28 Games To Play Similar To Far Cry

Before the first Far Cry came out back in 2004, modern-setting first-person shooter games were dominantly just straight tunnels with enough color and flash to hide their linearity. Even the legendary Half-Life 2 fell into this design standard. Then, Ubisoft and Crytek spiced things up by giving players a dizzying amount of open environment and freedom.

Suffice it to say, Far Cry laid the foundation for many open-world shooters and proved that freedom was more enjoyable than scripted FPS sequences. So if you’re looking for more adventures like Far Cry, you might want to try out these games if open-world gun-toting is your idea of fun.

Updated November 1, 2024, by Zackary Wiggs: The Far Cry series isn’t going anywhere, it seems. From humble beginnings on a secluded island surrounded by soldiers, all the way to a guerrilla fighter in a Caribbean island surrounded by soldiers, the Far Cry series has honed their games to a science now. Whether it’s the open world, the twisty plots, or the FPS gunplay that gets you hyped for a new release, these games will keep you occupied until the inevitable next Far Cry game graces your gaming system.

30 System Shock Remake

In Space…

If there’s one thing Far Cry really lands throughout the entire series, it’s the iconic villains. There’s nothing more menacing than Vaas Montenegro, Antón Castillo, Pagan Min, and Joseph Seed unleashing their armies to hunt you all over the open world. Well, the 2023 remake of the sci-fi horror FPS System Shock brings back the iconic villain Shodan, who has some monstrous cybernetic mutant enemies of her own for you to survive.

In System Shock, you’ll find you are a hacker located on the Citadel space station going up against the powerful AI system and are quite far from the scenery your Far Cry protagonists are used to, though its cyberpunk aesthetic may remind you of Blood Dragon. The game’s updated visuals, enemy designs, environments, and weapons will feel akin to any Far Cry game.

29 Saints Row Series

Rise To The Top

There are few series that balance an open world with as much humor and action as the Saints Row series. While not every game in this series has been a masterpiece, there is still more than enough here to keep you entertained.

A weird cast of characters, over-the-top action, and a story that has a surprising amount of twists all add up to a series that doesn’t have many like it. If you want another open-world game that’s a lot of fun, look no further.

28 Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

Fight The Darkness

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one Lord of the Rings game quite close to Far Cry in terms of world-building and combat, despite its Tolkien fantasy setting, and it still holds up today. An important aspect across all Far Cry games is having a rebel group alongside you as your ally to fight the tyrannical leaders, and you can have Orcs join you against Sauron’s forces using Talion’s Dominate ability. You even have a Wraith companion bonded to you named Celebrimbor.

The landscape is crawling with hordes of Orcs that will constantly engage you in battle, including higher-ranking ones that you’ll have opportunities to cross off from the Nemesis System’s hierarchy and install your recruits. And since it’s third-person, the combat is very different, featuring all kinds of Wraith abilities you can unlock and a style that works similarly to the Arkham games.

27 Sons Of The Forest

Can You Survive?

Putting all the story beats and action set pieces aside, Far Cry is also about crafting and survival elements. You hunt various species of animals across the map to gain hides and make better upgrades to your inventory. But should you want an even more realistic survival experience on an island, you may want to check out the sequel to The Forest, which launched in Early Access.

Sons of the Forest is an ominous and foreboding game compared to Far Cry as well, with its enemies even more terrifying than any villain you encounter in Far Cry. That’s because the island’s inhabitants consist of grotesquely designed cannibals and otherworldly mutants that stalk you throughout your journey.

26 Deathloop

Live, Die, Die Again

Like the original Far Cry, Deathloop is an FPS set on a remote island riddled with enemies, here called Blackreef. The island also happens to be locked in a time loop, thanks to the AEON Program experiment being worked on in the region. You play as Colt Vahn, a former Head of Security, trying to break the cycle by eliminating eight of its heads named the Visionaries before the loop resets.

Trying to stop you in your tracks is a new Head of Security for the Visionaries called Julianna Blake, who gets in the way of your success a lot throughout the story and contributes to your loop starting over. It’s a fun twist on an FPS with a great black protagonist who might be the best of the 2020s so far, and the stealth gameplay and gunfights are just as thrilling.

