A Standout Moment in "Hours of Darkness"

Far Cry 5's DLC, "Hours of Darkness" is… okay.

Made by Ubisoft Shanghai, it reconfigures Far Cry 5's assets into an open-ended Vietnam game where those assets can't quite create the goal the team was clearly striving for. The weapons all behave exactly like Far Cry 5's modern firearms with no recoil or inaccuracy, your character's abilities render enemies a low threat, and there's not really any compelling locations in this open-ended Vietnam map.

It ends up playing a lot more like a Total Conversion Mod rather than a Premium DLC made by a notable development studio behind full priced games.

It's like someone built a sandcastle and told you it's Egypt.

…I guess?

It's got sand.

And in this case, it's got tall grass.

So it's Vietnam.

…I guess?

However, there's a brief moment in the DLC when it actually felt not just better than most Vietnam games, but more accurate!

After wondering out of camp and securing the first outpost, you're following a marker up this steep riverbed with no reference for where you are in this region due to the surrounding Mountains.

The ground begins to level out, not because you're at the bottom, but at the top.

You're standing at the top of a Waterfall, just when multiple American Fighter Jets rush past overhead, directing your eyes to looking over a vast forest which seems to go on forever.

It's something I've not really witnessed in any other game with this setting.

Vietnam really has two appearances.

Linear style shooters, either briefly like in Call of Duty, or for the whole runtime like Men of Valor.

Multiplayer Shooters, like Battlefield Vietnam where the maps are kinda large, but have very obvious cutoff points, and are designed for gameplay first rather than immersion.

This moment in Hours of Darkness is uniquely compelling, a hint of something I've never seen… until you zipline down and realize it's a big empty field of grass with a scale that makes you feel more like Green Army Toy Soldiers.

It's one moment hopefully somebody can retool into a full game that actually shows the scale of Vietnam rather than just one stage or the areas from movies already made.

Or… Maybe make Far Cry that takes place in a warzone?