The game also marks the series’ first appearance of a new villain, who is more than clear at first sight. Moreover, Seed is considered the first main villain of the franchise and was the first to openly wear the villain’s label. Until then, the characters were always enigmatic, introduced in cutscenes or as part of the mission, and often ended up as enemies, like Pagan Min. Before the final editions, almost nothing was known to the players. Joseph was different: he had a facial expression, a description disclosed before the game’s release, a personal diary background in the game, and a psychological profile created by Ubisoft in partnership with a psychiatrist.

In the game, the player assumes the role of a sheriff’s deputy who must fight against a mysterious and hostile religious cult. The game is set in the fictional Hope County, Montana, and the story follows the fears of the inhabitants about the end of the world. The gameplay focuses mainly on the liberation of the area and stopping the cult, but there are additional plot lines that reveal the different secrets of the people who live with the main villain, cult leader Joseph Seed, Father.

Far Cry 5 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is the standalone successor to Far Cry 4, released in 2014, and the fifth main installment in the Far Cry series. The game was released on March 27, 2018.

1.1. Overview of the Game Setting and Plot

The consecrated mentality of the town residents and the connections of the sect complicate the task and restrict the protagonist’s actions. Moreover, the sect members are convinced that it’s necessary to protect Hope County by all means due to the crash of the modern world. As for Joseph himself, suspicious surroundings and uncommon persuasions are something that can tell a lot about his life and also help with understanding fairly hidden motives of his actions. According to the game plot, Joseph was an elementary child brought up in a seminary close to Hope County. When he was a grown-up, he served there and loved one of the girls who one day became his wife. Despite the fact that Joseph tried avoiding the temptations of the modern world as hard as possible, fate still influenced him – as the most ardent feminists, his wife had her own opinions.

Far Cry 5 is a first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft. The game is set in the fictional Hope County, Montana with the main villain – Joseph Seed, a leader of the religious sect named «Eden’s Gate». The sect’s conduct and especially the hierarchy of its leader contribute to the deterioration of the life of the local residents while the protagonist becomes the eyewitness. As a result, the main goal of the game is to stop the irrational doings of Joseph and to give back freedom to the town dwellers. However, what makes this game interesting is not just the main task but the role of Joseph himself. In the first part of the work, I will summarize his biography and discuss the key points of the life path that caused the development of such an individual.

2. The Rise of Joseph Seed

It all began with the fact that, reaping a rich harvest, the young Joseph Seed began to buy up land belonging to the families living near the family farm. Over time, the farm expanded, and those families that preferred to hold on to land were forced to leave the ownership of Joseph Seed. However, he did not insist on their departure and left many of them as tenants of the same land. And those, in turn, took an example from their «patron» Joseph Seed and began to call him no longer a neighbor, but a father. So the first step towards glory was made. Joseph’s family has grown in the literal and figurative sense. And if the literal growth of the Seed family turned out to be an airbag filled with numerous children, then the figurative one – with the parish.

At some point, any cult has a leader. The cult of the «Project in Eden’s Gate» is no exception. The establishment of the cult and the transformation of «Father» Joseph Seed from an ordinary farmer with a dirty past into the spiritual leader of the residents of Hope County is an amazing and intriguing event. The life of Joseph Seed and the search for the path he will go are full of surprises, sometimes terrifying. Let’s go through this thorny and thorny path.

2.1. Background and Early Life of Joseph Seed

Joseph was very close to his younger twin brothers, Jacob Seed and John Seed as they all spent time socializing and hunting together. Joseph was seen as a young adult preaching on the side of the road to the people about judgment and the Collapse. In 2005, Joseph marries a woman and has a daughter. It is said that this woman was a drug addict and it is later revealed his attempts to «save» her failed as she bears his child and later dies due to narcotics. In-game, it is never specified how the child died, whether it was by SIDS or possibly an accident. At this point, Joseph goes on to becoming a servant of the people, preaching in Hope County. But during a sermon, he hears God’s voice for the first time and has a revelation that the Collapse is imminent. Joseph writes what he sees in a book and goes on to form Eden’s Gate. His foretelling brother John calls him Judged and spreads the word to disallow anyone from leaving Hope County.

