The Far Cry series is one of my favorites in all of gaming (with Far Cry 3 among my favorite games of all time), but when Far Cry Primal was announced last year, I found myself curiously cold towards it.
One of the trademarks of the series is the varied arsenal, yet going back to this era would mean very primitive weapons.
I was not looking forward to beating some other caveperson to death with a club.
I’m still not.
The more I saw of the game world, the more beautiful I found it, yet I still felt no excitement for the release.
Weird.
When I heard about the possible creature companions you can tame and fight alongside, a bit of interest was stirred, but this could easily be because the idea of fighting alongside a wolf who looks similar to my real life dog was an interesting prospect. Yet I started to get concerned about how I would react if said companion was hurt in the game.
Interest: reluctantly held.
The art for the game is gorgeous, and I’m looking forward to exploring the environments, yet I still find myself feeling weirdly removed.
Why is this?
Perhaps it is because the franchise is being taken in such a radically different direction that I feel apprehensive. I want to be excited. I want to enjoy the game (which very well may happen), I’m just concerned (for the first time in Far Cry history) that I won’t.
And I may have an idea why: I don’t like killing creatures in games.
In any game I play where I must kill an animal to either progress through the story or for some type of upgrade, I find myself actually apologizing out loud to the TV screen. I was never so happy in Far Cry 4 as when a friend found a way for me to turn the skinning animations off so I didn’t have to both see and hear the awfulness of what I was doing (side note: it also made collecting items significantly faster). If my dog is sitting next to me and watching the screen when I have to kill a digital animal I will literally cover his eyes.
I know it’s all pretend, but I still don’t like it.
So when I heard about Primal, I figured there would be a lot of animal hunting. It would appear from all I’ve seen that I’m on the right track.
And that bothers me.
On the flipside, I love that you can tame creatures to fight alongside you during battle. There is something deeply primitive about the human/creature connection, and I’m cautiously curious about this feature of the game. But I do think I might be partial to the wolf companion.
For no known reason.
Except puppy.
Are there any games you think you’d be excited for but for some reason aren’t? Which game and why? Will you still get the game when it releases? Or perhaps wait until it drops in price and expectation?
Categories: games
Rebekah Lang 
Interesting post! One game that I always wanted to play; couldn’t bring myself to “warm up” to was Dragon Age: Inquisition. The reason being because of the use magic & the use of spells. It goes against my beliefs. Just my two cents!
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Interesting; I never thought about something like that. It’s too bad there wasn’t a way for you to play it without that.
I really dislike hunting in games. It just turns me off in a big way.
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I’m not really excited for Far Cry Primal either.
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Weird, isn’t it? I’m kind of hoping that it will sneak up on me and that I will somehow love it.
But I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that.
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I do, I know exactly what you mean. Some time ago I wrote a blog about it, how I loath to slay digital critters. And don’t worry, we are not alone. A lot of readers responded in the same way, we all grit our teeth to kill them if it is absolutely necessary, but if it can be avoided, most of us do.
It was one of the reasons why I couldn’t get into Monster Hunter, even though I really wanted to like it. The silly thing is however that I have no qualms about killing fantastical monsters, like in Persona or Bravely Default.
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I remember that post!
Yes, hunting is just something I’ve never liked in a game. I think Animal Crossing is about as far as I go with it (e.g.: catching fish, bugs). Everything else feels gross.
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I’m not really interested in Far Cry: Primal either, but to be honest I’ve never really been excited for any Far Cry game (yet somehow own like, three of them) and can’t really explain why.
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Interesting. I HIGHLY recommend you either play Blood Dragon or Far Cry 3. Both are stellar.
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I’ll have to check and see if I have 3. I know 2 and Blood Dragon were PS Plus games, and Ubisoft gifted me 4 for Christmas… If I have it I’ll definitely give it a try. If not I’ll probably start with 2 and see if I get pulled in, you never know.
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I would highly encourage you to skip 2, at least at first. They fixed a lot of things with 3. Far Cry 3 is easily in my top 10 games of all time. I’d pester the crap out of you to start with 3, then go to Blood Dragon.
Side note: Far Cry 3 is my favorite game score of all time. I listen to it on a very regular basis.
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Oh really? I appreciate a good score.
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This one in particular speaks to me. It was perfect for the game.
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