With a new day comes fresh controversy, this time from gamers who feel Far Cry 5‘s antagonists — a violent, extremist cult in Montana, are basically making Far Cry 5 into a “white genocide simulator.” This odd thought is coming from right wing tweeters and some pundits, who avoid the fact that none of the previous Far Cry games, many of which involved a white male slaughtering hundreds of indigenous peoples was never dubbed purposefully xenophobic. Ham-handed and cliché? Sure. But the context of the games and the narrative within them at least painted a picture of a hero doing what they had to as terrorists murdered their friends and so on.
What this reaction tells us is: sharply dressed white guys in vests can never be evil. Considering certain racist, coiffed white supremacists are finding the most TV time and support in decades, is this all that surprising? Sadly, no. Not if it comes from a certain, vocal minority.
The reactions to the reaction have been mocking of the controversy and show shock that people could actually think this is an earnest, liberal plot to digitally butcher whitey. After visiting just about every location possible in gaming, this reeks more of hitting the bottom of the barrel than a plot choice with genocidal subtext. Resident Evil 7 featured a caucasian family of “extremists” and no one was bothered by killing those freaks.
Twitter refuses to let these calls of “white genocide” go free without a healthy amount of jokes in the face of weird logic.
https://twitter.com/FloydFlashback/status/867425491808112641
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/867500105745805313
The people crying "white genocide" aftr seeing the Far Cry 5 poster r idiots. Where were your cries when you killed indigenous people in 3?
— Arif Zahir (@Azerrz) May 26, 2017
Dumb people: I'm worried many people will suffer under the AHCA
Smart People: Killing far right radicals in Far Cry 5 is White Genocide
— Phil Nolan (@nilpholan) May 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/9_volt88/status/868096094005317632
https://twitter.com/somenerd171/status/868189971143958530
https://twitter.com/BasedMoonshine/status/868104313192816640
https://twitter.com/onyxandcake/status/868108421094035457
https://twitter.com/cashewsandeggs/status/867724443447160832
Far Cry 5 has over 500 unique individuals whose feelings you can hurt by calling them racist in “White Genocide Mode”
— an almost uncanny instinct for the regrettable (@BenSanAZ) May 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/MostafaMHawke/status/868283751264079872