Joseph Seed was born in 1975 to Liam and Janet Seed. It was revealed that Joseph’s mother died during childbirth, and Liam buried her up on their family’s estate, in The Old Compound. As a child, Joseph spent most of his time with his father, who was a cattle rancher. Due to the fact that he only interacted with his family, he has had little to no real interaction with the rest of the world besides his family. From a young age, his parents noticed that there was something different about Joseph: he seemed to have an uncanny ability to manipulate and control others, even his own family members. According to one note, Joseph also had a twin brother as a child, who was murdered by a group of children on their church trip. This led the community to believe that God was targeting Joseph.

3. The Cult of Eden’s Gate

The cult has established its foothold in the county a few years before the game’s events, led by Joseph Seed. The goal of the cult is to create a modern Garden of Eden, where everybody but its current inhabitants will be welcome with open arms. However, this is contradicted by everything that the player can observe within the game. The game paints the cult as an aggressive and militaristic force that is not above killing and terrorizing everybody who stands in their way. The violent and toxic culture that has emerged within the ranks of the cult directly contradicts its proposed peaceful and goodness spreading dogma. As the player learns more about the cult and its leadership, more and more insidious and outright hostile parts of the cult’s nature are exposed.

The Cult of Eden’s Gate is an insidious organized religious sect led by Joseph Seed and his siblings. The Peggies, as they are unflatteringly referred to by the local residents, quickly overrun the whole Hope County, using an effective combination of zealous preaching and aggressive threats. At the beginning of the game, they have taken over everything except for the last pocket of resistance in the mountains and are trying to finish the job. What they are planning to do afterwards, though, is a complete mystery to the players and to the local residents.

3.1. Beliefs and Practices of Eden’s Gate

Joseph’s teaching describes that the downfall of humanity is now proving as a prologue to the Seventh Seal, which is about to be opened. The end of the world is coming, the battle between the faithful and the non-believers should determine the victor who will find himself at the other Monument-bound gateway of New Eden. When the believers should be fortunate enough to find themselves in the Promised Land, his word will be a decreed law, and they will never become strangers. Niche Communities Structure will be restored.

Join the cult. That was our purpose. We were bigoted and blind, but we were desperate. And we were like sheep, peaceful. We were on the Devil’s leash. And on Sunday mornings, there was no fear in her eyes of buzzards or death for our little ones. We took the promise of Eden’s Gate with both hands, for Shepherds had opened the gates of Eden’s Gate. And it had led us through to the New Eden, out of the scorched earth. Then again, the dying and drowning world was ravaged. It was a paradise in people enthralled by the fire of their belief. We were in a hypoxic feast of led to believe. Duckling and kitten-sirens filled our lungs to bondage, and we marched towards the end of the beginning. And we sang hymns and torches through the night. […] and districts were equally deserving of deep concentration, to fall at their feet.

4. Joseph Seed’s Leadership Style

Joseph calls everyone sinners. Which in itself is also very interesting, because Joseph tried to fulfill the role of the savior, and in many societies, and even among Christians, savior is called only by Jesus Christ. But when Joseph comes in the role of Jesus, people can also understand and accept him as the savior. As a man can refer to God and not just to God’s son, who is also a human, people can easily accept another man as God’s son. Joseph has long hair that is almost as notorious as Jesus, and he carries a money stick. He has a «normal» look, and by «normal» he has the typical appearance of spiritual leaders, so that people see him as like themselves. In essence, Joseph’s charismatic ideology is born of falsification: when Joseph does such obvious things, people cannot understand whether he is a direct servant of God or a fraud, and he is rewarded in the same way that he becomes a true messenger of God.

One of the secrets of the Joseph Seed character is the so-called charisma. By Joseph Seed, we can understand the very type of a secret personality to whom people would like to listen and obey. The politician presented himself to the people under the heat of the sun, with a spear, barefoot. Barefoot is actually very important. For people in spiritual societies or who are disposed to spiritual thought, a person who speaks barefoot is a charismatic person, a person who is led and ordained by God. His colorful personality, theologically, brings people closer to him. It is not surprising that the actor who plays Joseph Seed also claims to have played Jesus.

