far cry is a mid ubisoft game but it's less about shooting and grenade launching and fighting for your life with a rebellious group in the middle of nowhere where help will not come for you and more about: "There was a time I would do anything for my sister, I mean the first time I ever killed was for my sister. Not enough for her," and it's also more about "Women can say that they love you in the moment, and really mean it. While men can only love in hindsight, when too much distance has built up." and it's also more about "John was not perfect. Sometimes he was not even good. But he was my brother." and it's also more about "But we would still talk every single night. Until they took his tongue." and how each instance of this type of love that was lost twisted each villain further and further into something unrecognizable and anw ubisoft lost the plot
DIEGO SHOULD’VE BEEN THE CHARACTER WE PLAY IN FAR CRY 6 IT WOULD’VE FIT BETTER THEMATICALLY AND WENT BACK TO THE ORIGINAL FORMULA OF UNLIKELY HEROES THAT ARE STUCK SOMEWHERE AND WHO DOESN’T HAVE A CHOICE EXCEPT TO BRING ABOUT A LARGE CHANGE OF POWERS TO SURVIVE.
*large gasp in*
ARGUMENT 1 - THE FAR CRY FORMULA
I love Dani but they just continue the Deputy in 5’s formula which is WEAKSAUCE. the reason 3-4 worked so well was partly because of the heroes and their circumstances.
Jason is still iconic a whole decade later because he subverted expectations. he’s a socal douchebag party fuckboy. he’s even the WORST choice out of the brody brothers to be the hero. grant was an ex-navy who would’ve handled rook island better, and riley just graduated pilot school and was the typical younger, physically fit but dorky nice guy protag with his whole life ahead of him storyline. jason’s a shit boyfriend & a loser with no job and no ambition. but jason had no choice but to be the hero because his brothers are out of the equation, and that’s how we got the legend we did cus he skydived straight into the deep end.
Ajay was Jason’s opposite because in his story, he’s the only reasonable choice to be the hero. of COURSE the son of mohan and ishwari would return and finish the job in overthrowing Pagan out of Kyrat. nobody else could do the job, whether ajay wants to or not is irrelevant.
the Deputy tho? they were just in hope county cus it was their job. you could have the same exact story in fc5 if you changed the deputy’s role with hudson or pratt. and dani continues that same setting! dani could’ve been replaced by any other nobody from Yara and that would’ve still worked.
what’s even worse: dani in fc6 DOESN’T have a reason to stay in Yara. they could’ve left, heck they WANTED to leave, so the whole ‘ohh you’re trapped in a place riddled with political and violent conflict’ formula was already rocky from the start. they weren’t patriotic and they didn’t have any meaningful ties to anyone in the country being an orphan.
and while yes there's a story to be told with the fact dani stayed anyway that the game touched upon: "you were the lucky one." and the whole spiel about dani's fate to have always been to stay and fight because they were addicted to the war like Juan was, it didn't hit as well because there was ALWAYS an option to leave at the beginning.
now compare that to Diego, who couldn’t have left because he was son of El Presidente. he HAS tried to escape before and failed. he’s stuck in Yara. Diego’s only choice to survive is to either continue his father’s plans or to thwart them completely. cue the far cry 6 opening sequence.
when the first trailer for fc6 dropped, we see diego & anton for the first time and see a glimpse into what the story would be.
the first thing Anton says to Diego was "It's beautiful, Diego. Perfect. But useless." this could've hit so much harder if it was a double meaning, to have meant about Diego's hobby for miniature car crafting and Diego himself. Diego's the perfect poster boy for Anton, and yet, he's still useless as of now.
not for lack of trying, we see anton try to drill diego with a bunch of his ideals, in trailer and in-game too.
by the end of the trailer, we see Diego presumably dropping the grenade on a bunch of Libertad protesters
this would’ve been diego’s ‘RUN FORREST RUN!’ moment / crab rangoon moment. this was the moment he realized oh SHIT my dad’s completely mental and my choice are either to kill him or these rebels or i’m dying. in the trailer’s setting, he has no choice but to drop that grenade down on them. what could’ve he realistically do? chuck it to the air? NOT do what anton said? lmao.
this was diego’s fuel to decide. in fact i was SO sure that we’d have played an older diego who joined the rebels secretly. ofc that wasn’t what we got, but could you imagine if that was the route ubisoft chose to take? especially because...
