Far Cry 5 Endings Explained

"Far Cry 5" takes place in Hope County, Montana, home to a fantacial religious doomsday cult known as The Project at Eden's Gate, which is led by Joseph Seed and his family. The game follows a junior deputy sheriff, commonly referred to by the nickname "Rook," who must take down the cult and stop them from preying on the surrounding community. The open-world game was relatively well received at the time of release, earning an 81 for the PS4 version on Metacritic and generally being considered as one of the best games to release in 2018. 

Although it has seen a few delays, "Far Cry 6" is set to continue on the series' dark tone and high-octane action. Before diving into "Far Cry 6," you may have some questions about how the preceding entry wrapped up.

After battling through multiple bosses and being brainwashed a couple times, Rook confronts Joseph Seed at his church, where the player gets to choose to either attempt to arrest Joseph or to walk away and leave Hope County.

Beware of major spoilers ahead for "Far Cry 5."

If you choose to try and resist Seed, he will dump Bliss, a psychedelic drug the cult makes, all over the place. During this boss fight, your allies from the game will be turned against you by Seed. After the boss fight, you move in to arrest Seed, only to be interrupted when a nuclear bomb goes off nearby. 

After an escape attempt, Seed drags Rook into an underground bunker, where he claims that the world will be cleansed by God. Seed then proceeds to brag about how his prophecy was correct and that he is truly a mouthpiece of God. Seed tells Rook that they are now a family — and the credits roll. 

This ending is considered to be the "true" ending, and it left many fans of the game unhappy. On Reddit, u/TheNecrophobe wrote "There's no good way out. You're a one man army who was then brain-jacked and groomed into being the perfect killing machine, but you can't even get a bittersweet or double-edged ending in this game." In other Reddit threads, people have complained that the ending was too much of a downer and both options left them unhappy.

The other ending occurs when you accept Seed's offer to walk away from this fight and leave him and his cult be. Seed allows you to take the other members of the Sheriff's department and drive away. As Rook and the others drive away, the Sheriff says that they will be coming back for the people Seed is controlling. 

"Only You" starts playing on the radio, which is the song that the cult used to trigger Rook's brainwashing. As it plays, the screen starts turning red, then abruptly cuts to black.

People believe that the implication here is that Rook went into a murderous rage because of the brainwashing and killed everyone else in the car, which was Seed's plan all along. Players also believe that this isn't the canon ending because, after completing it, you are placed back into the game with the option to play the other ending. Players seem to be less upset about this ending, mainly because it was supposed to be the "bad" ending.

After being locked into a bunker with Joseph Seed, Rook's future (and that of the world) seems bleak. In the spin-off title, "Far Cry New Dawn" Rook seemingly makes their return in an unexpected way. "Far Cry New Dawn" takes place years after the nuclear bombs went off at the end of "Far Cry 5," and Joseph Seed is now running a community in the north. In the camp is a character named the Judge, who wears a mask and never speaks.

Reddit user u/thesamstatic points out that if you go to the bunker where Rook and Seed once stayed, there is a note from Rook implying they have started to believe Seed and feel "ashamed" and need to wear a mask. On another post u/drewdawg79 wrote "If you have the Judge (as) your companion and go to Prosperity, Kim Rye will straight up tell you he is the Rookie," which seems like a pretty straight forward confirmation.