Testicle Festival and roadkill inspired Far Cry 5

We recently travelled to Ubisoft Montreal for a look at various aspects of Far Cry 5 and in this interview with assistant level design director Vincent Ouellette we learn more about the inspiration the team has pulled from to give the game an authentic Montana feel.

"There's this thing called the Testicle Festival that we saw that's happening over there", said Ouellette. "They actually call the testicles the oysters of the Rocky Mountains. So there's a huge sort of culture around this so we said 'why not use that as a mission or at least as a theme or something you will witness in the game'."

But it's not just bull testicles that add a culinary touch to the Montana experience in Far Cry 5. Roadkill is another ingredient as Ouellette points to one of his favourite inclusions.

"People in Montana have shown that there's a big culture of self-reliance and a lot of survivalists so there's a big sort of scene of how to cook roadkills. Cause you don't want to leave that meat there, right, you can use it. So that's one other example of inspiration that we though 'wow, that has to be a mission, we have to do a mission where a character asks you to take care of roadkill. That made perfect sense in the setting and it was going to be fun gameplay as well. Perfect blend."

Ouellette also talked about the difficulty that the open structure (play any mission in any order and with any partner - guns for hire or fangs for hire) adds when designing missions for the game.

"We need to think about how these different variables and making sure it's supporting and fun to play any mission in the game, in any order that you want, with any guns for hire."