ARGUMENT 3 - WHAT THE FANS WANTED
after 3-4, there’s A LOT of fanboys who lost the plot and wanted an option for us to join the far cry villains. ‘vaas was actually trying to help jason’ ‘pagan was right all along’ ‘we should’ve been able to side with pagan’. regardless of your view on the matter, objectively there’s a demand to ‘join the baddies’ by this point. i thought ubisoft was finally giving the fans what they wanted via Diego.
we know diego isn’t too keen on following anton’s footsteps, but also that he DOES love his dad, and that he was groomed to be the next president since his birth. he’s in that perfect, UNIQUE position where you can understand if he chooses either to ruin his father’s work or to continue it.
we could’ve had a fc4 sabal-amita faction recipe continuation and pick which side you were trying to support. diego would start the game trying to dismantle anton’s regime from the inside out, working with the rebels but also occasionally having to sacrifice his own friends or rebel safehouses and locations to throw anton’s suspicions off of him.
this would’ve been super dramatic as the game progresses and the stake gets higher. and it would've fit so well with Giancarlo Esposito’s acting chops where you never quite know what he thinks and whether he believes you or not.
in the end we could’ve had to choose for diego to continue as president, perhaps doomed to repeat his father’s mistakes… or for him to relinquish the title and give Libertad their victory, a change for Yara but also throwing the country to certain disarray for who knows how long. both a chance for a better future.. but At What Cost.
Argument 4 - Character Design
a bit of a stretch but Diego's outfit could've been a hint that he's both villain & hero. i've talked about it at length here that far cry generally uses the typical color scheme of red for villains/enemies (easier to spot during gameplay) and blue for the good guys (general opposite of red).
we see this in 6, with the FND and Anton wearing white & red; and Libertad colors being blue. and guess the color that Diego wears in the trailer?
a red t-shirt, covered with a blue jacket.
in-game, we never see this outfit. diego always wears the same uniform anton does, out of duty. and in his civilian outfit, he wears a black t-shirt instead.
since diego's role in-game still stays of that fragile hope of Yara's future, flitting in between accepting his father's teaching and desire to be good, (and spoiler alert: how it's dead in the waters either way) it doesn't really matter what he ultimately wears.
had he been the main character tho, it would've been cool to see him blatantly be both villain AND good guy right down to what he wears.
cherry on top?
it would’ve made diego’s presence on the cover of the game to make sense. traditionally since 3 onwards, it was always the villain being the poster boy. diego on the poster would’ve shown his constant potential as the villain with the choices he has and could make— emphasizing the like father, like son pose that the cover shows.
far cry 7 rumor mongering time i went to ubisoft's website and saw their job listing to check what kind of roles they're looking for. we know development is underway because they've moved on from looking for concept artists to SENIOR GAMEPLAY ANIMATOR (AI) because this is ubisoft and they do use a lot of AI in their games.
notably there's a 'hostage situation' that'll happen with NPCs... this is par for the course, we've done some hostage situation even all the way in fc4.
ANOTHER THING, i found a potential guy called Patrick Redding who worked on Far Cry 2 and is now the lead director for an "unannounced AAA game" for ubisoft montreal aka the same studio that's working on fc7, and he MIGHT be the guy in charge for the game, which can go very well (fc2 gritty mechanics) or very bad (the guy also directed Gotham Knights) and i told all this to my co-worker and she said i am doing Too Much as if i dont look like this every day
I'm a big far cry fan, which means I have to make my own food in this economy. But sometimes I just want some ACTUAL canon or canon-ish or even just canon-adjacent content, y'know? It has gotten to the point I go into youtube rabbit holes or watch a remarkably below average hallmark movies for 5 minutes of an actor's screentime to hopefully hear Jason or Ajay or whoever talk. And so in these quests, I've found a couple obscure promos. Gonna compile them here for myself mostly :)
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Doctor Earnhardt //a live action video with Alec Earnhardt's VA
Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Vaas //same thing but with Michael Mando
Hoyt Audition Far Cry 3 //the last part of "The Voices of Insanity" videos, couldn't find the one from Ubisoft's own account but someone else had posted it on youtube
Far Cry 3 for PS3: TV Spot
Far Cry 3 -- Island Survival Guide: Psychopaths, Drugs & Other Dangers // video narrated by Willis Huntley
Far Cry 3 -- The Savages: Vaas & Buck // this video shows a rare render of vaas with tataus on his arm!
