The Cleansing is a Story Mission in Far Cry 5. This walkthrough shows how to complete this Quest.
- Secure the Checkpoint
- Talk to Pastor Jerome
- Find Merle
- Liberate Merle
- Survive until extraction
- Enter the helicopter with Merle
- Stay with Merle until drop-off
This mission can randomly start at any time after reaching Resistance Level 2 (2500 Resistance Points) in John’s Region. You have to be in John’s Region for it to begin (doesn’t matter if you’re on a mission or not). You’ll notice your screen suddenly getting blurry and fading out. Then you see a series of cutscenes how you get captured by John’s cultists. Pastor Jerome will free you. Your job is to rescue your remaining allies, especially Merle.
Unlike other missions, this one does not have a specific quest giver or starting point. It is solely tied to your Resistance Level and once it starts you are brought to the mission area automatically and cannot leave until it’s finished.
After the cutscenes are over there will be over a dozen enemies in front of you at a checkpoint. Kill every single one of them to secure the checkpoint. Then Pastor Jerome will get a waypoint marker above his head and you must talk to him to advance the mission.
Make your way up the mountain path and use the ziplines to advance to the next waypoint marker. There “Merle” will have a yellow objective marker on him. Free him.
Now you must survive for 2 minutes until extraction.
There’s a mortar where you found Merle.
Go use the Mortar and press 
/ 
to aim it, 
/ 
to shoot. On the HUD (top of screen) you can see red arrows in the directions where enemies are coming from. Most will come from the bridge in the middle or through the valley on the bottom right side. By aiming the mortar you get a perfect bird’s-eye view over the whole area.
Always aim a little bit ahead of the enemies. The mortar takes a few seconds to hit and the enemies will keep moving in your direction so calculate for the impact-delay. With the mortar you can kill the vast majority of enemies before they get to you. When some break through be sure to kill them with your guns quickly then get back behind the mortar.
After two minutes are over jump in the extraction helicopter. Wait for it to land, get out and the mission will be complete!
For more Walkthroughs, check out our full Far Cry 5 Strategy Guide.
There is no way I can rescue Merle in the cleansing mission. I tried over 50 times. Once I got to where I got in the chopper and had to get out 4 times to revive Merle. I want to cancel this mission but I cannot get out of it. What can I do? This game is great but the Merle mission in HELL.
I have gotten to the point where I get in the chopper with Merle alive, but he doesn’t want to get in the chopper, he will just stand outside of it until he gets killed, I get out to revive him, and then the pilot gets killed.
UNFAIR No notice that you cannot quit the mission. No chance to adapt weapons from inventory. I am stuck here and unless there is a way to quit mission or switch weapons I might as well quit the game. Poor game management. There should never be a spot where you cannot go back to an earlier point in game to regroup. Up to this point thoroughly enjoyed game. I would not purchase another Farcry game after this experience unless there is a way to quit this mission. I have checked online and no good advice or anything good to say about the mission. if you have advice let me know thank you.
Does it let you change difficulty in game settings to easy? That would make it easier. Has been ages since I played this so I don’t remember if this was possible mid-mission but give it a try 🙂