You know, it’s funny, in my snarky review of Far Cry 5 I captioned the image of a nuke going off “This is the end. Beautiful friend, the end” in reference to a song by The Doors, The End, prominently used in Apocalypse Now, famously taking place during the Vietnam War. Back then it seemed of what the game wanted to do.
Hours of Darkness is the title to the Vietnam War-based DLC and the link is obvious, the movie Apocalypse Now was based on a book by Joseph Conrad- Heart of Darkness. It has been such a landmark in culture that it is virtually impossible to take about the Vietnam War without referencing Heart of Darkness or the aforementioned song by the Doors. I am validated now.
To that effect, the DLC (costing about 12$ or coming as a part of the Season Pass) will add a new campaign in the jungles of “the ‘nam”. It looks like they intend to stay true to the Apocalypse Now parallel with the story of the main character venturing deep into the jungle to find and rescue his missing comrades.
The DLC will feature new weapons, specific to the Vietnam War period, new perks and an ability to call on air-strikes, presumably covering everything in the liquid carpet of flame that is Napalm. I’m told on a good account it smells like victory.
Now to me, personally, Heart of Darkness is my favorite book of all time and it utilizes my favorite kind of a story- that of a person venturing deep and finding the complete darkness lurking in the heart of man. This descent is endlessly exciting for me.
The DLC will be out by June 5th and here is to hoping it doesn’t make the mistakes of the base game and actually aligns the game mechanics with the, admittedly, lofty and pretentious story.