25 The Wolfenstein Series

Killin’ Nazis

There’s nothing more in line with Far Cry’s themes than Wolfenstein, a series centered around characters of a resistance group taking the fight to Nazis in an alternate historical timeline. The more modern Wolfenstein installments from MachineGames also create one of the vilest and most twisted villains with Frau Irene Engel, who you want to see go down.

You take on the role of William “B.J.” Blazkowicz with a giant arsenal of weapons you can dual-wield in fast-paced, brutal FPS combat across various missions with Nazi soldiers and even some larger mech bosses. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus expands on the characters and delivers one of the best narratives of the series. And Wolfenstein: Youngblood offers a co-op FPS experience.

24 Horizon Zero Dawn

The Machines Rise

Technically, the setting of Horizon Zero Dawn is quite a bit different from Far Cry. After all, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with giant machines. Yet, roaming that open world feels a lot like Far Cry. This is because the environments look quite similar, and there are dangers everywhere. Plus, like in some of the Far Cry games, a lot of the traversal includes climbing and ziplining.

Where Horizon differs is in the combat and story. Fighting is a lot more close-quarters-focused. As for the story, the one in Horizon is deeper than the average Far Cry tale, as you follow Aloy in her attempts to learn about her past.

23 Sniper Ghost Warrior 3

It’s A Longshot

If you saw a snippet of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 gameplay, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Far Cry. This is because it looks and plays very similarly. Both the driving and climbing mechanics are almost identical. And most missions involve scouting places and tagging people before engaging them, just like in some of the Far Cry games.

Where Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 differs is the focus on ranged warfare. This is one of the best sniping games ever due to its satisfying and detailed sniping mechanics. So, if you like picking people off from range in Far Cry, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 will certainly be your thing.

22 The Outer Worlds

An RPG Like No Other

Both The Outer Worlds and the Far Cry games are set in colorful open worlds, provide plenty of laughs, and include slick FPS action with some role-playing mechanics. The story of The Outer Worlds even has you going up against the established authority, as is usually the case in Far Cry.

The difference is that in The Outer Worlds, you don’t need to go against the authority if you don’t feel like it. In fact, you can side with them, as there is a litany of choices in the game that allow you to tailor the narrative. The basis of the story is that humanity has attempted to colonize new worlds, but one of the ships containing the colonizers didn’t reach its destination. However, it may be possible to save the folks trapped in cryo sleep, but that isn’t what everyone wants.

21 Assassin’s Creed Series

Assassins Of All Types

These games are a no-brainer for anyone fond of Far Cry’s mechanics. Ubisoft is also responsible for this undying multi-million-dollar series, and it sports the closest similarities to Far Cry. The big difference is that an Assassin’s Creed title plays out in a third-person action view.

There’s also a notable shortage of firearms since it cherry-picks ancient or medieval time periods or other eras where swords are still the dominant weapons. Even so, you’ll find yourself at home in Assassin’s Creed as a Far Cry fan. Out of all the AC games, Black Flag shares a familiar storyline and has a main character that’s not unlike a Far Cry protagonist.

20 Batman Arkham Series

A Tough Stance On Crime

Batman Arkham games are partly just Assassin’s Creed games with a Dark Knight coat of paint. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or derivative. Taking after Ubisoft’s open-world formula is actually a good thing for the series, especially when coupled with Batman’s preferred methods of movement and transportation.

Don’t expect guns, of course. Batman is opposed to lead and gunpowder. Instead, you can anticipate an evil cast of characters and suspenseful circumstances that would likely make Far Cry games look tame or childish in comparison.

19 Shadow Of The Tomb Raider

Become Legend

The Tomb Raider games have always had a good combination of adventure gameplay and elements of stealth and gunfights. But, at its core, it’s about an archeologist wreaking havoc in exotic and foreign locales or other troubled off-the-beaten-path places.

The game that’s likely the most similar to a Far Cry story from the new series is Shadow of the Tomb Raider. This one takes the cake as Lara unleashes a worldwide apocalypse starting in Central America. So she has to spend the whole game fixing her mistake and making sure the world won’t come to an end.

18 The Saboteur

The Sights Of Paris

The Saboteur is all about one thing: being an agent of chaos. It’s an open-world action game set during World War 2 where you play as a man on a vengeful mission to find justice for his loved ones in a fascist-occupied Paris. There are tons of stuff to do to obtain vengeance, but most of them revolve around making fascist lives miserable and chaotic.

