Next up on my binge of Far Cry games, Far Cry 4, which I completed December 2020 (took long enough to write this, eh?😜)

Continuing on with the tradition of "WTF?!?!", Far Cry sets you on a journey to the fictional nation of Kyrat. Kyrat is located in the Himalayas, and it seems to border Bihar, India since it is stated at the beginning of the game that the nearest embassy being in Patna. I think it's loosely based on Nepal.

Anyway, you are the child of a self-exiled revolutionary who is returning home to spread the ashes of your mother in your ancestral lands. You don't know much about your heritage. So there you are, a bus that's going through mountain paths, and BOOM! You get kidnapped.  You are brought to have a meal with a curious-looking man, Pagan Min, who seems to be the dictator/warlord/ruler of the lands, and you have a choice to make: stay or run.  I ran (which is what you have to do if you actually want to play through the game). You meet up with a bunch of rebels (the Golden Path) and you set off on missions to free the land.  The Golden Path has a leadership/mission/vision problem, in that the two siblings who run it have totally different visions of a "free" Kyrat.  I guess a problem to deal with near the end of the game?

One of my first WTF moments was when an eagle tried to maul me, and a honey badger attacked me (and those things are hard to kill early on!).  I think I was attacked by wildlife in FC3, but for some reason in FC4 that first unexpected attack really stands out to me.

Story from Wikipedia:

After the death of his mother Ishwari, Ajay Ghale returns to his home country of Kyrat to carry out Ishwari's final wish by returning her ashes to Lakshmana. However, his mission is interrupted when the bus he is traveling on is attacked by the Royal Army and he is taken prisoner by Pagan Min, the country's eccentric and violent king. After finding his way through Pagan's mansion, Ajay escapes with the aid of Sabal (Naveen Andrews), a commander in the Golden Path, a rebel movement established by Ajay's father, Mohan Ghale. Ajay is not able to leave the country as the Royal Army has taken control of Kyrat's only airport and sealed the borders.

In the twenty-odd years since Ishwari and Ajay fled Kyrat, the rebellion has stagnated, with the Golden Path now fighting for their very existence. As the son of Mohan Ghale, Ajay becomes a symbol for the Golden Path to rally around. After freeing a group of hostages and liberating territory held by Pagan, the Golden Path plan on breaking Pagan's stranglehold on power by targeting his three regional governors: Paul "De Pleur" Harmon, who oversees opium production and runs Pagan's torture chambers; Noore Najjar, who runs poaching and prostitution rings and who became a victim of Pagan's cruelty herself after he kidnapped her family; and Yuma Lau, Min's adopted sister and trusted general who is obsessed with uncovering the secrets of the mystical realm of Shangri-La.

However, the Golden Path's newfound momentum is threatened by deep divisions between its commanders, Sabal, who favors traditional values, and Amita (Janina Gavankar), who argues for progress, which includes relying heavily on drug trade. Ajay is forced to intervene on several occasions, with his decisions influencing the direction the Golden Path takes. The first governor to fall is De Pleur after Noore helps Ajay find a way to infiltrate De Pleur's stronghold, allowing the rebellion to capture him. Amita and Sabal later task Ajay with confronting and killing Noore. She dies in her fighting arena, either with Ajay killing her, or with Noore committing suicide upon learning Pagan had her family executed years beforehand.

As the Golden Path secures Kyrat's southern provinces, Ajay is contacted by Willis Huntley, a CIA agent who offers intelligence for the rebels and pages from his father's diary in exchange for killing Yuma's lieutenants. After Ajay kills several of them, Huntley admits they were in fact CIA assets, and that he was sent to clean up after the CIA as the agency did not see Pagan as a threat anymore. Huntley betrays Ajay to Pagan just as the Golden Path prepare to push into Northern Kyrat.