4.1. Manipulation and Charisma

Joseph is an incredible manipulator, full of charisma. He manages to wrap his people around his little finger with every cell of his body. At every step amongst the soldiers, I was told that the Father’s words were the essence itself, and faith in him had lifted them up. As Joseph shouts from every corner, where I saw his statue, the cultists themselves built him a Golden Age statue of hope for a bright future, and they believe in it. Each one of them, from the smallest to the abominations in the cages, believes in the father’s voice.

At the head of the project is Joseph Seed. He sees himself as a prophet who will destroy the world and create a new one in its place. Throughout the game, he holds monologues about the collapse of society, which, in his opinion, will inevitably come. And he underscores that this collapse will be their fault, the fault of the armed to the teeth. It is not difficult to understand his underlying motives. After all, he understands that very few people will follow a person who claims that the world will be destroyed if you don’t do what he says. On the contrary, by making an enemy out of the outside world, he rallies the ranks of his followers. Everyone gathered around him firmly believes that the only salvation is to listen to the voice of the prophet and clear the board of those who do not want to listen to this voice.

5. The Seeds Family

5.1. Joseph’s Siblings: John, Jacob, and Faith

6. The Resistance Movement

However, the game concept is not unique and presents two main shortcomings. The resistance members are rather generic, with no specific characteristics related to the selected character or narrative additions to create a bond with them. At least an optional mini-quest related to them, as it happens with key NPCs, would have given them importance and concreteness. They are completely lacking in the ability to influence the main story narratively, deflecting all supportive linearity from their fundamental role in the guerrilla component. It would have been enough to be tied to a part of the strategic mission to undermine the domination of Joseph without turning evolution into a flanking operation.

Less useful than territory liberation, the resistance is employed to support the player in the liberation of particularly hard objectives, such as capturing bosses or razing strongholds. The more faction members join the fight, the more tangible the fight against the cult will become, providing a fair and rewarding recreation.

The Resistance Movement is a fifth faction opposing the Eden’s Gate cult, with the unknown role of the Pagans within it. Controlled by the player, the Resistance Movement consists of three AI members: an assassin specialized in stealth and sniping, a rocket and MG specialist, and an artillery/drone provider. As they are freed from the cult and brought to the resistance, they will unlock an optional mission to prove their determination and worth.

6.1. Key Characters in the Resistance

Among the characters feeding the player’s fire in their desire to destroy Seed’s family members and their devoted followers are: Pastor Jerome Jeffries, Grace Armstrong, Ray Ray, Nick Rai, Mary May Fairgrave, Hurk and Sharky; Russel Adler (only appears in Vietnam DLC) . Each of them has a tragic history that pushed them to resist the lunatic cult. Many of them were Rod’s brothers or sisters, and their example became a battle cry to their loved ones. At the same time, in an excited conversation, Jeremiah forces the protagonists to doubt their understanding of forces and hatred of Joseph Seed. And the defenders of justice make them doubt the righteousness of their actions. The Chapter will consider each character separately.

The Hope County in the game is represented by a variety of negative characters. However, they are much less than the number of civilians who had been forced into despair by Seeds and his followers’ cruel acts. Resistance fighters of Joseph Seed’s cult are ordinary people from the church choir and the pastor Ray Ray. The mechanic who forgot about the engineering lying around. The cook, Carla, grew a garden right in a parked aircraft. And all of them entered the struggle for the souls and lives of Hope County’s residents, attacked by the darkness of the Project Eden’s Gate.

7. The Collapse

After the collapse, the power of the Seed is not in doubt and the local authorities claim it. Now they have an example of the authorities who came in pursuit of the cult. Now it’s not about surviving the pawns of «Innocent», but the fact that salvation is nearby, it is full, and you need to take it. It is vital for the survival of each church member. Residents of the county, after what happened to the sheriff and the marshal, would no longer deal with the believers in «Guests». The «Innocents» have already felt the power of the Seed and follow their benefactor. Those who doubted or spoke out against – executed by the Seeds personally or with the help of people.

When the sheriff and the marshal try to find and arrest Joseph Seed, the collapse begins. The sheriff’s group hears only bewilderment on the radio and a call for evacuation. At the same time, the helicopter crashes and the federal agents are taken to the cult’s bunker. It turns out that it was Joseph who struck the helicopter. The agents are drugged and have to leave their hasty retreat. After the collapse in Hope County, a large fire begins.

