In Far Cry 3 the bad guys were unabashedly evil and very clear about it. The protagonist's personal struggle against his own evil makes it a damn good story, especially because shooty looty games usually don't bother to explore the idea of a hero growing to enjoy the violence.
Far Cry 4 decided that neither the rebels or government would be the "good guy." The protagonist's involvement does have personal stakes, but internal struggle isn't the real focus.
Far Cry 5.... wow. Spoilers if you care, but man caring was a mistake here. Unlike every other antagonist, Joseph lacks any kind of charm. Every member of the Seed family is some abused "Woe is me, I gotta kill people for God." And the absolute cherry on this bland empty sundae? Joseph is right. The shirtless guy howling about God's plan and the end of the world, who had had followers torture, kidnap and dope innocent people is right. Vindicating Joseph is just... disappointing beyond belief. Some people trying to make sense of it simply fixed this by saying Joseph controlled the first nukes, and set them flying when he had no escape. But make the guy an actual prophet of God, and you're punished for playing the game trying to stop the Seeds.
New Dawn is somehow even more disappointing. Again spoilers if you still care about em'. Set a scant two-ish decades after the nukes, life's looking up for the survivors. Except box art villain girls go all Mad Max despite there being an apparent abundance of clean, safe land with tons of resources. Skip ahead and the game wants you to pity the twins who've tortured and executed people in front of you multiple times. Oh but their dad was a monster and their mom didn't stand up to him. Jump ahead again and the true antagonist is Joseph's son, he's a whiny and entitled white boy who turns into a demon looking sombitch because fruit from God and daddy issues. It's OK to kill him though, and he doesn't even get a shit sympathy flashback unlike the twins. Ater vindicating Joseph as the guy who heard from God himself the writers 180 and tell him, "Nah, you're wrong, ha ha ha, now die because God or something."
FC3 will always be my favorite, but it's almost like there were some writers who gave half a damn about the game.












