Far Cry TV series showrunner says he's 'not specifically adapting any of the games,' and the creative director of Far Cry 4 doesn't care for that very much

Noah Hawley, the executive producer of the live action Far Cry series revealed (and then quickly unrevealed, but too late) last year, says he was attracted to the series because it's an "anthology" that tells a different story, with different setting, characters, and motivations, with every new game. And precisely none of those games will be featured in the series, because Hawley has other ideas.

"It was an exciting idea that we could build an anthology game adaptation where each season is a different story about civilized people thrown into situations where they have to become increasingly uncivilized," Hawley told Deadline.

"I’m not specifically adapting any of the games that they’ve put out—I’m saying much as I did with the Coens [Hawley was the chief creator of the Fargo series] or X-Men [he created FX’s Legion] or Alien, ‘Let me have a dialog with this franchise, because this is what I think a Far Cry story is'." With last year's Alien: Earth, Hawley more or less ignored the series canon to tell his own story.

Hawley also pointed out the need for "a larger conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of adapting videogames," because of the way they're structurally different from television or films.

"When you play a videogame, you only really move forward through the gameplay section, and then you have these cutscenes that you can skip, so when you go to adapt those games you have to be aware that makes the human drama kind of irrelevant to the storyline," Hawley said. "That is death for a show."

I don't necessarily agree with that take, and the idea of the Far Cry story being propelled forward by Hurk and me careening through rural Montana in a beat-up hatchback with a rocket launcher hanging out the back window is fun but perhaps doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. On the other hand, I'll be the first to admit that Hawley probably knows more about making a TV show than I do, and as someone who doesn't skip cutscenes—even in a Far Cry game—I might be an outlier here.

Hawley's approach hasn't been universally welcomed: Plenty of folks in the Far Cry subreddit don't care for it, and Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson seemed to take issue with it as well, saying in response to a post about the report on LinkedIn, "This is kinda pissing me off. And I like Noah Hawley’s work."

Myself, though, I think I see where Hawley is coming from. Far Cry at this point is a formula: A guy, some pals, and a situation that can only be resolved through the persistent application of extreme violence. The details don't really matter, because none of them provide an especially compelling narrative to begin with: Lots of fans cite Vaas from Far Cry 3 as a peak villain, but for my money the batshit ending of Far Cry 5 is the real gold.

The point is that when you view Far Cry that way—that it's a parable about stripping away the veneer of civilization, told over and over again—then you can tell pretty much whatever tale you'd like, and it'll work.

And if that doesn't float your boat, well, there's always Uwe Boll.