Far Cry 3 | The Tribe: Citra & Dennis //this video has a deleted scene where Jason hallucinates the tatau snaking up his arm
Far Cry 3 -- The Tyrant: Hoyt
Far Cry 3 - Insane Edition // this is a promo done for a special edition for the game, Michael Mando probably couldn't shoot the promo himself and just voice acted, and so they used another actor and made it so the camera never sees Vaas's face.
^ There is also a survival guide titled Face Your Insanity written by post-Rook events Jason Brody as part of the Insane Edition.
Far Cry 3 | E3 2012 Step Into Insanity Trailer [NORTH AMERICA] // this has a few close-ups of Jason and Vaas switching places with each other
Far Cry 3 Interviews (via @lulu2992)
Far Cry 3 Tweets by Jeffrey Yohalem, the lead writer. (also compiled by @/lulu2992! Thanks again!)
Far Cry 4
Divya Kandala's Blog (archived on the Wayback Machine) // Divya Kandala is a fictional journalist who wrote a blog about her travels to Kyrat, her blog's basically world-building promo for FC4. You could also find the house she stayed at in Kyrat!
Far Cry 4 TV Commercial
Far Cry 4 | Kyrat Tuk Tuk Stories //this is the MOST we see ajay in third person in promo content
Far Cry 4 - CGI Trailer // this isn't exactly RARE but it took forever for me to find that clip of ajay's eyes reflecting from the kukri. plus he looks EXTREMELY caucasian which really doesn't help the rumors I've heard that they originally wanted Jason again as FC4's protag
Comedy Central Far Cry 4 Commercial feat Danny Pudi & Donald Glover
Far Cry 4 and Childish Gambino: The Collaboration | PS4, PS3 // a music video for Crawl by Childish Gambino done as a collab
Far Cry 4 Map Editor Promo with Danny Pudi
Old Archive.Org link to the Far Cry 4 webpage that had a choose your own adventure campaign
^ and the youtube video to promote it
Far Cry 4 | Behind the Scene Trailer 1/3 [Europe] // developer vlogs when they visited Nepal and interviewed the ghurka that became base for Golden Path, you can see the village that resembles Banapur a lot!
Far Cry 4 Performance Capture Interview // you can see Janina Gavankar, Amita's actress doing some mocap in this
Janina Gavankar Talks Far Cry 4 - ^ and the interview with her after
World Gameplay Premiere - Walkthrough E3 2014 - Far Cry 4 // this was to showcase gameplay but they eventually took out this entire mission where you have to wingsuit to Ratu Gadhi (Yuma's fortress), which is a shame because it looked very nice.
Far Cry Primal
Primal imo is the most underrated far cry game, you can tell it was made with actual love and care!!
Far Cry Primal TV Spot
Far Cry Primal Trailer Live Action #1 - features a fun time travel concept with medieval era fighting, which some commenters lament as a cool idea for a far cry setting that we'll probably never see
Far Cry Primal Trailer Live Action #2
Far Cry Primal Behind The Scenes - this is the first of a series (i know there's at least 4) in Ubisoft North America's youtube channel
Far Cry 5
i'll be honest, im not a fc5 girlie, so i dont usually do a lot of digging, and im pretty sure these are actually not obscure at all. but these are trailers i found that really blew it out of the park. the marketing team for 5 really went HAM
Far Cry 5: Teaser Trailer | Ubisoft //this has a peggie banging someone's head to a church bell rhythmically with the gorgeous view of Montana mountains as backdrop and i for one, find it hilarious
Far Cry 5 | The Sermon - Live Action Trailer
Far Cry 5 | The Baptism - Live Action Trailer //somebody once mentioned this one has Joseph looking like Trevor GTA and i have never quite known peace ever since. it really also shows the reality of how Joseph is actually just really Unwell, and lore that Joseph killed Pastor Jerome's daughter that never showed up in-game.
Far Cry 5: Anything Can Happen, Everything Will - Live Action TV Spot | Trailer // mixes live action and game CGI renders, pretty cool actually!
The Making of Far Cry 5 | Behind the Scenes of Ubisoft [Documentary]
Far Cry 6 Comics
not gonna put in FC6 stuff because they're actually very easy to find! lots of trailers and mocaps and interviews on youtube :) Far Cry 6 actually has a more obscure lore in their comics
Far Cry: Esperanza's Tears comic // this is a Juan-centric prequel comic that features a completely new country, lore about Far Cry universe's political landscape, and lots of cameos from 3-6's characters! very interesting read especially if you're a sucker for backstories like me
Far Cry: Rite of Passage comic // this is more popular as it features Anton telling Diego the backstories for 3-5's villains.
