Out at a pre-E3 press event, Ubisoft gave AusGamers a world first hands-on with Far Cry 5 where we patted our Blue Heeler, flew a plane, rode a tractor, mounted a machine gun, took on crazy cultists and, most importantly, took in a spot of fishing. Yep, fishing.

Here's a snippet:

It’s been an annoyance to me for a while, especially in the Far Cry series. Primal could be forgiven because of the period in which it’s set, but ancient peoples had unique fishing traps and the like to use, so it doesn’t get off completely. But Far Crys 2, 3 and 4 had no excuse.

At any rate, because there is other game to talk about here (see what I did there?!), I just want to point out you can go fishing in Far Cry 5. You ‘borrow’ a spare rod from a fellow angler, and the fishing I got to do was of the fly kind -- simply aim your rod in the direction you want to cast, then hold down the right trigger and our Rex Hunt wannabe will skilfully fly cast three times before you let go and hit the water. From here, it’s a matter of massaging your line back in while watching the surface of the water for ripple evidence of eager fish eyeing off your lure. Feel a nibble in the rumble feature on your controller (not sure how this will work on PC), and hit a button to snag the fish and once you’ve hooked him, you’re up for a decent fight to land it.

What’s cool here is you need to play with the fish in realistic ways. You can’t reel in too fast or you’ll lose him, fight him too much and your line with break. You need to pull in the opposite direction he’s pulling away while teasing tension on the line; giving him some freedom here and there before reeling in harder and faster. The whole idea, if you’ve never fished before, is to tire him out so you can bring him to the bank and pull him in. It’s an exhilarating mini-game that is very quickly going to become a fan meta experience, so evidenced by the whiteboard in our demo room with the names and weights of the biggest catches so far during the pre-E3 hands-on experience. The biggest was 59 pounds, but I was told there are some monster fish out in the Big Sky country game-world Ubisoft has created here.

Click here for our full Far Cry 5 hands-on preview.