If you ask me, Far Cry 5 is a game that holds a lot of promise. I know you didn’t ask me, but I’ve tried to tell you a few times over the last few days, first with our latest hands on preview, then a lovely listicle, and earlier this afternoon with a quick look at the map editor Arcade mode.
As part of our trip to Paris to play the game, we also managed to grab an interview with Creative Director Dan “The Haymaker” Hay. One important thing you should know about Dan Hay, which will make sense in just a moment, is that he has a wonderfully deep voice.
TSA: You said in the introduction that Dutch’s appearance was made to look a bit like you as a joke, but you weren’t tempted to do the voice acting yourself? [laughs]
Dan Hay: No, no, no… No, what happened was that Dutch was worked on for quite a while, and then I think the Art Director started to see that the actor and I looked a little bit alike and he just decided to lean into it. I happened to be out of the office while they were doing it, so when I came back and I was in the game, I was just like, “Guys, what the hell?”
But the actor does a phenomenal job of it. That character is really important to give you information and when you get that information it doesn’t feel like a description, it feels like an opportunity. The timbre of somebody’s voice is really important or else you feel like, “Do I like this guy?” You don’t realise it, but the voice acting of that, is incredibly important, so when we found that actor, it just felt that you were listening to your grandfather giving you good advice.
TSA: The only thing for me was that you said that the character was mimicking you, and then I was going in expecting this deep booming voice of yours! Or, with a name like Dutch, then the character from Predator, even.
Dan: [laughs] Oh yeah. Arnold Schwarzenegger, yeah.
TSA: But sticking with Dutch, I feel that he’s a good counterpoint to the cult, because he is a conspiracy theorist himself. There’s different degrees to which they’re crazy and live away from the rest of civilisation.
Dan: They’re both zealots in their own ways, and what’s really nice is that if you go through Dutch’s bunker and read all the notes, you find the one from his son and the one from the city council with the fact that he’s been arrested for breaking an ordinance. You start to get this character where you think, “Can I really trust this guy?” And yet when you talk to him, he seems very honest, very clear, no bullshit. He honestly says “I was right all along and nobody listens to me,” which is exactly what the Father is saying.
TSA: This is something that you will have been asked a fair few times, but the actual story does cut close to home for a lot of Americans right now, such as the bit where Seed says, “They’re going to take our guns, take our freedom, take our religion.” You have to toe a very careful line with that I guess, can you talk a little about finding that balance?
Dan: One of the things we wanted to do with Joseph Seed is to have hallmarks of stuff that you’ve heard. We wanted him to feel familiar, but at the same time make it our own.
We built a fifteen year history for him in Montana, and before that another history for where he comes from. Basically the idea is that he’s had run ins with the law, but he’s got this sense that he’s chosen. He moved to Montana and began this movement, and he has very specific feelings about what’s going to happen.
When we did our cult research and our leadership research, we found the language of building the spectre of the devil, building something to be afraid of. He’s going to talk about that, he’s going to be a magnetic leader and he’s going to paint a picture of what he believes is going to happen, which is going to scare people. He is a bad guy in the game, and in order to have that moniker, he needs to do bad things, but what makes him a little bit more human is that he doesn’t believe he’s a villain. He absolutely believes that the end times is coming.
The trick for us is to create moments like the opening that you played, which are earnest and have really high narrative value, but at the same time the story services your physical activities in the world. In years past, we built a game that was open world and said you need to follow the narrative, but this time we bend the narrative and create opportunities.
TSA: You’ve done the segue for me! Heading into the open world, you’ve got complete freedom, you don’t have towers – well I did climb one tower… [laughs]
Dan: There’s a couple!
TSA: But they don’t serve the same purpose; they’re there as an objective as opposed to a gateway. You’ve just tried to get away from the stereotypical Ubisoft Towers.
Dan: Well Dutch even says it as you’re climbing that tower. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to have you climbing towers the whole time.”
But yeah, building the world, the reason why we removed the towers from the game and built situations where you meet people is because that’s what you do in the real world. It’s a little bit more credible that you walk up to somebody and you talk to them. I think the nuance and the trick is that if you walk up to someone and they’re giving you information, if you walk away from them mid sentence, they’ll be like, “Hey, where are you going?” And when you come back, they’ll be like, “Really?”
It’s a little thing and it costs a lot to do, but it makes it feel more real.
TSA: The decision to let you pick your protagonist, give them different clothes, a different look. It’s a first person shooter, so you don’t get to see yourself very often, but I find that interesting from the perspective of then having a silent protagonist as well. It feels like something that’s small, and yet really important at the same time.
Dan: Oh, it’s important. One of the things I really don’t like is when I’m playing and the emotions the character is expressing that I’m being told that I should feel are not congruent with the emotion that I feel at that moment. If I’m going “Fuck!” and the character’s going “Oh…” then I want to hear myself and emote.
Just the fact of giving customisation and the opportunity to be who you are, when Dutch is looking at you, you’re imagining what Dutch is seeing, and Dutch is emoting back to that. So it makes a lot of sense to us to give you the opportunity to pick what you want to look like, how you want to be and then allow that level of freedom to then go out into the world and be free with how you play.
It’s as simple as when Dutch leans in and says “Take that uniform off, we’re gonna burn it. There’s some clothes over there.”
TSA: How far does the reaction to that choice go? I was playing as a woman and noticed the cultists calling me “Cowgirl” and stuff like that, for example.
Dan: They’ll recognise gender and they’ll recognise and be aware of the things that you’ve done in the world. Those are the types of things that we want to be able to put in the game, because it means that your choices have reason, from the standpoint of them knowing whether you took Fall’s End or not.
There’s a lot of Resistance points to be gained from you taking Fall’s End, but if you don’t, you’re probably going to get a phone call from someone saying “Hey, you’ve been doing a lot of hard work, and we’ve taken ourselves back!” If you meet them, they can’t go and say stuff about you taking Fall’s End, they need to recognise that.
It creates a narrative matrix that we have to pre-calculate, but we also have to make decisions for their spontaneity. I’ve played the game six times in the last three and a half months, and I’m still discovering conversations between people that make me laugh or make me go “Wow! That’s smart!” Some of the best ones for me are getting Guns for Hire and realising that, even though they’re from different parts of the world, they might know each other. Then they have conversations.
Some of the conversations are gold. Some of the stuff that Hurk says? I can’t stop laughing! Some of the stuff that Grace says is poignant. There’s also two characters, where one of them is in love with the other character and the other wants nothing to do with this person. If you happen to get them both as Guns for Hire and have a moment with not a lot of action, what he does is he reads poetry to her and she just thinks he’s an idiot, because his poetry sucks!
TSA: That’s so awkward!
Dan: Yeah! It’s super awkward, but life is like that, right? You’re driving down the road with your cool gloves on, listening to this poetry and being like, “Dude, shut up! Stop talking!” You feel for him, but she’s right!
TSA: Lastly, how do you manage to get the grass to look so good?
Dan: I’ll put it to you this way: at its core, one of the things we always want to maintain is your ability to hunt. Hiding in grass and being able to navigate your way through that world is incredibly important. So yes, look out at the world and it looks beautiful because we’ve got some phenomenal artists, but it’s also got to have purpose. If you’re hunting, you’re going to want to hide in the tall grass.
TSA: Did you do get any first hand research? [laughs]
Dan: [laughs] I’m not a good hunter, that’s the problem.
Thanks to Dan for taking the time to chat with us. Be sure to check out the rest of our Far Cry 5 coverage, with the game getting closer and closer to release later this month on 27th March.