There is also a book titled The Official Far Cry Survival Guide written by a fictional character called Hunter Nash, who supposedly grew up with Hope County-level of a doomsday prepper dad and winds up as a journalist who travels to the locations of 3-6 and wrote how to survive each location accordingly. It's adorned with official artwork of the games and plenty of survival tips. Not much lore-wise, but cool nonetheless! it also fuels my co-workers au ideas but that's personal.
i have actually found stuff like a really old MTV show called Undressed with Gianpaolo Venuta where he uses his Jason voice for his character, and how Patrick Kwok-Choon, the new voice actor for Ajay does voice acting in Thomas the Train Engine and Paw Patrol, and an indie movie with Greg Bryk where he wears fun sunglasses like Joseph, but that's neither here nor there to the franchise, so eh.
// i'll edit this post if i find more, so maybe check back sometimes!
DETAILS IN FAR CRY 6 THAT I FOUND ON MY SECOND RUN THAT I CURSE UBISOFT FOR NOT EXPLORING FURTHER
this is a long ass post so im putting it under the read more tag haha woops
Dani was 18 when the orphanage let them go for being of-age (in May 2014), About a month later in June 2014, they were drafted into the military. They stayed in the military for 3+ years, as evident from a letter of warning issued to them in 2017 because they were doing black market smuggling. (I wish they explored more on this instead of just putting it in as letters we can find because it would've answered Dani's perhaps overtly casualness in doing smuggling activities for Bembe.)
Speaking of Bembe, remember the boat that Alejo and Dani were supposed to ride on to get away from Yara? It turns out Bembe was the one who got them that spot in the boat, with a letter sent to Alejo to leave with his friend that night. Since Bembe and Dani didn't know each other before the events in-game, Alejo must have contacted Bembe alone. This makes his death (and his ghost blaming Dani for it) hit a lot harder, considering Alejo had done the heavy lifting to get them both out of Yara, and Dani still didn't manage to do so.
If you leave to find Libertad, but go back to the beach where Lita's body is still there, Dani will question Lita's opinion that what had happened was fate. (Before sadly and bitterly telling her to rest in peace.)
Despite this, a treasure hunt in El Este has Dani look for boats named after the Legends of '67. One of the boats is named Roja Victoria, to which Dani laughs at the name and says it's fate.
The 6 in Dani's default outfit/baseball jersey might be a reference to them being the protag for far cry 6 (hurhur)
Dani's big dream after moving to Miami is to open a bodyshop called Huérfanos (orphans), (which is a weird ass branding for a business and I'm thankful that the evil ghost of Alejo talked shit about it 😭)
With two different voice actors (and surprisingly slightly different animations for cutscenes), there's a lot of differences on body language and how male and female dani talk with the other cast.
Some notable differences are:
female dani tend to be calmer when talking to people, which makes her being the representative of Libertad trying to bridge communications a great choice. In comparison, male dani is more brash, but it fits with them being a nobody orphan from Esperanza with a Libertad armband that people are initially constantly hostile with.
when meeting espada, female dani caught espada's blade without flinching (badass). male dani pulled his head back as he caught it and was jittery after, which in reality would be more realistic.
male dani's character model is significantly more roughed up and bloodied during the torture scene in comparison to female dani's (booooo!!)
female dani sounded way nicer to diego, gently asking "and you won't be? 😔🥺" at diego's insistence that his father was only evil because he was brought up that way. male dani was straight up yelling the line "AND YOU WON'T BE ‼😤🤬" which makes the ensuing scene where diego almost shoot them hilarious with male dani's threat to shoot diego be much realer. that man was ready to throw hands with a 13 year old roblox player.
Also if you pay attention, Diego's screen during the hotel raid is a paused FPS game that kid is a #gamerrrr, and it's hilarious that the implication he's in the hotel suite is just because he wants to peacefully game. (also also Diego might just be the second canonical gamer in Far Cry, considering Jason's the first. Nick Rye from FC5 is also a gamer but he seems to only play arcade games. Vaas being a gamer with his knowledge of Silent Hill is debatable as the DLC may or may not be canon.)
