I’ve already written about my initial intolerance for Ubisoft’s

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I’ve already written about my initial intolerance for Ubisoft’s brutal, unheroic open world shooter sequel and how that changed, but it bears repeating as a demonstration of the dissonance between young me’s flighty preference for instant thrills and old me’s preference to sink into something strange slowly. In 2008, I couldn’t see past the gabbled dialogue and artificial respawning, or at least that’s what I outwardly claimed. What I truly couldn’t come to terms with was how ignoble it made me feel. I wanted to be Heroman, a superhuman foiling evil. Being a human performing amoral mercenary contracts felt so wrong. Now, of course, it feels so right. And more honest. It’s a journey into the heart of darkness, and a disorientating plunge into a life of bitter war where the end goal doesn’t matter: this is, simply, your existence. I can see a fairly direct line between Far Cry 2 and Metal Gear Solid V, and it’s the garish preening of Far Cry 3 and 4 which now seem like the odd games out.