Here’s Far Cry 5’s Villain and He Looks Positively Nuts

When I was in grad school, a writer and mentor who introduced me to everyone from Borges and Barth to Richard Ford and Raymond Carver illustrated the concept of “less is more” in this fashion: It’s not the jabbering, threatening lunatic who terrifies, he said, but the insouciant authority figure who calmly places his hands on the dinner table, eyes sweeping the gathered like spotlights, who then says with the awesome quietude of a coalescing thunderhead, “Everything is just fine.”

It’s that idea I’m seeing when I study Ubisoft’s new Last Supper-style teaser for Far Cry 5, its forthcoming gonzo sandbox extravaganza set in fictional Hope County, Montana. Only here the antagonist’s arms are outstretched, oversized sun-glow aviators framing baleful eyes, hair neatly tied back and facial hair groomed — a dapper provincial messiah.

The rest could signify anything. A worshipful family of moralistic zealots? Montana militias run amok? Sinners in the hands of an angry cult? Check out that flag with crosses in lieu of stars (note the similarly adorned flag in the background raised above the Stars and Stripes). Or the painted wolf. Or the dude with the bowie knife spearing that piece of prime whatever.

Think about the Gerhardt family, because I do when I gaze at that tableau. “Fargo Cry?” We’ll find out when the full reveal for the game happens this Friday, May 26.