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Far Cry 5 Breaks Franchise Sales Records
With the rest of the video game world in its crosshairs, Far Cry 5 is wiping the floor with the competition as it becomes the best-selling title in Ubisoft’s long-running series.
Everyone remembers when Jack Carver and Valerie Constantine first landed on that tropical island, but there is no denying that Far Cry has grown by leaps and bounds since then by casting off its franchise protagonist and moving with the times. Now, as a whole new story sees gamers battle the psychotic Eden’s Gate cult, Far Cry 5 is a distant relative to 2004’s original installment. However, as the games have got bigger, it seems that so have their sales.
Ubisoft reports that Far Cry 5 isn’t only getting rave reviews, but is also breaking records across the board. More than doubling Far Cry 4‘s first-week sales, the fifth game in the main series is eclipsing its predecessors. Across the pond, No.5 is also the best-selling entry for Far Cry in the UK. It is great news for the series, with Dan Hay, executive producer on Far Cry, thanking fans for their continued support:
“I’m proud that the culmination of years of passionate work from the team is paying off, and that Far Cry 5’s experience resonates with so many people. We are humbled by players’ reception of Far Cry 5 and fired up to keep growing and supporting the Far Cry community in the months and years to come.”
The statistics are frankly astonishing when it comes to Far Cry 5 as. In just seven days, 35.14 million stick of dynamite have been thrown, 8,651 players have been ambushed by skunks, and gamers have been lucky enough to spend 1.1 million hours with grizzly bear ally Cheeseburger.
While the figures are more than impressive, Far Cry 5 is Ubisoft’s second biggest launch, coming just behind Tom Clancy’s The Division. However, Far Cry 5 netted $310 million in its first week, meaning that it made more money than MCU money-spinning movie Black Panther‘s opening. Elsewhere, YouTube and Twitch users streamed some 55,000 hours of the game in just one week, viewed 117 million times. Players just can’t get enough of Hope County’s dangerous backroads, and it isn’t hard to see why.
Taking a little longer between games, the studio has clearly put a lot of time and effort into making Far Cry 5 the best that it can. After Far Cry 3 rebooted the series in 2012, its next trip to the Himalayas in Far Cry 4 felt like a bit of a rushed affair. Realizing that giving each game a unique setting could work in Ubisoft’s favor, Far Cry took a trip back to the Stone Age for Primal. That being said, it was hard not to argue that the studio had fast-tracked the game without taking enough care of the mechanics and didn’t bother with character development.
This year, it is a “far cry” from the early days of Ubisoft’s series when it launched in the mid-noughties. With Far Cry 5 being the first title to actually visit America, it is winning over existing players and newcomers to the franchise. Thankfully, four years after the last main game, Ubisoft is showcasing a return to form that is sure to keep shifting copies quicker than its players will blast through ammo in Montana.
Far Cry 5 is now available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC.
