things that bother me about far cry primal, or: i am an enormous pedantic dweeb
"it’s the same game!” some people say. “They haven’t changed their formula! it’s just regular Far Cry but with spears!”
It may just be Far Cry with spears, but I would like to discuss the things that are actually annoying about this game, viz Bad Paleontology!
European Jaguars and the European Wild Dog (dhole) did, in fact, exist, but several thousand years too early for the time period presented by Far Cry: Primal (the game says it is the "end of the last ice age", which, combined with the level of technology possessed by the Wenja, puts it roughly at the beginning of the Mesolithic period). Actually, Homo sapiens arrived in Europe far too late to have encountered either of these species, so no early human would have seen them at all, unless they were a Neanderthal (even ignoring that the game clearly has a Mesolithic setting, which is also too late for Neanderthals, the fact that Takkar and all his friends clearly have chins seems to contradict this possibility). For immersion's sake, one could argue that the fictional Oros Valley, presented as being in Central Europe, might be isolated enough that perhaps some populations survived, solving, if in a somewhat unsatisfactory manner, these anachronisms.
Smilodon (saber-toothed cats) on the other hand, though contemporary with Far Cry: Primal, were a North American species, so they just flat-out do not belong in this setting at all. Aliens brought them there or something, I guess.
The giant pine trees all over the game are clearly redwoods which, though at one point endemic in Europe, went all but extinct during the Ice Age in response to cooler temperatures, to which they are largely intolerant. They would have already been absent from Europe at the end of the Pleistocene. I would tolerate them but they just really feel wrong for the setting -- the Oros Valley is supposed to be Europe, but of course I see redwoods and I’m immediately thinking the Pacific Northwest. The same goes for the enormous ferns that are everywhere, which are actually accurate, but really feel weird to be chillin’ in post-glacial Europe.
So, yeah, there are a lot of other weirdnesses, specifically about the archaeology (some of the tech is kind of ???, but you kind of expect that from a series that regularly has its protagonists flying around in pedalcopters, Far Cry has never been completely flush with the laws of physics). But they usually put so much damn thought into their setting. They invented an entire language for this damn game, and you’re telling me they couldn’t go on wikipedia for five seconds and go, ‘Oh, sabertooth cats were extinct in Europe way before the Mesolithic? At least leave the setting ambiguous! Then I could say it was aliens or something, I don’t know.
Of course I am not actually a paleontologist, so if anyone has any corrections for me, I would happily go back to the world where I am wrong and this game doesn’t completely shatter my suspension of disbelief.
