The German arm of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has today criticized Far Cry 5 fishing. Why? Because including fish in the game encourages violence, in spite of all the other horrific things you can do to various other animals in the game.
Of course, the game does offer a variety of things you can do, and while it is encouraged at certain points to kill certain animals for skins and such, the option to not do any of those things is also there. What’s more, fishing and hunting aren’t forced on the player at any point, making PETA’s point seem rather moot from where we’re standing.
PETA openly appealed to Ubisoft GmbH to commit to removing the fishing feature in future games. In their statement, they said this: “While in the previous game fish were killed with explosives, the player in Far Cry 5 can catch different kinds of fish with the fishing rod and gets different points of view depending on the type of fish.” It continued, “PETA now appeals to the German representation of the game developer, the Ubisoft GmbH in Dusseldorf, in the future no longer to market video games in Germany, glorifying and banalizing the hunting and killing of fish or other animals.”
The statement from PETA left some fans feeling understandably frustrated with the company, especially with their last statement of “the animal rights organization proposes instead to develop games with free-living animals that do not glorify killing as a pastime.” This was seen as particularly hypocritical to some, especially considering reports containing evidence of PETA’s own cruelty towards animals.
Whether Ubisoft will take heed of PETA is something we’ll have to find out in the future. Though if looking at past controversies between PETA and game developers gives us any indication, the outcome of PETA being listened to seems unlikely.