Ajay ends up in Yuma's mountain prison, from which he manages to escape. In the process he finds out that Yuma has started despising Pagan, primarily because of his affections toward Ajay's late mother. The Golden Path pushes into the north, and while Ajay attempts to reconnect with another faction of the rebels, Pagan, aware of Yuma's plotting against him, betrays Yuma to the Golden Path. Ajay is drawn into a confrontation with her and prevails, but tensions between Amita and Sabal reach new heights, and Ajay is forced to make a final decision as to who will lead the Golden Path. Whichever leader he chooses then sends Ajay to kill the other to prevent them from starting another civil war, and Ajay can choose to either kill them as ordered or let them go. With the Golden Path now united under a single leader, Ajay joins them for an attack on Pagan's fortress and pushes on alone to Pagan's palace while the Golden Path holds off the military.

Ajay encounters Pagan, who chastises him for fleeing at the start of the game, claiming that he only ever intended to help Ajay. Pagan offers Ajay a final decision: shoot him now, or listen to him. If Ajay shoots Pagan, the game ends immediately and the credits roll. If Ajay instead chooses to listen, Pagan reveals that Mohan sent Ishwari to spy on Pagan in the early days of the Golden Path, but they fell in love and had a daughter together: Lakshmana, Ajay's half-sister. Mohan killed Lakshmana for Ishwari's betrayal, and Ishwari killed him in turn before leaving the country with the infant Ajay. Pagan shows Ajay to a shrine containing Lakshmana's ashes, and Ajay places Ishwari's ashes inside. Pagan then boards a helicopter and departs peacefully, leaving the country in Ajay's hands. The player can choose to shoot down Pagan's helicopter as it flies away, killing Pagan in the process.

In the aftermath, the Golden Path seizes control of Kyrat. The final ending depends on which leader Ajay ultimately sided with. If Amita is placed in charge, she turns Kyrat into an authoritarian drug state, forcing villagers into work in factories and drug fields, and conscripting children into the group as soldiers to bolster their ranks against the remnants of the Royal Army; Ajay also learns that she has had her sister, Bhadra, taken away, "never to come again". If Sabal is placed in charge, Kyrat becomes a patriarchal fundamentalist theocracy where all of Amita's supporters are executed, women are denied fundamental political rights, and Bhadra is anointed as a religious symbol for the country to rally around. The player has the choice to kill the Golden Path's leader or leave them alive.

An Easter egg ending can be found at the beginning of the game. To trigger it, Ajay must simply wait at the dinner table in Pagan's mansion; when Pagan returns, he thanks Ajay for being a "gentleman" and leads him to Lakshmana's shrine, telling Ajay of his family history. After Ajay plants his mother's ashes at the shrine, Pagan invites Ajay to join him to "finally shoot some goddamn guns".

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Just as with FC3, there was a choice to make in the end. You can either shoot down Pagan Min's helicopter or let him escape. After all the sh*t you go through the game, I just shot down his helicopter. You also have the option of eliminating one of the two Golden Path siblings, and it's a poor choice either way.  If you kill Sabal, Amita is aggressively expanding the recruitment of the Golden Path, and expects all families to sacrifice to help bring Kyrat back - and she also seems to want Kyrat to be a narcostate.  If you kill Amita, Sabal is seen to have taken some extreme measures to make people atone for their mistakes. People get killed and Kyrat becomes a repressive theocratic state.  Both are sh*t endings, but I guess they mirror real life...😑

Overall this was a fun game (despite the depressing endings).  It dragged on a bit for me. I am not sure it's game fatigue from my Far Cry binge, or if the game itself does drag on a little bit.  The "power reset" between games sometimes is a little jarring - you got from a uber-solder in one game, to a weakling that needs to build up their skills again once you start the new one.  This game is still a 10/10 for me because Kyrat is simply beautiful and I enjoyed flying around in that rickety helicopter thing.

Some stats from the xbox app:
Gamerscore: 715/1250
Achievements: 33
Percentage complete: 57%

Personal Far Cry ranking after this game was completed:

1. Far Cry 3
2. Far Cry 4
3. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
4. Far Cry 2
5. Far Cry Classic