back to male and female dani's differences, during the dinner scene where Antón was threatening to kill Clara and Juan was going to shoot Diego, f!Dani kept staring at Diego and quite obviously says "Juan." warningly, while m!Dani glances at Diego before closing his eyes and whispers Juan under his breath. (Personally m!Dani's approach to try and warn Juan without letting Antón know is more nuanced imo)
m!Dani panicked more when Clara was shot than f!Dani, but f!Dani panicked and yelled out "DIEGO, NO!" when Diego was shot in comparison to m!Dani's quiet horror
m!Dani has a more snappy/accusatory tone when talking to Clara when he was going to meet Máximas Matanzas, re:how a lot of people got hurt due to the riots that they caused in Esperanza. this makes his interaction with them a lot more interesting, since it's obvious Dani disagrees with plenty of their actions (Talia killing Marquessa, his initial annoyance at Bicho, Paolo killing that doctor after getting the intel, etc.)
Valle de Oro is the ONLY time in-game that Dani complains that they have done plenty of things for the faction and demanded them to do something (the rap show) in exchange.
this also makes Dani's relationship with Bembe interesting especially with how Dani doesn't deny Bembe's line about not lying to their friends. Dani was just saying what they needed to say and did what they needed to do to get Máximas Matanzas with Libertad, not because they actually actively like them. Dani possibly didn't kill Bembe because deep down they agree with him to a certain level.
This is a bit of a stretch, but I'd like to say that at the end of Máximas Matanzas's arc, Dani agrees with Juan that their music was no Pedro Torrero, and might hint that Dani (like Juan) dislikes their voice and takes on the revolution, as well as being another way to cement the whole 'Dani will wind up like Juan, an adrenaline junkie addicted to the revolution' narrative.
Another case in point, Dani's much friendlier with Espada and with La Moral's crew, having heartfelt calls with Espada and partying along with La Moral.
Máximas Matanzas suffers a lot as being the most disliked part of the game, if Dani did dislike them and it was made as part of the story, it would actually make the whole thing way more interesting.
Another way Máximas Matanzas arc could've been better executed is if they just explored Talia's POV & the True Yaran Academy storyline further. A big part of why people hate the arc is because of Talia's constant bitching and ordering of Dani around and absolutely no plan other than being loud. The important thing about Talia is: her anger is just covering for her fear. We see this when she's visibly nervous (and hiding it with anger that they WON'T stop the show even as the FND is raiding their location), and when she shrinks when Maria started berating her and Paolo's ideals, something that must have been drilled onto her in the academy. Talia eventually snaps and kills Maria, a very, VERY, bad decision that paints Libertad in a bad light-- but if we had an insight to how the brainwashing worked like what happened in FC5 with Faith's region? Or see shells of people like the Marshall in 5, who were successfully brainwashed and what Talia feared to become? I think the storyline would've went very differently. regardless of Dani's opinion of her and how it would still be a dumb decision, we'd still understand where she was coming from-- something most players don't in the current storyline.
When you kill El Doctor, when Dani was still hallucinating, if you wait long enough and let El Doctor mock Dani, saying that orphans make the best test subjects, Dani would frustratedly yell at him to shut up.
Other than being likened to Juan, Dani is also called similar to El Tigre (being the fist of the revolution/the hero) and also to Lobo. The latter is interesting, because there is a lot of similarity between Lobo-Santos and Dani-Clara. Santos/Clara is the educated politician with a squeaky clean public image who orders the previously nobody Lobo/Dani around to do the dirty work. the only difference between them is that Lobo eventually snapped and aimed to rule Yara tyrannically and was put down. its a good thing Dani seems to have zero ambition! haha :)
After El Tigre hugs Dani when they first meet, Dani angrily tells him to "never do that again." we see that he actually honors this request. the next time El Tigre congratulates Dani for successfully taking back the hotel for La Moral, he just settled for a very enthusiastic handshake and shoulder squeeze
Yelena is catholic, she makes a cross before talking to her boyfriend's grave. Most yarans seem to be catholic but it seems like from the main cast, she's the only one other than the Castillos who's explicitly religious
Dani is also religious but to the native religion of Yara: Triada.
The religion is banned and deemed as a savage practice, and Dani mentions that they haven't seen the Triada symbols around since they were a kid.
The only other person who seems to worship the Oluwas that is named is the father of Zenia Zayas, Elisio, a propaganda artist who became depressed after his divorce and then turned to work with the FND. He became obsessed with the Oluwas and seemed to become insane with his worship to Ida, the Oluwa for passion, fire and war.