To that end, it’s in the same vein as Far Cry 6, whose main story and plot focus is about rebellion and toppling a totalitarian regime in a fictional Cuba. It’s just that the Saboteur lets you relish in all that rage by bombing and destroying military bases and buildings much more frequently.

17 Dead Island

Zombies, Not The Best Vacation

It takes place in an exotic place full of odd people and an even weirder situation that calls for near-indiscriminate killing. In a nutshell, Dead Island is quite the competitor to Far Cry’s formula. The first Far Cry, for example, has a story that revolves around getting stuck on a tropical island with mutants.

That kind of sci-fi trope is very much present in Dead Island, except you can replace the mutants with zombies. The bulk of the combat is done in melee, but that doesn’t slow down the action one bit, especially when you’re cleaving down zombies in bikinis and board shorts with your outlandish amalgam of everyday tools turned into weapons.

16 Cyberpunk 2077

Fight The Corpos

Its setting may be a bit more futuristic, and it’s not without its fair share of bugs, but the world of Cyberpunk 2077 is so vast and detailed that you’ll lose yourself in it in more ways than one. Night City is about as close to a living, breathing world that you’ll ever see in gaming, but that’s just one of the many strings to the game’s bow.

​​​​​The game features a highly customizable protagonist (both in terms of their appearance and abilities), countless side quests, and a huge arsenal of weapons with which you’ll be able to raise some hell. If you’re looking for a game to keep you busy, then simply put, this is it.

15 Mad Max

Drive The Wastes

Avalanche Studios really doesn’t get enough credit for the work they put into 2015’s Mad Max. In an industry that’s fully loaded with terrible licensed adaptations, it serves as a shining example of how things should be done. Sure, its world is not quite as ‘open’ as some of the other games on the market, but it’s still one worth exploring.

There’s a lot of Just Cause on show here, perhaps to be expected, given that so much of the studio’s time has been spent on the series over the past 15 years. Even so, there are more than enough new ideas and mechanics to easily differentiate the two IPs. It’s a game that’s large in scale, full of character, and an absolute must for fans of the movies and open-world games alike.

14 Fallout Series

War Never Changes

The Fallout series has come a long way since the launch of its first entry, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the ridiculous scale of the games. Well, that and war, of course. They feature huge playable areas, endless side quests, and expansive stories with branching pathways. These things combine with the series’ quirky cast of characters to form one hell of a gaming experience.

Some of the earlier Fallout games feel a little dated by modern standards, and Fallout 76 is an acquired taste. If you’re looking for an enjoyable open-world experience, though, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout: New Vegas are definitely worth a look – the latter in particular.

13 Metro Series

It’s Safe Underground

If you’re all about the open-world aspects of Far Cry, then Metro probably isn’t the series for you. If, however, you’re looking for an excellent FPS title that doesn’t prioritize its online multiplayer over its single-player campaign, then look no further. The Metro series is so single-player oriented, in fact, that it doesn’t even feature multiplayer.

Like a fine wine, it’s a series that’s only gotten better with age. Gameplay has gotten tighter, weapons have become more realistic, and visuals have improved immeasurably. That’s not to say that the first two games aren’t worth playing, though, and thanks to Metro Redux, all three games are available on PS4 and the Xbox One.

12 Mafia Series

Crime Might Pay

At first glance, the Mafia series might seem like just another GTA clone. Delve a little deeper, though, and you’ll find a series with its own unique identity and plenty of interesting ideas. It’s hands down the best video game series about organized crime and features some great writing and a wonderful world that’s just begging to be explored.

All three games in the series received definitive editions in 2021, making this a great time to check them out. The original game, in particular, has never looked better, thanks in large to Hangar 13’s decision to remake it rather than simply remastering it, as was the case with the other two games.

11 Grand Theft Auto 5

An Unlikely Trio

It may not capture the same alien locale playground that is the trademark of Far Cry games, but Grand Theft Auto 5 is just as wacky and nonsensical when it comes to story. With the first-person mode, the gameplay becomes more familiar.

You get to run around stealing vehicles and shooting guns at whoever you like as downtime in between story missions. Like Far Cry games, GTA 5 also doesn’t shy away from a Mature rating for video games and can get rather daring with its exposition.