Few series have enjoyed the longevity thatFar Cryhas over the years. From its earliest entry more than 20 years ago in 2004, to an upcoming seventh installment rumored to be slated for a 2026 release, generations of gamers have enjoyed exploring the untamed wilds of Rook Island, Hope County, Kyrat, and Yara. With six games and a handful ofspin-offs likePrimalandBlood Dragon,there are plenty of entries for latecomers to sink their teeth into to get a feel for what the series is as a whole.
But with so many entries, it can be intimidating for new players to approachfor the first time. Finding the best place to start the series might not be as apparent as starting at the first game and going through it chronologically. Despite being primarily a single-player series,Far Cryhas a uniquely disjointed story across installments with very few recurring characters and almost no continuous story threads chaining the games together. But there are a few different ways newcomers can take in the series to streamline the experience while also getting a broad view of where the franchise has been in the past, what it is today, and what it’s turning into for the future.
The Best Order to Play the Far Cry Series
Release Order
The most vanilla way to play any series, release order, is the knee-jerk reaction way to start from the very beginning. And there are definitely some pros to taking things from the top. For one, it can be an interesting experience to see how the series naturally progressed over time. Seeinghow theFar Cryseries has evolvedthrough time mechanically, graphically, and narratively is something most people only see years apart, as the games came out in real time.
But that’s about the only pro to playing the series in release order. The older games, while important to the foundations of the franchise, are very different from thetypes of games Ubisoft started putting out withFar Cry 3. The series really hit its stride at that point and started becoming what it is today. There’s plenty to love about the old games, but they’re not quite up to speed with what a modern audience expects from a video game. While some may appreciate the trip down memory lane, younger players more acquainted with current games might find the originals off-putting and dated.
Other Ways to Experience the Far Cry Series
Machete Order
Inspired by theStar Warsviewing order of the same name, this playing order is almost identical to the chronological play order. However, this order excises the first two games from the playing order to stick to the more modern games in the franchise.
While in most story-focused series, removing the first two games would be a crippling decision, it actually works exclusively to the players’ benefit with this series.TheFar Crygames are pretty much all self-contained storiesin disparate, isolated parts of the world. The only connections between entries are tenuous at best, meaning that any of the games can be cut, and the story of each entry remains mostly intact.
Removing the first two games eliminates the largely dated gameplay and graphics from the series playthrough, but comes with the added benefit of starting on an all-time high note for the series.Far Cry 3is still one of the best games ever, even all these years later. The setting of Rook Island remains a joy to explore and traverse, and secondary villain Vaas Montenegro still reigns supreme with the likes of Handsome Jack, Glad0s, and Bowser asone of the greatest video game villainsof all time. His “insanity” speech remains a franchise highlight, and starting a first-time playthrough of the series with it sets the bar high and is sure to keep anyone hooked and waiting for more.
Modern Era Only
For players looking to really streamline their playthrough of the series, they may want to pick out only the most current games. These three relatively recent releases give the most accurate picture of where the series is today and where it’s headed in the future.Far Crymay have started out as a slightly more serious franchise with some light forays into the ridiculous and wonderfully absurd, such as withBlood Dragon, but over time, theFar Cryseries has adopted a more satirical edge. It’s just as much of an action adventure series as it ever was, but the most recent entries have embraced a much more darkly humorous tone that’s absent from earlier entries that played things relatively straight.
Skip The Spin-Offs
This is probably the most controversial of the play orders, since the spin-off games are among the best the series has to offer.New Dawn, Primal, and especiallyBlood Dragonare all incredible games in their own rightand absolutely worth playing, but they are pretty far afield from what the averageFar Crygame is: a straightforward action adventure game set in the present day (or close to it) with modern weaponry and characters.
The threeFar Cryspin-offs, as good as they are, are not emblematic of what the series is at its core. There’s nothing else in the series quite likeBlood Dragon, for better or for worse. Excluding them from a marathon of all the games would help keep the tone of the games more in line. And if the marathon itself doesn’t satisfy the itch for moreFar Cry, the spin-offs are there waiting for anyone who needs more of that gameplay with a radically different package.
