless people on the road that ultimately ups your number of villagers. Before you know it, you’re returning to a sprawling hub of commerce, and that development is furthered by the main story and the side content. Everything ties in. Nothing feels like a waste of time or a distraction. It’s all valuable and worthwhile, and for that reason, the Ubisoft approach to open-world game design actually works rather than ending up as endless fluff filling out a checklist on an overstuffed, headache-inducing map.
With that, you can get lost for hours hunting animals, fighting off other tribesmen in random encounters, and taking over the settlements, all without the god-awful towers that reveal the map. If you want to fill it out, you have to do it by walking around or riding your pet bear. Everything Far Cry normally fumbles, Primal takes to the end zone. All while the actual gameplay elements of the series make sense on a fundamental level like never before. Gathering herbs, hunting, crafting makeshift weapons, and fighting back to take land, all lend themselves to the setting, whereas in the other Far Cry games, they feel like an arbitrary and obtuse addition to an RPG FPS that would be better served by simply giving you med packs and healing items as opposed to thrusting you into the wild where you have to gather green herbs like you’re in a more complicated Resident Evil romp.
That open-world becomes even more impressive because of your place in it. You don’t just hunt the animals, skinning them for pelts and meat, you can also tame them, even going as far as to ride a mammoth in one of the most exciting moments in any Western open-world title. But that’s a temporary mission, while you spend the free-roaming portions with your smaller pets – the bears, sabretooth, and wolves. You can pet them, feed them, and even send them to attack enemies for you. I’ve never seen a game handle animal companions so well. Primal even lets you tame the bosses you fight rather than cutting them down mercilessly. Suddenly, you’re Takkar, the beast tamer, wandering the plains with an alpha wolf you subdued, or perhaps you’re riding the ferocious bear that plagued your allies’ hideouts with its constant attacks.
My only genuine complaint with Primal is that Takkar is voiced by a white guy, but Ubisoft evidently learned from this problematic decision by the time of Assassin’s Creed: Origins with Bayek. Perhaps people don’t like that the game isn’t in English, but subtitles are a small barrier to get over. However, I often see people take digs at Primal because it reused Far Cry 4’s map, but let’s be honest, 4 never takes full advantage of its potential, mostly feeling like a rehash of 3. It wasted so much of its opportunity as a sequel to its beloved predecessor, losing its footing despite sporting such a promising sandbox to play within, that same sandbox that Primal did make good use of. The map being used again isn’t a point against Primal, it’s a point in its favor. That map would’ve been relegated to a forgettable jaunt with lackluster settlements and uninteresting locales whereas it became a thriving hotbed of prehistoric culture in Primal, utilizing that wasted potential, making up for the pitfalls.
Far Cry Primal is a slept-on gem in Ubisoft’s catalog that doesn’t get the love it deserves. It doesn’t come close to being recognized for the wonder that it is. Instead of bog-standard Far Cry 5 or the lackluster New Dawn, we could have gotten Primal 2. That’s where the future of the series lies. At least, if it wants to stand out. Technically, it’s the past, but you know what I mean.
