Far Cry 4 dev: Diversity should be discussed in games industry

Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson believes it's healthy that topics such as diversity and inclusivity are being examined in the games industry.

Issues such as race and sex have been a significant focus of discussion in the video game landscape recently, with some games being criticised for only featuring characters who are white males.

Assassin's Creed Unity - another title from Far Cry publisher Ubisoft - was one of the games caught in the backlash, as it doesn't offer any playable female characters in the newly introduced coop mode.

Hutchinson says he's happy that these themes are being explored now as they are important arguments.

"I love the fact that people are asking the questions and people are having the debates," Hutchinson told ArabicGamers.

"I think it's great that the games industry is having these debates about inclusivity and about diversity and all of these things. I think they're important topics."

As for Far Cry 4 there are only five white people in the entire game, while the rest of the cast is made up of characters native to the Himalayan setting - including antagonist Pagan Min.

"He's Eurasian," said Hutchinson. "That's the thing, there's only five white people in the whole game.

"That's the really interesting thing, all of the allies, all of the adversaries, everybody in the game is not white.

"They either speak Hindi, Nepalese and Cantonese, these are the languages in the game. Obviously we have those people, when you need to understand, speaking English versions of that, but they're all native speakers.

"Except for five guys, and all of them stick out like a sore thumb when you see them. Everyone else is non-white."

Far Cry 4 launches 18 November and we'll be bringing you much more coverage, including a video interview, over the coming weeks.