For many fans, Far Cry 3 is the pinnacle of the Far Cry experience. It casts lovable bastard Jason Brody as a fish out of water, learning to survive in the jungles and beaches of the Rook Islands. Unskilled and numerous, trapped on a strange rock and moss, a psychopathic Vaas follows, always feeling one step away from tragedy and untimely death.
The recent Far Cry has gradually moved away from the 3 setting, making each protagonist more and more like a human war machine – it’s not about the survival of the individual, it’s about the survival of the revolution. In Far Cry 6, we saw the climax of this ideology – Ubisoft boasted that on Yara, you’ll feel like a guerrilla fighter taking up the space of an entire army. A former soldier, proficient in all weapons and vehicles, Dani Rojas is a natural but reluctant leader. They are made for this.
The developers at Ubisoft want you to feel powerful, they want you to feel like a badass, so they revel in mayhem, explosions, and epic wacky battles. So, as an open-world sandbox, Far Cry 6 is a lot of fun. An unfortunate side effect, however, is that Far Cry 6 has lost a lot of the tension of previous games when it comes to story.
You are no longer Jason Brody, find your way, learn your skills, and just fight for your life. You’re a T-1000 now, striding through the Yara, firing rockets from your nuclear pack while conjuring a nearly limitless arsenal out of thin air. Dani is always humorous, never under pressure and always knows what to do. That’s fine when you’re clearing your 20th Solado outpost in a row, with only the help of a solid gold grenade launcher and your pet crocodile Guapo, but not so much fun when investing in Far Cry 6’s story.
Luckily though, Far Cry 6’s open-world fun is as good as ever. Yara is both huge and absolutely beautiful, with some of the most incredible views you’ll likely find in any video game this year. Exploring can be scary and overwhelming at first, and there’s a lot to discover – after a small tutorial island, the game lets you go pretty much anywhere you want – although once you strike out , you’ll soon discover that it’s more or less the same fare as other Far Cry games. There are checkpoints to clear, hostages to be rescued from the roadside, collectibles to hunt down and cross off your lengthy checklist—mechanically, the framework here is pretty much the same. Depending on who you are, this can be reassuring or disappointing. Many players love the familiar Far Cry game — and some may have been looking to change the formula.
Front and center in all of Far Cry 6’s marketing has been its much-touted villain, Anton Castillo, played by the consummate bad guy Giancarlo Esposito, who’s sad to see him end up criminally underutilized. He stays away from the action most of the time, and isn’t at all as interesting as the previous villains, as many of the things he does to earn his reputation are never shown – just hinted at in-game and told in cutscenes.
He’s more often seen lecturing his impressionable young son Diego — a dynamic relationship that’s also not as crucial to the game as initially promised. There are a few scenes where Giancarlo Esposito actually shows his teeth, and these are undoubtedly memorable, but Anton is often relegated to being a somewhat bad dad. He doesn’t have the grand psychopath of Vaas, the flamboyant shenanigans of Pagan Min, or the stomach-churning creepiness of Joseph Seed. It just makes the game more boring. Far Cry wants to eat its cake – it wants that beautifully chaotic, wacky gameplay where murderous roosters and backpack payloads come together, exploding fireworks displays, and themes from Surf n’ Turf Headshot from a sniper rifle. But then it wants to suddenly get serious and hand over a brooding dictator who wants to give his son a better life through the bloodshed and servitude he deems necessary. It’s a juxtaposition that doesn’t always work.
Far Cry 6’s many supporting characters, unencumbered by the usually gloomy tone of the main plot, are far better. They’re a familiar mix, a little eccentric, a little irreverent, and often murderous. Far Cry 6 is at its best when it leans toward more absurd urges — fully acknowledging the absurdity of its open world and the plethora of opportunities for chaos it offers. While some of the main campaign stories do offer some exciting moments, it’s the side quests like the treasure hunt and the Arran story that provide the most fun. It’s in these optional aspects that the game is opened up a bit to allow for more imaginative missions compared to the now-familiar “demolition base, flush and repeat” mission structure of the main campaign. In its place is an Indiana Jones-style crystal skull hunt, a haunted cemetery, and an explosive encounter with a very annoying YouTuber, to name a few.
