Not a day after Montana’s raucous special election, a spectacle decorated with cowboy hats, gun-toting campaign commercials and the choke slam tweeted round the world, the Treasure State was thrust right back into the national limelight. And once again, I recognized a few identifying characteristics — dare I say clichés — that are perpetually attached to this landscape of ours.
As the state’s Department of Commerce later touted in a press release, “The latest release of a major video game series will be set in Montana and promoted with video shot near Poplar, bringing Big Sky Country to millions of consumers worldwide.”
Ubisoft, the video game giant that has developed mainstream blockbusters such as Assassin’s Creed and the Tom Clancy franchise, decided to pixelate our state for its latest virtual extravaganza.
According to the Department of Commerce, a spokesperson for Ubisoft said Montana was a natural fit because of its diverse landscape and the “do-it-yourself” attitude of its people. Developers visited the state several times, capturing thousands of photos and interviewing residents to help inform the game, which developers say will introduce players to “unique characters and experience a story that feels relevant and believable,” according to an interview in PC Gamer.
This enticing opportunity — joining the ranks of other American cities fictionalized in a mainstream franchise, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco in the Grand Theft Auto series — temporarily employed three Montanans and generated an estimated $20,000 for the Poplar community, according to the commerce department.
“But the greatest impacts may be yet to come,” state officials said, “as audiences from around the world experience Montana through a digital lens.”
Hello, world! Meet the fifth installment of Far Cry, an award-winning series with more than 42 million sales.
Welcome to “fictional” Hope County, Montana, where the folksy, blue-collar way of life is being overtaken by doomsday prepping, religious fanaticism and trigger-happy reactionaries. Some of these small-town folks, despairing under economic and psychological forces, are increasingly buying into the words of a charismatic preacher, named The Father, whose extreme militarized cult, named “Eden’s Gate” and commanded by the heavily armed “Heralds,” is saving sinners by the day. And by being saved, I mean being handed high-powered weapons and told to shoot anyone who doesn’t follow.
You, the first-person player in this chaotic countryside, are part of a band of civilians who have joined forces to resist the cult. That means carrying a garden variety of weapons — baseball bats, assault rifles and, of course, a sledgehammer — to bash, batter and blow up fellow Americans in a bloody freedom fest.
As a native Montanan, I can’t help but sigh.
As someone who appreciates the message behind the moniker “The Last Best Place,” I can’t help but recoil from all this ill publicity we’re receiving as of late.
As someone who grew up playing the likes of Duke Nukem and Mortal Kombat, I can’t help but notice the subtle numb of video game violence.
And as someone who is all too aware of the Militia of Montana, the Freemen, David Burgert and Project 7, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the Unabomber, Richard Spencer and the rise of the alt-right, white supremacists troll-storming local residents and businesses, I can’t help but blanch.
When Far Cry 5 is released in February 2018, gamers will indeed discover two-dimensional Montana and its fictional caricatures. I just wish the pixels illuminated a different narrative.