The
Suspension of Disbelief Angle Is Akin To Building Flying Buttresses In Your
Mind.
Video games
need to give us a reason for doing what we do. In non-fantasy settings, this
requires a certain suspension of disbelief for some things and less for others.
The trick to a writer or designer is making it so we suspend our disbelief for
whacky stuff by letting things be reasonable enough that we don’t ‘see the
strings’ holding the whole assembly up.
We want an excuse for why we’re waging our
one man war across a wilderness, and we’re all willing to suspend our disbelief
for that, but 5 pushes that a bit too far. Far Cry 5’s summary, as I said
earlier is you’re a Federal Marshall going to serve a warrant in upper Montana.
Then you find out..
Ø The
local cult controls pretty much all of the surrounding counties. Ok..I can buy
that. It’s a push, but the idea that some mean folks control territory out in
the sticks is common in a lot of stuff (evil sheriffs, land barons, etc.)
Ø And
has an air force of perfectly functional WW2 era fighter jets. Cool visual
but.. How the hell did they get the planes without being noticed (they’re kind
of big) and how did they get armament for them (that stuff is restricted and
imports would be noticed by the DEA). Also it’s not a few planes. ITS AN AIR
FORCE. They have more air power then
some central American countries do.
Ø And
has been murdering, brainwashing and outright destroying the county for over a
year. Uhm.. (So, all of the local law enforcement’s been compromised, including
the stuff that ties in with the Federal authority??) Come to think of it, I don’t
think we ever encounter or hear about local cops.
Ø And
dumping ridiculous mind control chemicals into the rivers and streams. ..yeah,
those streams that go down water to other places the cult presumably doesn’t
control. Also the bliss apparently makes the frogs gay. No, I’m not kidding.
Ø
And oh yeah, you and your people never reported
back after the cult attacked you. But nobody followed up. US Marshalls just
disappear all the time, after all. This gets handwaved early on, but doesn’t
hold up since, you know, suddenly all of you disappearing or going on vacation
forever might seem a bit suspicious to the guys back home.
Ø
And you have to stop the cult and want to
contact the National Guard, but inexplicably when gaining access to a plane,
helicopter or functional car can’t just.. I don’t know.. GO TO WYOMING. I can
buy them closing the roads. I can’t buy them closing the skies.
See. The problem here is that they wanted things in
America. That’s a fun idea. It’s also a fine idea. Chaos hiding in the distant
parts of a ‘civilized country’ is a brilliant idea.
The problem is, that an open world game doesn’t
work on the premise that you’re a lawman in the most powerful nation on Earth
and its 2017-2018.
It’s a problem because in an open world you can go
anywhere. This includes say, wanting to leave because a psychotic cult wants to
brainwash you into drinking root marm and voting for the leader’s favorite
horse to be president. You need a reason to stay.
In Two you were trapped in some back ass end of
nowhere African country. There were no aircraft, the borders had UN presence
all over them who’d react poorly to a guy like you trying to cross, and you
were dying of malaria. Also you had a mission to kill a guy called The Jackal
and you were a professional. YOU HAD A REASON TO STAY AND DEAL WITH THE
PROBLEMS.
In Three, you’re trapped on the Rook Islands. There
really aren’t many planes or vehicles capable of flying off of the island and
crossing that big lake they call the Pacific Ocean, and on top of that you
don’t quite know where the hell you are. Also, all of your friends and family
have been kidnapped and you want to rescue them. YOU HAD A REASON TO STAY AND
DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS.
In Four, you’re trying to get your mother’s ashes to
a specific mysterious location in Kyrat, a crappy country near Nepal. You could
fly across the border whenever, but the military is gunning for you (yes, you,
specifically) and if you leave you can’t fulfill your mother’s last wish. YOU
HAD A REASON TO STAY AND DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS.
In 5? You’re a US Marshall. You decide to organize
a resistance against the evil cult. Despite the fact that you just need to get
across the border and you can call down the actual military to deal with what’s
essentially a bunch of drug-fueled rednecks (with a God damned air force).
See. The excuses used in a third world shithole
don’t apply to a first world country as much. And what applies to a dude-bro
teenager in 3 doesn’t apply to a professional law enforcement officer in 5. Now,
I said this would’ve worked in the 70s or 80s because the problem would
evaporate if you just found a way to keep the Deputy from being able to just go
across the border. You know, phone lines cut, nobody has planes or helicopters,
etc. It’d also still work with the cult angle, since a lot of the cult
musical notes the game hits apply to the Jonestown cult or Charles Manson’s
people as much as the Branch Davidians.
It would even almost work in ‘present day’ if you
established that the United States was in kind of a Mad Max situation, thirty
seconds to midnight with all law and order and establishments breaking down,
and portray the understaffed team sent to arrest Seed as akin to the Bronzies
in the Road Warrior.
It’d even fit the themes of ‘the collapse’ that the
various cultists go on about, and make them feel less like complete lunatics
and more semi-reasonable (which the narrative keeps trying to convince us we
should be doing, despite having no evidence for it.)
Also the cult might have NUCLEAR WARHEADS taken
from missile silos, because the United States sure loses track of those easily.
In summary. The setting has problems.
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