Ranking Far Cry Games: From Worst to Best

Karina ranks the Far Cry games from worst to best, highlighting their unique strengths and weaknesses throughout the series.

### Ranking the Far Cry Series: From Worst to Best
* 🎮 The video ranks the Far Cry series from worst to best, starting with *Far Cry Vengeance*, which is deemed the **worst game in the series** due to its **poor graphics and gameplay mechanics**.
* 📉 Released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, *Vengeance* suffers from a **low frame rate and awkward controls**, making it a **frustrating experience for players**.
* 🔄 Following this, *Far Cry: New Dawn* is considered a lesser entry as it lacks **significant new content**, feeling more like a **DLC** than a standalone game despite its **decent visuals** and **fun weapons**.
* 🌴 *Far Cry Instincts* comes next, praised for its **unique plot twist** but criticized for its **linear gameplay and frustrating controls**, leading to a **mixed reception**.
* 🏔 *Far Cry 4*, while featuring a **charismatic villain** in Pagan Min, is seen as a **diluted version** of *Far Cry 3*, offering **little innovation** and **repetitive gameplay**.
* 🌄 Although *Far Cry 5* is positioned lower than expected, it is recognized for its **engaging story and companion system**, allowing players to **recruit NPCs to aid in combat**.
* 📜 *Far Cry Evolution* improves upon *Instincts* with **better gameplay mechanics** and a **fun narrative**, while *Far Cry Primal* is highlighted for its **unique setting** and **survival aspects**, despite some **combat shortcomings**.
* 🔥 The original *Far Cry* is acknowledged for its **groundbreaking open-world design**, and *Far Cry Blood Dragon* is celebrated for its **nostalgic references and fast-paced gameplay**, but lacks **depth**.
* 🏆 Finally, *Far Cry 3* is crowned the best in the series for its **compelling story**, **character development**, and the introduction of gameplay mechanics that **shaped future entries** in the franchise.

a few months back now I did a video on the Far Cry games released exclusively for the consoles and then I realized that at this point I've actually covered every single main game in the series. Still a bit of a ways off until we get

Far Cry 6 though, so in the meantime I thought I'd go back and do a video ranking the series in what I think is the order from worst to best. So let's take it all into account, from a Hawaiian shirt-wearing Jack Carver in

2003 to the customizable captain in Far Cry New Dawn. Grab some popcorn, a beer, and a machete. Let's get lost in an open world map and do this. Bye girl, a dream. I'm Karina. [Music] Why are you here? I'm so sorry about this.

So right at the bottom of the list is Far Cry Vengeance, and this one was a bit of a no-brainer. It's hands down the worst game in the entire series, and I don't think anyone's going to argue with that. How long have you been with the rebels?

I'm not that kind of rebel, pal. I'm not your pal, you bastard. Guy, released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii, Far Cry Vengeance is defined as a remake of Evolutions, even though it's really just more like an alternate version of the same game.

To see why this thing sucks, so you don't have to do much more than just look at it in action. For a 2006 Wii game, this thing just looks atrocious. The performance is absolutely horrible too, with the kind of frame rate that can

cause epileptic fits along with engine issues like texture and environment pop-in. It's a first-person shooter, but the controls have been adapted to work with the Wii's Nunchuck and remote. Fling the Nunchuck up in the air to jump

and swing it down to melee attack. It all sounds fine on paper, but when it's put into action, it's kind of not. It just kind of makes you look like you've got Tourette's. It's really just a worse-off version of both *Instincts* and *Evolution*

taken the worst parts of both of those games, like it's some kind of bad idea buffet. On a positive side, though, it does have one of the best lines in any video game ever made: "I'm not your pal, you bastard, guy." But that's not enough to save this thing

from being easily the worst the series has ever gotten. So far anyway, after this, we've got *Far Cry: New Dawn*. Now, I don't think *New Dawn* is a bad game, but the reason it's so far down on this list is that it doesn't really do

anything all that new or even adding enough new content, in my opinion, to be even considered a full game. Like a lot of people said back when this thing came out, it really should have been DLC reusing a smaller version of the map from *Far Cry 5*. *New Dawn* takes place

after the events in that story, which culminated in two equally depressing endings involving a nuclear apocalypse. As a customizable character, you're trying to rebuild the world, helping friendly groups of survivors by donating to them copious amounts of resources along with dealing with a bandit faction.

