Ubisoft is taking a different narrative direction with Far Cry 4 from its predecessor, especially in its protagonist.
Ubisoft posted a picture on Twitter last night of its Far Cry 4 protagonist, Ajay Ghale. Seeing as how Far Cry 4 is a first-person game, players will rarely see Ajay, but his appearance is important to the game’s story.
Far Cry 4 take place in Kyrat, his home region of the Himalayas. The game’s preview trailer from E3 gave us all a good sense of antagonist Pagan Min, a man who has appointed himself a despot of the region, as well as a small, brief look at Ajay in the form of an in-game selfie. Even more interesting is that Pagan Min and Ajay have some history together. Ajay encounters him as he returns to Kyrat to scatter his mother’s ashes, and the game will take off from there.
When Ubisoft revealed Far Cry 4 and the game’s box art, centering on Pagan Min, people were upset with the framing of the character, placing him on top of a statue and his hand condescendingly on top of the head of a darker-skinned character. Ubisoft later revealed the character in center was not the protagonist.
Pagan Min is a foreigner to Kyrat whereas Ajay’s home is in Kyrat, which he left as a child due to civil war. Seeing the character’s face should put some worries to rest in light of Far Cry 3‘s protagonist, Jason Brody, a white American who essentially becomes “the white savior.” Far Cry 4‘s narrative director Mark Thompson is looking to improve the narrative of Far Cry 4 over its predecessor and avoid cultural insensitivity.
Source: Far Cry 4 Twitter
