The Far Cry franchise is officially making the leap to TV.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that the project is coming to FX with Noah Hawley of Alien: Earth and Fargo fame, and Rob Mac (previously Rob McElhenney) from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia joining as executive producers. Word that a Far Cry TV show broke earlier this year; per those rumours, this will be an anthology series with Mac set to star in the first season.
“Getting to work alongside Noah Hawley is a dream realised,” said Mac.
“Ubisoft has been remarkably generous, entrusting us with one of the most iconic video-game worlds ever created. And through it all, my FX family continues to lift me up with their constant belief and support.”
Hawley added: “What I love about the Far Cry game franchise is it’s an anthology. Each game is a variation of a theme, the same way each season of Fargo is a variation on a theme. To create a big action show that can change from year to year, while always exploring the nature of humanity through this complex and chaotic lens, is a dream come true. I’m excited to partner with Rob and bring our shared irreverent, ambitious sensibility to the screen.”
This is also the second time that the Far Cry franchise has come to a medium other than video games; back in 2008, Uwe Boll directed an adaptation that bombed both critically and commercially. Mac has previously worked with Ubisoft on the now-cancelled Apple TV show Mythic Quest.
Far Cry is one of the core IPs that now sits under the new Tencent-backed Ubisoft subsidiary Vantage Studios alongside Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six. The Chinese tech and entertainment giant’s €1.16 billion investment into the venture completed last week.
Ubisoft’s most recent TV endeavour was the Netflix animated series Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, which debuted in October and has been renewed for a second season. In its recent earnings release, Ubisoft highlighted it as an exemplar of “a long-term strategy to deepen engagement through cross-media partnerships, extending the reach of Ubisoft’s iconic gaming IPs across games, publishing, and screen adaptations.”
A recent report from Ampere Analysis found that video game TV adaptations result in an average 140% increase in players. The big winner there was the Fallout franchise, which saw a 490% increase in monthly active users after the Amazon TV show debuted in April 2024.