called the Highwaymen, led by the completely unthreatening twin sisters Mickey and Lou. But if you make problems, well, Pops taught us what to do with problem makers. Problem makers need to be solved. There were some bare-bones RPG elements introduced with weapons and enemies

having different levels, but it didn't really make the higher-level enemies any smarter, just buff them up with more health points and armor. Capturing the outpost formed a really big component of the gameplay loop too, and you'd need to do this multiple times to acquire enough fuel

for all of your upgrades to circumvent this. They even added in a really lazy microtransaction system where you could buy all of this stuff without even having to actually go out and earn it in the game. It wasn't all bad though. I mean, I think

the engine looked great, and some of the new weapons like the sawblade launcher were really fun to use. The new companions were also fun to play with too, but overall it couldn't really help feeling like a lesser version of Far Cry 5. That is the best death scene ever.

Next up is Far Cry Instincts, released in 2004 for the Xbox and then later in 2006 for the Xbox 360. Instincts is a remake of Far Cry 1, released barely a year after the original, and it's the same plot with Jack Carver

taking Valerie Cortez to a mysterious island in Micronesia for some seemingly innocent sightseeing. Soon enough though, she disappears, and Jack is then under attack by soldiers and has to flee onto the island. He soon comes into contact with Doyle

and eventually has to rescue and work alongside Valerie to bring down Dr. Krieger and his band of mercenaries led by Crow. But the whole thing's kind of like the edgier evil twin of the original game. In the original, Jack was just a special

forces soldier that Valerie hired because of his military training. But this time he got dishonorably discharged, became an illegal arms dealer, and is on the run from the mob now in Micronesia to avoid getting whacked. Crow is back again too, but instead of

just being some cheesy Hollywood bad guy with a cowboy hat - am I understood? Yes, yes sir, I'm heading out. Turns out he's now an ex-apartheid officer, and if you don't know what apartheid was, well go and ask your parents. I'm heading

out. Probably the coolest aspect of the game though is the new abilities that Jax got after being injected with Krieger serum. This comes in the form of new abilities during the game like being able to attack enemies with your razor-sharp claws, being able to track enemies by their

scent, and eventually you can also run super fast and jump higher than normal. But it's all linked to a slow-ass adrenaline system that just takes forever to recharge. The other thing is that this is also a lot more linear than the original game.

You're basically just moving down what's essentially one large corridor for each level. I mean, you are on a jungle island, but going too far off the beaten path, you're just going to run into impassable hills and trees that kind of cordon you back towards

where the game wants you to go the controls in this thing though are the real challenge man they're just absolute dog [**shit**] if the input delay isn't enough when driving vehicles accelerating braking and turning left or right is all done with the left thumb

stick and you want to know why this is a bad thing because half the time you keep veering to the left or the right when you're just trying to accelerate because of how loose the thumb stick is combine it all with aiming acceleration sporadic checkpoints

brain dead ai and long and often boring levels and the whole thing's just one big pile of [**crap**] i'm heading out still i commend them for being able to get it running on a console in the first place and credit where it's due

that is pretty impressive next up on the list is far cry 4 released in 2014 and again like new dawn it's kinda low on the list because it just feels like a lesser version of another far cry game this time far cry 3.

