Far cry 5 is the best far cry

For a variety of reasons, Far Cry 2 is the best Far Cry. The rural Montana setting of 5 leads to much less visual variety than 2's African setting, which includes savannas, jungles, towns, and all sorts of other locations, while 5 only has generic forests. The Guns for Hire system actually originated in Far Cry 2, and was executed far better there. In 2, guns for hire gave multiple unique alternate routes through main missions, which is absent in 5. In 2, Guns for Hire could also drag you away from a firefight if you were knocked unconscious, another absent feature in 5. Finally, Guns for Hire in 2 could permanently die if you didn't revive them with a valuable healing syringe. This led to some intense choices between potentially dooming yourself in a future battle by using your only syringe, or sacrificing your buddy. These sort of tough, complex choices are completely absent from 5. While you say that Far Cry 5 is unique in having multiple villains, this is false. Both Far Cry 2 and 3 have multiple villains. Since I'm focusing on 2 for this argument, I won't waste your time talking about 3, but 2 actually has more villains than 5. The game has two main villains for each faction of the civil war embroiling the country, with the central villain of the Jackal as your final target. This means that Far Cry 2 actually has the most villains in the series, with one more villain than Far Cry 5. Another thing you are right about is how Far Cry 5 awards you with a variety of useful weapons for progressing. However, this is yet again done better in Far Cry 2. Far Cry 2 and 5 mostly share a similar arsenal of weapons, but there are a few key differences. 5 has the compound bow as an exclusive weapon, while 2 has the dart rifle, an explosive crossbow, and vastly improved fire weapons which utilize a superior (and more realistic) fire spreading system, with the flames spreading in an unpredictable manner that can drastically affect the outcome of gunfights. In addition, money is a bit harder to come by in 2, making obtaining weapons that much more satisfying, knowing you truly had to work hard to get them. Far Cry 2 does have less side quests than Far Cry 5 (only 40) but they are all much more interesting and well-crafted. Each of your buddies can give you multiple side quests that give you drastically different takes of the main missions (leading to replayability, as the main missions are different if you don't do these side quests). There's multiple outposts to tackle throughout the world, assassination contracts to fulfill, and heavily-defended convoys to ambush. As you can see, while Far Cry 2 may lack the sheer amount of content of Far Cry 5, it more than makes up for it in the quality of what's there. Finally, the plot of Far Cry 2 is head-and-shoulders above the rest of the series. Instead of a straightforward "kill the bad guy" plot like in 5, 2 centers on a civil war with no obvious good guys, and a main villain who has legitimately believable and sympathetic motives come the end of the game. While I would never deny Far Cry 5 has a very fun story, 2's more complex and multi-sided plot lends itself to being replayed and thought over. Overall, I do think that Far Cry 5 is a very good game, but Far Cry 2's various unique aspects make it the better game.