Dani is special in their devotion to the Oluwas because it seems that they did gain special favor from the gods, being able to get into the deepest magical caves and was deemed worthy by Oluso, the guardian. This makes Dani similar to Ajay in how they are somewhat chosen ones that doesn't go insane even with their proximity to supernatural powers like normal humans do (Ajay's being his multiple travels to Shangri La and visions as Kalinag that he brushes off like a whole chad.)
This is not a new detail but I'm gonna put it here since it's not mentioned anywhere in the wiki. The Triada features 3 Oluwas: Ida (a male Oluwa for passion, fire and war), Oku (a female Oluwa of water, life, and justice) and Mimo Abosi (Oluwa of wind, trickery, and luck).
There seems to be a lot of concept art re: dark magic rituals that didnt make the final cut except as easter eggs:
FAR CRY AND USING RED FOR THEIR VILLAINS AND 'VILLAINS'
almost all of the (main) far cry games uses red to show who's the enemy (like most games, really!), and i wanna point out that it even expands to the other characters and overanalyze their wardrobe. long post under the cut
IN FAR CRY 3:
pirates wear red and so does their leader vaas who wears his #iconique red tanktop. coincidentally jason views vaas as the ultimate villain who he has to kill.
Hoyt wears a red shirt under his jacket, which if you think about could be kinda read as him being on the inside/the real guy pulling the strings underneath the surface of what jason previously know about.
"But what about Buck?" you ask, "He wears blue, which since Jason also wears blue, should mean he's one of the 'good guys'?" well yes and no. Technically, Buck does try to be buddy buddy with Jason, multiple times even, so the blue shirt as trying to fake being your friend fits. However, Buck's chest tattoo is red, and it's literally inked into his skin and is obvious to Jason and for anyone to see that he is clearly not our friend.
Privateers also don't have any red in their color schemes, but i feel this might be a sign that at that point, Jason didn't actually have to be on the island and kill privateers.
IN FAR CRY 4:
both the royal army and the royal guards wear red colored uniforms.
Pagan wears a pink suit, which isn't exactly red, but then again, he isn't inherently antagonistic towards Ajay, who may not view Pagan as the villain at all, depending on the player's choice on letting him go or not. I would also argue Pagan's pink suit also foreshadows his retirement from the dictatorship role, he's just biding his time and not really actively doing anything.
Notice that his shoes are red though and he did take very particular offense that they got ruined when he killed a guy, so Pagan very much still is a villain
Compare this to Paul de Pleur, who wears a red shirt, or Noore's red sash. "but, but noore was doing it because she was forced! she isn't ACTUALLY evil!" yeah that's what the sash is for, it's an add-on to her original outfit, as opposed to de Pleur's shirt that he covers with the blue vest.
(also i do think noore deserves a whole lot of credit as a villain for what she did, even if she was cornered into that position. she DID kill and pimp out pretty much anyone she can get her hands on. she DID kill innocent kids to save her own. not saying i wouldn't do it if i was in her shoes, but on a 'good-bad' spectrum noore is definitely not on the good anymore.)
Yuma's a bit tricky cus she also doesn't have any red color scheme, instead her hair's pink just like Pagan's color. So was it like... she's just copying Pagan? That her previously 'evil' actions were set in motion YEARS before it could have any effect to Ajay's present journey to find Lakshmana now so the color has faded to pink? Maybe. But she IS obsessed with being Kalinag and became Kalinag in Ajay's hallucination when he had to kill her, and Kalinag does have a red color scheme.
FC4 is great cus both Sabal and Amita also has red in their wardrobe which is great foreshadowing.
Sabal's red is fittingly on his prayer beads, and he used religion to slaughter people in his ending;
while Amita's red is on her boots, and she eventually rules over people, demanding lands to be used as drug fields.
FAR CRY 5 gets a loud boooo because none of the seeds have red in their wardrobe. some peggies are tatted with red ink, and the Eden's Gate flag is red, but like, WHERE'S THE CONSISTENCY UBISOFT!
FAR CRY 6 actually goes back to Far Cry 3 in terms of character design (red = evil, blue = good) with how the libertad wears blue and the FND wears red.
Anton, like Hoyt, wears a red shirt (and even a red tie!) under a suit. Notice that it's a white suit this time. He's covering up his mistreatment of Yarans producing Viviro with propaganda and an attempt to look squeaky clean to foreigners.
Diego wears the same uniform, out of duty, but in his civilian clothing (which you see at the start of the game), he's wearing a blue jacket-- he wants to be good. Unfortunately, he can't, as his red sneakers indicate, everywhere he steps death follows, because he is still a Castillo. and you know what Anton says to him?