in far cry 4 you're playing as rj garli heading home to the fictional country of kurat to spread his deceased mother's ashes of course as is always the case in every far cry prologue things go to hell then rj ends up having to work with a militia

group to crumble the armies of a dictator named pagan min and reclaim the country pagan min though might just be one of the most likable characters in the entire goddamn franchise voiced by troy baker this dude just steals every scene he's in and even

though he's supposed to be the bad guy, he's far more charismatic and likeable than any of the other characters in the entire game. Stay here, enjoy the crab rangoon, don't move. I'll be right back. Throughout the campaign, you're forced to

choose a rebel commander to side with, either the more traditional thinking Sebille or the more progressive, forward-thinking Amita. We don't have time for tourists. Both sides having their own faults though, like Sabal has no issues with antiquated customs like child brides. Get to the outpost factory and

burn it down. Amita, on the other hand, has no issues with turning the entire country into a drug state if it helps her people prosper. It's morally bankrupt. Better than being literally bankrupt. Annoyingly too, this is one of the few games in the series that doesn't let you

skip cinematics, so get used to hearing these people talk for five or so minutes straight. Look, I overreacted back there. Other than that though, it really just felt like Far Cry 3 with a different backdrop. Same old gunplay, same old enemy AI, taking over the same outpost,

climbing radio towers and all that kind of stuff. Those few times you went high into the mountains on a gyrocopter or even further up dealing with sub-zero temperatures and using a blizzard as cover from your enemies was pretty intense.

But I think it's just window dressing for what felt more like Far Cry 3.5 than Far Cry 4. Now people might be shocked to see Far Cry 5 so far down on this list, considering if you ever saw my review, I had a lot of nice things to say.

about it but from this point on I think every game on this list is good so don't take it too personally you little [ __ ] anyway the story in Far Cry 5 is also pretty interesting This takes place in the fictional Hope County where a

bizarre cult called Eden's Gate has the entire area pretty much under martial law It's a bit like Outlast 2 but without all of the shitty weather and the genital mutilation But after trying to extract the cult's leader Joseph Seed it of course all goes

awry and you're stuck there for the foreseeable future getting to Joseph then involves working with the locals and taking out the territories occupied by siblings one by one Each sibling having their own backstories and quest lines you'll need to complete and some of these subplots

are actually really cool Like the one where you're basically brainwashed into becoming a sleeper agent or the one where you get hypnotized by his sister Faith who looks like the type of chick you'd see at a Burning Man festival New to the game was

the companion system which is kinda similar to the beast in Far Cry Primal where you can recruit NPCs to help you out during gameplay Like an edgy girl with the bow a sweet old lady who hovers above you in a combat chopper with absolutely no sense

of subtlety through to a  Kelpie Chunker named Boomer and a goddamn grizzly bear named Cheeseburger Yes son you can have your own murderous pet bear named Cheeseburger and it is awesome New vehicles included a big rig with mounted machine guns and even a

fighter plane and again like most of the games in the series, the visuals are often stunning. There's just something oddly picturesque about the backdrop in these games, which is kind of at odds with how chaotic and violent the combat can be. It even had a couple of really

depressing endings, going against the whole black and white good and bad thing we'd seen in previous games. So overall, it's not a bad game, and the kind that you can spend an entire day playing through until you realize it's 2 a.m. in the

morning and you're still out fly fishing trying to catch some trout. Up next is Far Cry Evolution, a sequel to Instincts released for both the Xbox and the Xbox 360 in 2006. This is the game that Far Cry Vengeance is based off, the only difference being

that Evolution isn't complete rubbish. As a sequel to Instincts, it's pretty much the same in terms of the gameplay with the same returning weapons and abilities. The reason this thing is higher than Instincts though is that it actually gives you all of the powers from the

get-go, and that makes a huge improvement. As soon as the campaign starts, you're able to run around like a man-cheater, murder guys with your claws, and leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's also got an enjoyably cheesy story too. Jack's again returning to some kind

of tropical island this time with a woman named Kade who pretty quickly jumps his bones in the game's intro. After an arms deal goes wrong, Jack and Kade are then on the run dealing with the leader of a rebel faction named Semeru, who's got similar

abilities to jack I thought you'd never get here Evolution then just improves upon everything I dislike with Instincts There's far more checkpoints now so you're not replaying large chunks of levels over and over and there's way more means to refill your adrenaline

meter thanks to the abundance of these consumable white flowers and it's just more fun to play in general The first level actually feels like a Far Cry game with three mini islands you've got to explore to complete multiple objectives It's about half the length of Far Cry

