Far Cry 5: Everything New We Learned at E3 2017

You Can Hire Allies

One of the primary features of Far Cry 5 is the ability to recruit allies and call for their assistance whenever you need it. The latest trailer shown off at Ubisoft’s E3 2017 trailer featured three potential allies in the game: Boomer, Grace, and Nick. Boomer is a dog companion who can attack your enemies on sight, and even bring their weapons and items to you. Kind of like Dogmeat from Fallout 4 or DD from Metal Gear Solid V.

Grace is a silent sniper, and players can direct her to strategic locations around the area and have her take position there. She can provide supporting fire whenever you enter enemy territory, and she’ll take down any enemy that you mark. Nick is an ally that provides support from the air, and he’ll rain down bullets and bombs from his airplane when you need it. These characters were referred to as “allies for hire” in the game, which suggests that you might have to spend some resources or make some sort of trade-off to enlist their help.

Friends for Hire

Another cool feature that got brought up in Ubisoft’s E3 2017 conference was the ability to call in friends for hire. While we didn’t get to see much of this feature in action, we did get a glimpse of an ally coming to the player’s assistance in a tractor. Far Cry 5 will offer some sort of co-op functionality that allows your friends to join in on your game and provide assistance whenever it’s needed.

From the way Watch Dogs 2 handled its drop in and drop out co-op features, we wouldn’t be surprised if Ubisoft applied that same feature to Far Cry 5 as well.

Drive Tractors and Pilot Planes

Because Far Cry 5 is set in modern-day Montana, players will have access to a wide variety of vehicles to travel quickly around the game world. One of the more notable vehicles shown in the latest trailer was a tractor (not unlike the ones you see in the Farming Simulator games) which you could use to mow down your enemies. The trailer also featured an airplane that you could ride in and use to rain down bullets on enemies.

While Far Cry 4 did offer some verticality by letting players travel around in a gyrocopter, Far Cry 5 is taking things to the next level by introducing proper airplanes for players to ride in. Ubisoft’s already mentioned that players can essentially tackle the different areas of Montana in whatever order they want to, and an airplane will certainly help with efficient traversal.

Lead a Resistance Against the Religious Cult

This was touched on very briefly in the latest trailer, but Far Cry 5’s story will revolve around a main character who tries to overthrow a religious cult by putting a resistance force together. There was a short snippet in the trailer that showed off how Hope County had been absolutely devastated by the violence in the town, and Ubisoft mentioned that your character was one of the remnants of a resistance that had been crushed by the cultists.

In Far Cry 5, it’ll be the player’s job to gather the community around them and convince them to take up arms against the fanatics. The tone of the story is a marked departure from the previous Far Cry games, and it’s arguably one of the most exciting things to ever happen to the series.

Far Cry 5 is set to be released for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on Feb. 27 2018.