7.1. Events Leading to the Collapse

When we were being attacked by the «Peggies» for the tenth time or so in places between «Fall’s End» and «Barrelhouse», we reported to the «Sheriff» for beating to the stone tellers that all we had achieved were a few anger fit, dead «Deputy» and a ton of conversations about unconditional dominance. So he condescended to reveal part of the secret of our task. According to him, we are all here at the wrong time and we started working in the wrong place. In order to realize his meaning, we should restart the game and send this time to «Joseph’s» sanctuary. We get into a car and set off from there back to «Fall’s End». From «Dutch’s» bunker a straight road goes to the «Founder’s Residence». At the crossroad we make a detour to the northeast to reach the area «Gates of Eden». Before we reach the entrance, however, we should get going after the thunder and dust.

Shutting down the police station begins the end of the initial part of the game. What next? The «Marshal» tells us that for the uprising to begin, we have to start chipping at the Foundation Symbols. These are the icons placed in the world, owning which, the Seed family spreads their influence. The game advises us not to be too nervous. As soon as we raise the rank of the resistance in any region to reach the indicated level, the «Peggie» counter will go off quickly. Then we have to wait for a special action mission and once it’s over the uprising in any of the areas will be under way. Then nothing will happen in this area until we start attacking the symbols to provoke the liberation missions in the area of «Fall’s End». Why is it so important to have the uprising begin in «Fall’s End» above all else?

8. The Aftermath

The owner of the store and the police sheriff will thank the character. Nick and Kim will talk to the Far Cry protagonist almost like anybody else and the helicopter pilot will be friendly. But the cultist’s soldier coming to sacrifice himself will call the Father John. If in the process of getting rid of the Father’s fighters you cured the main character screw-up, she will receive an offer for the future from one of the characters running away from Montana. The most interesting thing is that the Father refers to the Deputy as a sinless lamb and says the last words during the execution. So we can see he is being executed at the moment. If the player colludes with the marshals. They will execute the main character. That’s the main feature of the latest Far Cry part. And remain alive and well. The player will hear the message about the retranslation of helicopters and vans.

If the player comes near the Father at the outbreak of violence or starts attacking the Father before his speech is over, there is a special ending to the game. In it, the deputies kill the Father and get out of the church. When they come out of the church, they see that helicopters retracted the water line an entire circle around the church and the rest of the team did not have time to evacuate the area. Then the Father telephones the main character and, addressing him very kindly, called him a sheep. And when the Father spoke about the earlier grace of man – how much the leader loved the main character, which saved the latter, the Far Cry player received an interesting option of killing the Father. If the player accepts the Hancock’s offer when the character is imprisoned, he will enjoy the relief and will be waiting for your hero.

8.1. Impact of Joseph Seed’s Cult on Hope County

Joseph Seed did not come to the region without a good reason. This concept of the game’s presupposition is one of the most significant. Looking through this aspect, it is easy to think that it was something that preceded the creation of any character. Surprisingly, this was not the case. Everything about Seed’s arrival came after the main idea. The last Seed family member to have his background created, Joseph gained his prestige long before his siblings. The reason for this was his close relationship with the other characters and with the geographical location. Taskplanner Babbitt shares more about the cultivation of this enigmatic character. «It comes as no surprise that the creation of a main antagonist is usually a large part of the project. We didn’t do anything differently when it came to Joseph Seed. It all began as we planned his growth alongside Father,» he reveals.

Resistance is the mechanism used to reclaim bomber planes, helicopters, and many other vehicles that The Project at Eden’s Gate has been using to its advantage in spreading their message across Hope County. Without this feature, you are at the mercy of limited transportation. It is thanks to Resistance that we can once again enjoy moving freely around the map. It truly enhances gameplay. The Whitehorse family plays an important role in the game. Deputy Staci Pratt and Nick Rye take part in its development to varying degrees. Much of the story is presented from the perspective of combatants of the cult’s conquest. «Anywhere a player can find themselves wanting support, there’s a good chance that we involve the Whitehorse family in a meaningful way. We made that choice meaning we have a way to integrate these characters with the player, instead of trapping them as prisoners for narrative purposes,» the developers say.