First Look at Far Cry 4 Protagonist Ajay Ghale

roseofbattle

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First Look at Far Cry 4 Protagonist Ajay Ghale

Ubisoft is taking a different narrative direction with Far Cry 4 from its predecessor, especially in its protagonist.

Ubisoft posted a picture on Twitter last night of its Far Cry 4 protagonist, Ajay Ghale. Seeing as how Far Cry 4 is a first-person game, players will rarely see Ajay, but his appearance is important to the game's story.

Far Cry 4 take place in Kyrat, his home region of the Himalayas. The game's preview trailer from E3 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11608-Far-Cry-4-See-the-First-Five-Minutes-Update-Gameplay] gave us all a good sense of antagonist Pagan Min, a man who has appointed himself a despot of the region, as well as a small, brief look at Ajay in the form of an in-game selfie. Even more interesting is that Pagan Min and Ajay have some history together. Ajay encounters him as he returns to Kyrat to scatter his mother's ashes, and the game will take off from there.

When Ubisoft revealed Far Cry 4 and the game's box art, centering on Pagan Min, people were upset with the framing of the character [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134668-Far-Cry-4-Creative-Director-Responds-to-Box-Art-Concerns-of-Racism], placing him on top of a statue and his hand condescendingly on top of the head of a darker-skinned character. Ubisoft later revealed the character in center was not the protagonist.

Pagan Min is a foreigner to Kyrat whereas Ajay's home is in Kyrat, which he left as a child due to civil war. Seeing the character's face should put some worries to rest in light of Far Cry 3's protagonist, Jason Brody, a white American who essentially becomes "the white savior." Far Cry 4's narrative director Mark Thompson is looking to improve the narrative of Far Cry 4 over its predecessor and avoid cultural insensitivity.

Source: Far Cry 4 Twitter [https://twitter.com/FarCrygame/status/479311375479869440]


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Erttheking

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Is he...Asain? Holy shit he is. I was not expecting this. I am pleasantly surprised.
 

Alexander Kirby

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Well he's already an improvement over Jason Brody. If there's any character type I can't connect with it's spoilt frat-boys on extreme sports holidays. Yeah, it was interesting to see that sort of character in that environment, but I wouldn't want a repeat of that.
 

The World Famous

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Ubisoft, couldn't you have unveiled this during E3 and quelled some of the "white-dudebro" accusations leveled against you?
 

Parasondox

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Well well the protagonist is Asian. So, who will dare to cry out "racist" after this seeing as many who looked at previous Far Cry 4 poster did the very same thing. Asian protagonist, Asian antagonist, set in Asian. Good news all round to be honest as we have a bit more diversity. Its not much but its growing.
 

Erttheking

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The World Famous said:
Ubisoft, couldn't you have unveiled this during E3 and quelled some of the "white-dudebro" accusations leveled against you?
I think this is a good point to bring up Jim's Cloak and Dagger video where he talks for a great deal about companies doing stuff like this.

 

Baresark

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Holy god it's not a white guy, my sensitive white guy values!
/endsarcasm

Awesome, now maybe all the inane pointless accusations of racism can fade away and we can move forward with our lives.
 

CriticalMiss

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Paradox SuXcess said:
So, who will dare to cry out "racist" after this seeing as many who looked at previous Far Cry 4 poster did the very same thing
Don't worry, they will find a way to call the game and Ubisoft racist.

'You control an Asian guy like he is nothing more than a lowly puppet. How racist of you Ubisoft. HOW VERY RACIST!'
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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The World Famous said:
Ubisoft, couldn't you have unveiled this during E3 and quelled some of the "white-dudebro" accusations leveled against you?
They could have, except that I'd bet that he was originally white (and was intended to stay white), and they quickly made him a different race in order to quell some of the controversy that's been going on since E3.
 

AndrewC

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WHY ISN'T THE CHARACTER FEMALE, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE BLAH BLAH BLAH

INSERT SEXIST OUTCRY HERE WHINE WHINE WHINE

Looks neat, the history between the characters could be interesting aswell. Provided it's not horribly cliched in some way xD
 

Falterfire

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Huh. Good to know. Based on the photo the villain took in the trailer [https://imgur.com/4SytPmz] I really thought our main character was going to be basically Jason Brody Mk.2: "Wasn't Far Cry 3 Great?" and the whole game was basically just going to be identical to FC3 in terms of both characters and plot, just in a different location.

Here's hoping hoping Ajay has more than just a slightly different skin tone to set him apart from Jason.
 

Parasondox

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CriticalMiss said:
Paradox SuXcess said:
So, who will dare to cry out "racist" after this seeing as many who looked at previous Far Cry 4 poster did the very same thing
Don't worry, they will find a way to call the game and Ubisoft racist.