(NOTICE THE WORDING...)
fortunately (or unfortunately), Diego wasn't the only one who wears red on their shoes on that boat, so he isn't the only one to blame for bringing death. you know who else has red on their shoes?
THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS, DANI ROJAS THEMSELVES WEARS RED LACED SNEAKS. Dani is the ONLY survivor of the boat other than Diego, and once they set foot on that boat with her, Lita's fate was sealed.
Additionally... in the FC6 DLC, we see the villains of 3-5 again, and they were still wearing their original outfits... but note that Vaas shows up again at the end of his DLC, and we see that his red tank has faded, and he's wearing a green army jacket on top of it now. he's still a villain by some standards, but he's moved on from being just the leader of the pirates in Rook Islands.
P.S if ubisoft ever makes another continuation, i wonder what color they'll use for the protag's outfit cus they've already went with blue (jason) > green (ajay) > yellow (dani) and they usually reserve red for the enemies. im team purple myself.
In Far Cry 6, one of the first things Dani Rojas does is help light up their friend Alejo's cigarette. They do this again in the first act of the game for Camila "La Espada" Montero. Both times Dani silently helps light the cigarette but of their own accord.
The Hays Code, a set of guidelines and rules enforced in Hollywood in the 1930s, was created to prevent depictions of sexual perversion, violence and other immoral acts on movies. One of the rules enforced disallowed kissing for more than 3 seconds, and any shot of a man and woman in bed together. While some directors manage to work around it cleverly by breaking the kisses, others find that letting two characters smoke together or simply lighting each other's cigarette was enough to insinuate that the characters were sexually involved with each other. Characters can touch each other lightly during lighting a cigarette, they lean in, it involves lips and tongue, it could even look phallic, the sky was the limit at making a cigarette feel sexually charged. The implication stuck even to this day.
We can then conclude that Dani Rojas lighting a friend's cigarette, one being a man and one being a woman as at MOST an indication they are bisexual and at LEAST a direct shot at them being a people pleaser. In this essay, I will--
Far Cry 3's Rook Islands - how based on Indonesia is it actually is
according to an Indonesian who is not exactly qualified to write this post but by god will i make that everyone else's problem. Long post under the cut in case you'd like to know the fun facts and insights about the game and Rook and how much they got right and wrong.
Here's what I will discuss:
Locations, Flora & Fauna
The Rakyat and what they preach and practice
Citra, Dennis and Vaas
I would like to preface by saying Indonesia is a big ass archipelago, literally the biggest archipelagic state in the world, and we have many cultures, sub-languages, and various indigenous tribes of which I'm not part of. So there could be a possibility that the FC3 game devs were basing Rook especially the Rakyat on certain tribes I'm not familiar with or with an actual cultural rep who knows more than I do, but somehow I doubt that too, considering how they seem to just base Rook vaguely on various Polynesian areas.
1. Locations, Flora & Fauna
The Rook Islands page in the Far Cry 3 Wiki does a great job of explaining this in more depth than I do, but to TL;DR it: the flora & fauna in Rook makes it seem like Rook's most likely in the eastern side of Indonesia (sharing the same fauna and flora as Papua New Guinea and Australia). This is especially evident since Rook has komodo dragons and they're only available in Nusa Tenggara Timur.
However, the vastly different animals in the North and South Islands of Rook indicates the possibility of Rook running through the Wallace Line, which irl happens between Bali and Lombok, two very close islands which have vastly different faunas.
So actually to squash down the locations into two tiny islands and grab all the crazy animals into two distinct parts like this actually happens irl, which is cool!
I got nothing much to add about plants cus they all seem to be pretty straightforward and all are available in Indonesia from what I see... with the exception that I previously had believed that the white plant that Jason can pick to craft immunity effects are jasmines, but it seems that officially they're tiares which are more commonly known as being used as leis by the Polynesian people. Either way, both Jasmines and Tiares are small, worn traditionally by women, smells nice and have some spooky connotations, so same difference to me :^)
The only location in-game with an Indonesian name is Beras Town. Beras means 'uncooked rice', so there's a little fun fact to note since when you get there the first time to see Hoyt shooting at the natives it was fittingly in a rice paddy field.
