Caricatures are exaggerations. They tell yous more than near the artist's eye than what the subject actually looks like, and Far Cry 5 is no exception. The wilderness-shooter video game series has long been a sort of cocky-caricature, an unapologetic shoot-em-upwardly that winks and nods at the genre itself, and for its newest iteration, Far Weep turns an center toward Christian culture—barely.

Set in fictional Hope County, Montana, Far Cry 5 leads the player confronting the quasi-Christian cult of Eden'south Gate, lead by sadistic preacher Joseph Seed. Eden's Gate quotes the bible and sings Christian-ish hymns. They're obsessed with sin, public shame and atonement. They baptize their believers, and they don't take kindly to outsiders. In other words, they're Far Weep 's take on evangelicals.

But from the outset, the ideology behind Eden's Gate doesn't feel rooted in any tradition beyond vague notions of sin and survivalism. Joseph Seed is conspicuously based on the traveling-pastor trope, and his not-then-subtly-named blood brother John the Baptist takes his cues from sloganeering mega-church building pastors. John's catchphrase—"Ability of Yes!"—rings with the same hollow spirituality of a typical cocky-helpy sermon series from whoever this year'due south celebrity hype priest may be. Neither them, nor any other Far Cry 5 antagonist, seems quite able to articulate an calendar, or fifty-fifty a motivation.

So what could have been a sharp commentary on the devolution of white evangelical ideology instead feels similar a rough pastiche. Far Cry leaves u.s. with something we've seen fourth dimension and fourth dimension over again—fundamentalist villains who seem meant to resonate with existent churchgoers, but never quite move across cardboard cutouts.

That's not to say Christians are ever demonized in Far Cry 5. Gun-toting Gulf War veteran Pastor Jerome Jeffries embodies a kinder accept. Pastor Jerome, a Roman Catholic priest and Resistance leader, is certainly Flanderized (has there always been a Christian who speaks exclusively in biblical quotes or allusions?), but there's some attending to particular hither. Oft, when games and movies quote the Bible, they seem to pick chapters and verses at random, or go with cliched standbys like John 3:sixteen. In Far Cry , Jeremiah 23:sixteen is posted outside Pastor Jerome's church building. He's been preaching about fake teachers—a prescient choice for the world of this game.

Pastor Jerome is afforded some of the more than touching story moments in Far Weep , though even these don't land as hard as they could. In one mission, the player must rescue a defector from Eden's Gate, and despite confronting a hostile who's killed his townsfolk in the proper noun of God, Pastor Jerome advocates for repentance. "Otherwise," he says, "we're no ameliorate than they are."

Information technology'due south a noble sentiment, but y'all're non certain if the game makers know it'south an explicitly Christian ane. Pastor Jerome'southward motivation doesn't come beyond every bit rooted in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:32); information technology just presents more as moral therapeutic deism. Far Cry 5 misses the true, complex essence of Christianity, and in doing and so, it misses the opportunity to create a more nuanced portrait of Christians. It swaps what might have been a compelling character—a pastor who wrestles with living by the sword—for an inoffensive, bland ally who doesn't quite feel like someone who's spent years in the seminary.

Information technology's articulate there's an intent hither to evidence both the good and evil that religion can generate. The main conflict pits Eden's Gate'south twisted "penance through pain" philosophy (in that location are multiple shock-and-awe scenes of carved tattoos and baptisms that go drownings) against a forgiveness-rooted resistance, merely the lack of plausible religiosity means the game never really engages with the ideas information technology flirts with. This isn't surprising. Far Weep , at its core, is about violence, not Jesus.

Simply similar a caricature-drawing boardwalk artist, the creators of Far Cry v have washed their best to blow upward the details of Christianity to cartoonish, larger-than-life proportions. These abstractions might help brand the game easier to digest, but they also rob it of its punch. We could have had a game that makes u.s.a. question what it means to exist faithful in a hostile and crazy globe, where moral panic and fear drive our brothers and sisters into the jaws of wolves, only Far Cry 5 doesn't concord those complexities. Fighting with the resistance is a 18-carat blast, merely it doesn't make you feel similar you're taking the church building dorsum from the false prophets. At that place'southward no dilemma in taking down Joseph Seed.

There'south a world where Far Weep 5 asks difficult questions about which doctrines and values evangelicals will compromise for power, prestige, or pleasure. At that place's a world where its Christian characters have to reconcile their tearing actions. There's a globe where religious themes in pop culture get treated with more dash than this, but Far Cry 5 doesn't go there. If it did, this game could be firing existent questions at the organized religion community. Equally it is, it'southward mostly just shooting blanks.