That doesn’t mean that Ubisoft’s version of Montana, which has been heavily influenced by real world inspirations, will be boring or mundane, however. In an interview with Game Rant, Ubisoft executive producer Dan Hay discussed the way that setting the game in Montana allowed the team at Ubisoft to create a new, exciting Far Cry experience. Part of that is breaking out of a formula Hay seemed to feel the Far Cry team had outgrown:

Prior to the interview, Hay showed us a series of videos regarding Far Cry 5’s characters which released to the public earlier today. Those characters will also play a large role in Far Cry 5, and a different one than they might have previously in past iterations of the series:

Part of what struck us during the interview was the sense that Far Cry 5’s version of Montana would give players more choices, and more paths, than they had ever experienced in the series before, which Hay confirmed was the development team’s intent during the interview. When asked about whether or not these characters were mandatory to meet - essentially, whether players could beat the game without ever meeting someone important - Dan had this to say:

Throughout the interview, this was something that Hay continued to come back to as part of the core design philosophy behind Far Cry 5. Earlier, he had mentioned that the game was about tying together themes of chaos and beauty, an attempt to capture the beauty of rural America while also placing players in the familiar trappings of survival and desperation that have come to be expected from a Far Cry game. To Hay, it appears that the choice to marry chaos with aesthetic and natural beauty has organically created a game that is more about player choice than its predecessors.

Of course, with Far Cry 5’s release date still nearly a year away, there are likely a lot of changes to be made, hence why Hay was unable to go into further detail on how the game’s different player paths will progress until its conclusion. Still, what he was able to discuss suggests that Far Cry 5 is the most ambitious entry into the series yet, and one that has shifted the way the development team looks at things like player choice, decision trees, and player exploration.

Far Cry 5 will release on February 27, 2018 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.