If you listen to Yohalem explain his thought process, you can start to make sense of Far Cry 3 as exploitation — a send-up of video game empowerment narratives that wallow in colonialism, misogyny, and bloodlust.

If only this were possible simply by playing the game itself. Yohalem told Penny Arcade Report’s Sophie Prell that “the story is itself something that can be solved, like a riddle…what makes me sad is that people don’t engage with playing the riddle…it’s like a scavenger hunt where people aren’t collecting the first clue.” Except that there’s no first clue to collect, and if the riddle’s not being solved, it’s the writer’s fault, not his players.