'You control an Asian guy like he is nothing more than a lowly puppet. How racist of you Ubisoft. HOW VERY RACIST!'
Oh don't worry, I'm waiting for it. It's the internet we are talking about here. The train is never late for that station.
 

Ferisar

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WhiteTigerShiro said:
The World Famous said:
Ubisoft, couldn't you have unveiled this during E3 and quelled some of the "white-dudebro" accusations leveled against you?
They could have, except that I'd bet that he was originally white (and was intended to stay white), and they quickly made him a different race in order to quell some of the controversy that's been going on since E3.
Oh yeah I bet the Asian character from an Asian territory coming back to said location to scatter the ashes of his relative from the same place and then being intercepted by an Asian mentally unstable antagonist with whom he has had history was going to be white the whole fucking time. Did he meet him in a sushi place in the U.S. before (you know, before he took over as a regent ruler because of shitty working conditions), and suddenly happen to meet again? Is he just here to be exercised upon with vengeance for being a shitty customer?

Come on :p Even disregarding the development-side issues with that train of thought, it's just so ludicrous sounding.

EDIT:
Oh right, the topic. I'm guessing Ubisoft didn't reveal his race at E3 because it's a show on a stage. All they showed were trailers or gameplay trailers, and given its first person nature, I doubt they could do a whole lot besides that. Good move on their part to show this after the whole AC:U thing. Must be funny to be at the center of a non-troversy and (probably) having no clue as to why everyone is up in arms.
 

jFr[e]ak93

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This almost confirms my theory that Ajay (which is a weird way to spell A.J...) is Min's son.

Calling it now. Just saying.

OT - It's kinda funny that a mug shot for a character from a first person game is a press release...
 

Krantos

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I long for the day when the fact that a protagonist is not a White Male is no longer news worthy.

Sadly, we're not there yet.

So, credit where it's due. Thanks Ubi.
 

Saetha

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Paradox SuXcess said:
Well well the protagonist is Asian. So, who will dare to cry out "racist" after this seeing as many who looked at previous Far Cry 4 poster did the very same thing. Asian protagonist, Asian antagonist, set in Asian. Good news all round to be honest as we have a bit more diversity. Its not much but its growing.
Oh, it's begun already. The first I heard of this guy was from a Tumblr post saying the game's still racist because he's light-skinned and stubbled, so he might as well be white. *Sigh* Thankfully very few were jumping aboard that crazy train.

But in other news, hot damn this Ajay guy is really freakin' attractive. Certainly an improvement over Jason "I look like a college douchebag" Brody. Hopefully he's got a personality to match.
 

Erttheking

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Ferisar said:
Considering that the last game was about a white boy being the best warrior on an island filled with with brown people it's hardly a baseless assumption. And I liked Far Cry 3 it's just...the main character being a white man in gaming has pretty much become an unspoken rule. Surely the point of story telling is that the sky is the limit isn't it? Then how come we play it safe so much? And was this information about him scattering his mother's ashes revealed before now? We had very little to go on about who the main character was.

Look, I liked far cry 3, any unfortunate implications come off more as someone with a lot of creative ideas mishandling them rather than genuine hatred, but Far Cry 3 did sorta stay in video games' safe zone and Ubisoft didn't give us much reason to believe that it would go in this direction. Overall a positive move though.
 

Imperius

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MarsAtlas said:
Its almost like they're changing the character's race solely to placate some people who couldn't sympathize with an asian character, implying that there's something wrong with people who aren't white. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder why some people would be upset with that.
As I said in the comment thread. I don't take issue with Ubisoft's choice to have the protagonist as a central asian character. I'm interested in this title, and want to see if they can pull off the story as well as they did with Farcry 4. The issue I take is with the suggestion that a title is instantly improved when you take white people out of the protagonist position in a game.

It's funny really, I never hear any complaints when those European/American whitebread types are on the receiving end of the gun/knife/bombs/etc.

Isn't that culturally insensitive?
 

NLS

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erttheking said:
Ferisar said:
Considering that the last game was about a white boy being the best warrior on an island filled with with brown people it's hardly a baseless assumption. And I liked Far Cry 3 it's just...the main character being a white man in gaming has pretty much become an unspoken rule. Surely the point of story telling is that the sky is the limit isn't it? Then how come we play it safe so much? And was this information about him scattering his mother's ashes revealed before now? We had very little to go on about who the main character was.

Look, I liked far cry 3, any unfortunate implications come off more as someone with a lot of creative ideas mishandling them rather than genuine hatred, but Far Cry 3 did sorta stay in video games' safe zone and Ubisoft didn't give us much reason to believe that it would go in this direction. Overall a positive move though.
The main character was shown during the E3 intro video. And he looks just the same as he does now.