Instincts too which is a good thing so like a Tinder date you're in and you're out It's not perfect but the most important factor is that it is fun to play It's also one of the few games in the series I think would really benefit from

a remaster or port to the PC and one of the only older games that I'd still highly recommend that people check out So where do you go after you've been to tropical islands and the Nepalese mountains Well how about back to 10,000

BC during the Paleolithic era That's what Ubisoft did in 2016 with Far Cry Primal An entry in the series I think is highly underrated and underappreciated This probably has one of the most badass storylines in the whole series too

So in this one you're playing as a warrior named Takkar voiced by the same dude who did Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution This guy's voice is so goddamn cool that he can spontaneously impregnate women just by talking

Anyway, Takkar is a member of the Wenja tribe, and after his hunting party is BTFO'd by a sabertooth tiger, he then heads to the land of Oros to rebuild a dwindling village, butting heads with two enemy tribes in the process.

You've got the Udam, a bunch of crazy cannibals, and then the  Izila, a bunch of crazy fire worshipers.  Along the way, you'll find and recruit a bunch of scattered Wenja, all who bring their own skills to the village.

You've got a shaman, a huntress, and a crazy one-armed guy who pisses all over you, and I'm not making this up. The language everyone speaks is made up for the game, but still kind of based off an actual language from the same time period. So it's got this cool mix of historical accuracy with that usual madness you can expect in a Far Cry game, along with the obligatory drug sequences.

I mean, seriously, what is it with these games and drug sequences?  Set back during the days before Wi-Fi, social media, and roadblocks, instead of assault rifles and shotguns, you instead use spears, axes, and longbows. Even a slingshot's able to lace someone out in a single hit if you can hit them in the head. You can tame animals like bears, lions, and saber-toothed tigers; the latter you can even ride around like your very own personal battle cat.

You're still taking over enemy outposts, but now these are small villages and bonfires, using a spirit owl to help you scout out locations. Seeing as binoculars didn't exist back then, there's much more of a survival aspect.

to the game as well. You're always scavenging for rock, wood, meat, and other various resources to rebuild your village and repopulate it with your fellow tribesmen. Nighttime makes the world more dangerous, increasing the amount of natural predators, and go too far north without

warm clothing and you'll even freeze to death. It also brought back fire as a bit of a more meaningful gameplay mechanic. Fire could be used as a light or a heat source, it could frighten off smaller animals and also be used to burn your way through blocked passages. I think the biggest

disappointment I have with this game though is its melee combat system, which is just complete rubbish, and it's a bit of a problem because you're going to need to use melee weapons a fair bit during combat, but there's only a light attack or a heavy attack. There's no blocking,

dodging, parrying, nothing, and it's one of the biggest wasted opportunities. The other thing is that you are constantly under attack by wild animals in this game. I'd say almost every 20 or 30 seconds something is coming out of the goddamn

shrubbery to attack you, and this is even during the daytime as well. That's not exclusive to nighttime. Now I know this takes place at a time when mankind was really low down on the food chain, but this is just ridiculous. Being constantly attacked by cougars and

not the good kind of cougars either, is about as fun as having your [ __ ] waxed with sandpaper. Still, I think this game was a really cool way of trying to transfer the mechanics and the ideas of a Far Cry

game into something that takes place thousands of years ago and after replaying a bit of it again for this video I think it might be one of my favorite games in the series. So overall I think this one is pretty good as a way of the series taking a

break from jeeps, cars, assault rifles, and rocket launchers. It's a welcome addition and one of the entries in the series I think doesn't get enough recognition. Now I struggled a fair bit as to where to put the original Far Cry on this video but the fact of the matter is

