The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
I just hated being railroaded into the drug trips. Like, in the northern region, there is literally no way to escape the hunters with bows who drug you. You can be in an enclosed helicopter a hundred feet off the ground, and they still hit you with an arrow.
Otherwise, great game, beautiful game, and honestly not awful co-op.
Agree. It’s still my personal favourite, but the forced kidnapping was really unnecessary. It wouldn’t have been any worse if they just did a standard “here’s your next story mission location” and the mission has a scripted kidnapping scene. Trying to force it at a random time just ended up feeling unrealistic and annoying.
I seem to remember FC to have been rather railroady at times since at the very least FC3. But agreed, these scripted events often end up being kind of silly.