2. The Rakyat and what they preach and practice
The Rakyat is a dead giveaway that Rook is based on Indonesia or Malaysia. Rakyat means 'people' in both languages, and is pronounced correctly in-game. However, most of the Rakyat weren't speaking Indonesian and spoke with a New Zealand accent so are they like. Samoan? Maori?? God knows.
Indonesia has certain tribes who have tattooing as part of their history and culture, but the tatau seems to be based more on the Samoan tatau, at least from the name itself. Tattoos are called tato in Indonesian and not tatau. The design is also not like any known designs from tribes that have tattooing culture in Indonesia. With how Dennis explains each animal on Jason's tatau had meaning in the Rakyat's history for warriors, it seems like the entire thing was a creative liberty.
Other than the tataus, there's not much we know of about The Rakyat other than they're natives of the island. There's a side mission where you have to spy on a cheating husband, this one stuck out to me for a couple reasons. One being it's funny as hell, and also because the name of the guy the husband is cheating with is Jalak. Jalak is the Indonesian name for a Starling, there's a specific sub-species of the bird that is endemic to Bali, Indonesia. It's extra-funny if it's implied that the man the husband is cheating with is named after a bird because the word bird in Indonesia (burung) is a euphemism for dick.
Another side mission also has a minor character you have to find called 'Senin' which was pronounced wrong but it's an Indonesian word that means 'Monday'.
Those are all I remember, I'll edit if I remember more!
3. Citra, Dennis and Vaas
Citra - let's start with the most glaring thing. Citra is not supposed to be said with a 'S' sound but a 'Ch' sound. (if you go to google translate and type in Citra in Indonesia and listen to it, that's the right pronunciation). If they wanted to pronounce it like they did in-game, they should've just named her Sitra which would still sound pretty natural as an Indonesian name.
Other than her name pronunciation error, the name itself is actually pretty solid. Citra means image, like 'made in the image of god' kind of image. Considering she is the Rakyat's leader and is obsessed with cultivating an image of strength and traditional values, it's a fitting name.
Citra is also the only character to speak proper Bahasa Indonesia. She actually pronounces the words correctly and speaks clearly, which I was pleasantly surprised with! Just ignore the way the Indonesian is written in subtitles cus they are completely wrong. She only says a few lines so I'll discuss them here:
Senapan ke bawah - said when Jason first shows up with Dennis at her temple and she asks her men to stand down. Translates to 'Lower your guns.'
Berikan saya herbal - said when she asks for the first potion that Jason has to drink to get the vision that led him to hallucinate where to find Willis. Translates to: 'Give me the potion/herbs'.
Cinta untuk anak-anak kami - you can miss this if you didn't pick her ending. This is the only correctly subtitled Indonesian line, and it translates to 'love for our children'. Not child. Children. Plural. Miss ma'am... what in the everliving fuck are you trying to do hoping to have children with a guy who's shooting blanks at this point and who you proceed to kill immediately after? Let's move on.
Dennis speaks Bahasa Melayu, which is quite interesting to note, considering he is a foreigner who tries very hard to fit in. Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia are very similar to each other, hence why we can understand each other, but there is still a distinct difference between them. Since we're overanalyzing, it could be said that Dennis and Citra has never been 100% on the same page with how they speak slightly different languages.
Vaas never once speaks Bahasa Indonesia or Melayu, which considering how he has thrown away his Rakyat roots, makes some sense. And I love Michael Mando but I think he would definitely butcher the language lmao so it's great that they didn't make him say any native lines. Vaas is also not an Indonesian name, though we do have vas as a word, since vaas is Dutch for 'vase' and we picked up a few words when Netherlands colonized Indonesia. but i doubt they used the word vase for a villain name but hell, who knows. If we wanna get funky I guess we could say that Vaas was always colonized/under someone's control even down to his name.
Conclusion
Far Cry 3's Rook personally for me didn't do a good job at being Indonesian enough, from how villages look, to location names, to little things like the lack of food stalls that you would 100% be able to find if you just walk down the road in any location here. Though to be fair, it was 2012 and as such, a different time with different standards that they have since then set higher for themselves. Ubisoft did a much better job at adapting Kyrat into a believable country that was based off Nepal with rich world-building from NPC notes, locations in map, to the little items you can loot from the enemies that included Bagh-chal pieces! FC5 was also very true to Montana from what I'm led to believe from the countless praises in Reddit, and FC6 had a lot of great representation too.
At the end of the day, FC3's a great game with a solid map based vaguely off a location I just happen to be familiar with, and that is still pretty fucking cool.