this game really hasn't aged all that well. But you've got to give credit where credit is due. The original Far Cry is one of those games alongside Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 that helped push and shove the first-person shooter genre into the 21st century. Running on what was an

incredible looking engine at the time, it offered up truly humongous environments for the player to explore, allowing you to approach your objectives however you wanted to. And this kind of freedom in approaching each level was unprecedented at the time. And not to mention the engine looked

gorgeous. I still find the water effects in the lighting to be really impressive. The lighting is so accurate to the point that you can see the individual leaves from trees as you move around. How did you know that you're playing as a guy named Jack Carver traveling to a

Micronesian island with a mysterious woman named Valerie? Oh yeah, I'm sure this is going to be a lead pipe cinch. Turns out the island is inhabited by mercenaries led by the mysterious Dr. Krieger. I have taken the precaution of using my

own DNA as a carrier for the strain who's using the island as his own personal sandbox, creating horrible mutants he calls Trojans. Working with Valerie and a scientist named Doyle, you travel across the island, taking out the mercs and the Trojans as

you cut a path to Krieger to put him out of commission. Now, it does look like your standard first-person shooter, but the gunplay was a little bit different to what you'd kind of expect, and combat could be really crushing at times. Shooting weapons has to be done by

aiming down the sights, otherwise they're just really inaccurate. And some of the better guns in the game, you can't aim down sights and move around at the same time, so you've got to kind of aim by planting yourself in one spot, like you're some

kind of bright shirt-wearing gun turret. Your best friend's going to be your binoculars, which tags enemies on your radar, and eventually a pair of Predator-style goggles that highlight someone's body heat. I think the biggest issue this game has though are those insane difficulty

spikes throughout the second half of the campaign. Most of the earlier levels are consistent, and taken on these brain-dead mercs is actually pretty fun, but it's in stark contrast to the second half of the campaign when you're up against all of these annoying Trojans. Yeah, these guys are some

of the most annoying enemies in any first-person shooter, perhaps ever. Though, nothing puts those little [ __ ] down quicker than a jackhammer shotgun to the face, and few things are as satisfying. I also hate, hate the swimming controls in this game.

whoever thought it was a good idea to make the screen go up and down the whole time when you're swimming like you're a [ __ ] dolphin should have their head implanted up their own arse I'm heading out still we can't deny the influence

this game had on the industry and how much it helped push other developers to follow suit and out of this we got the Crisis series and of course the Far Cry franchise also developed into what it is today Time has definitely been a cruel mistress to this one but I think it is

still worth playing let's show them how cyber commandos get it done Mark four style [ __ ] next we've got Far Cry Blood Dragon a sort of stand-alone spin-off title to Far Cry 3 which came out of nowhere at the time and pretty much blew everyone

away set in the dystopian year of 2007 as opposed to the dystopian year of 2020 Blood Dragon is a love letter to action movies from the 80s and the 90s the soundtrack is composed by an Aussie

guy named Power Glove reminiscent of some other stuff that Brad Fiedel worked on for the Terminator films but it doesn't even stop there one of the first guns you get is Robocop's pistol there's a lever action shotgun called the Galleria 1991 that's a direct

reference to Terminator 2 and the main character Rex Power Colt is voiced by Michael Biehn who played Kyle Reese in Terminator and Corporal Hicks in Aliens You're right I need even the score for Spider no for humanity and he also has some hilarious

One-liners that intentionally often don't make any sense. Be careful Rex, that place is filled with death. What kind of death? The dangerous kind. Rex, the opening level on the chopper gunning down enemies uses music from the opening scene from Predator. The end sequence

when you're riding on the back of a cybernetic blood dragon uses music from the final fight in Rocky IV. The end credit song is taken from the cult film The Miami Connection, and this is all just really scratching the surface. [Music]

Outside of all of that though, it's really just a more simplistic stripped-back version of Far Cry 3 that's been crammed with fan service. The core of this game is like a watered-down version of the third game with less to see and do, and the whole

thing really relying on its numerous pop culture references to get by, which it mostly does. Just let me kill people, damn it. I think the free roaming aspect in this might be the most fun in the entire series because you move at a super fast speed and take no fall damage either.

You can just kind of zip all over the map stabbing dudes in the back and collecting VHS tapes. I just dropped in to say [ __ ] you, not to mention the final couple of missions are just amazing. I'm equipped with a hydraulically

powered Terror 4000 cannon and titanium trauma plates, riding on the back of that armored blood dragon to the soundtrack of Rocky and Ivan Drago beating the piss out of each other is one of the most awesome sequences in any game I've ever played.

the only major problem is that it doesn't have any kind of end boss. The big final battle against Sloane is seen in a cinematic, and the whole thing ends very abruptly. The other reason that it's not higher up on the list is that you can finish it

within five to six hours and unlock everything there is to see and do, giving it very little replayability. It's not really a huge fault though, considering it wasn't really meant to be a full-length game in the first place, but it is kind of hard

to compare it to the other games where you can easily get 20 or even 30 hours worth of gameplay before it starts to become stale. Why, if Ubisoft ever want to really revitalize this series, or just start making buildings out of stacks of 100

bills, then all they really need to do is make a sequel to this thing. [Applause] Finally, we're in the end game with Far Cry 2. I do want to say that I thought long and hard about this, and at the end of the day, this was

always the ranking this game deserved. Released in 2008, it's a really early example of the genre of open world shooters we'd get bombarded with in the coming years, with a large world to explore, a day and a night cycle, and NPCs

patrolling about all ready to be murdered by the player. In Far Cry 2, you choose to play as one of half a dozen different expats heading to Africa during the midst of a civil war. You're in the country for barely five minutes before you're caught in the

crossfire between two warring factions and on top of that you find out you've just had a particularly nasty bout of malaria what follows is the video game equivalent of Akira Kurosawa's *Yojimbo* where you pit these two militia groups

against each other doing jobs for both sides but screwing them over at the same time your ultimate goal is to find and kill the Jackal a notorious arms dealer supplying weapons to both sides but that soon goes out the window when you realize there's

more to his character than meets the eye Do you understand what I'm saying Nobody kills me And no he's not Jack Carver from the first game despite what those stupid fan theories think How did you know that Far Cry 2's gameplay shows the beginnings of what

would become the norm for the industry with things like the fast traveling and the numerous side missions but it lacks the option to free roam after finishing the main story which nowadays would be an egregious offense but there's still a fair bit of stuff that holds up here especially the tech

Far Cry Games From Worst To Best

GmanLives

Introduction and Overview of Far Cry Ranking

The video creator previously covered all main Far Cry games.

This video ranks the Far Cry series from worst to best.

The ranking considers various aspects of each game.

Far Cry Vengeance (Wii) is considered the worst, due to poor graphics, performance issues, and awkward controls.

Far Cry New Dawn is ranked low due to insufficient new content, feeling like DLC for Far Cry 5.

New Dawn takes place after Far Cry 5's nuclear apocalypse ending.

Gameplay involves rebuilding, resource management, and fighting the Highwaymen.

Far Cry Instincts (Xbox) is a remake of Far Cry 1, with a darker story and new abilities.

Far Cry 4 is considered a lesser version of Far Cry 3, with similar gameplay but a different setting.

Far Cry 5 is ranked relatively low despite positive aspects, compared to other entries.

Far Cry Evolution improves upon Instincts by providing all powers from the start and offering more checkpoints.

Far Cry Primal is set in the Paleolithic era, featuring unique survival elements and animal taming.

The original Far Cry hasn't aged well but was influential in its time.

Far Cry Blood Dragon is a standalone spin-off, a love letter to 80s and 90s action movies.

Far Cry 2 is an early example of open-world shooters, influencing the genre.

Far Cry 3 is praised for solidifying the open-world shooter template, with relatable characters and a compelling story.