Because no doubt a lot of fans really came here for the open freedom that Far Cry 6’s massive map promised, and for the most part – in the wilds, beaches and mountains of Yarra – it didn’t disappoint . The main city of Esperanza – billed as the biggest cityscape in Far Cry history – wasn’t as open as expected. Some players may want to run around the whole city, climb buildings and enjoy the sights, but you can only go to certain areas because most of the city is blocked and inaccessible. You can’t climb most of the buildings and you can’t fly there – so there is no base for jumping from the top of Anton Palace. Essentially, there’s nothing to do or see outside where Ubisoft directs the action – most of the buildings are fake and you can’t get into them – so eventually you’ll start craving more Yara countryside again area.
Here you have quick access to most land, air and sea vehicles, although there are air defenses around the Yara that have to be blown up to get you in the air, so you can fly in or drop safely without risk of explosion. But if you don’t like traveling by plane, horses are also a great way to get around – Far Cry 6 marked the first time they’ve been included in the Far Cry game, and they’re a welcome addition, largely because of their Usually resistant to blowing on fire or catching fire. most.
Interestingly, there is no skill tree this time around. Instead, you equip and wear different clothes to enhance your abilities or grant you various buffs or resistances. You can change clothes at any time, and full outfits offer bonuses, but honestly, those perks don’t seem to matter, so you might find yourself dressing more for style than function.
Even more useful is Dani’s ability to change weapons anytime, anywhere. Over time, you’ll build up an absolutely massive selection of weapons in the game, so you can pull any of them out of storage and into your weapon wheel at any point during a battle – most likely when once A covert encounter suddenly turns into an explosive confrontation. Now at the heart of this combat system are Supremos – an ultimate attack that takes time to recharge, but is very useful in combat. You start with a Supreme that fires a barrage of rockets, one attack capable of taking down a helicopter or a tank, but over time you’ll unlock a wide variety of Supremes to suit your own fighting style.
Given that Dani and their allies are part of the underground resistance movement, their weapons, mods, and tools at their disposal are cobbled together using everyday items found around Yara. This concept known in the game as a “parser” is what drives the customization mechanics of Far Cry 6. You can earn money to buy weapons, but by poking around in each area for shards, you can use that money to unlock different, interchangeable mods for your guns and supremacy. And there are tons of options to choose from, build and experiment with. Sometimes, maybe, a little too much – the sheer volume of collections can be overwhelming at times.
This part also marks the first time a main series game doesn’t have a dedicated multiplayer mode or map editor, which I know will be a deal breaker for some. Granted, Far Cry’s previous forays into multiplayer weren’t the most polished experiences, but they were certainly home to once-loyal but now-forgotten communities that bought games specifically to build and experience user-created maps. It’s not all doom and gloom for Far Cry fans playing with friends, there’s a co-op mode that lets you play most of the game with a buddy (which is fun) and 8 separate missions called Happenings Special operations on smaller, uniquely themed maps.
Oh sure, I really need to mention the error. Considering the size of the map and everything going on inside, I never experienced a game crash during play, which is fine, but I did witness a lot of crazy glitches and rough edges. Playing on PS5, the tearing was noticeable, the framerate drop took away the tension in cutscenes, and the NPC AI, friend or foe, was absolutely brutal at times. Once I made a quick trip to a friendly base, and as soon as I was born I began to slowly suffocate to death, even though there was no poison gas present. Another time, all the sounds in the game stopped working and needed to be restarted, and the less talk about weird potato whiskers, the better some characters would grow.
But as fun as hanging out in the world of Far Cry 6 is, it might be wise to remember the words of Far Cry 3’s Vaas when trying to explain the definition of insanity. “Unhinged,” he said, “doing the same fucking thing over and over and expecting shit to change.” I’d say that statement sounds real here, because other than sliding into the one-man army protagonist , shit certainly hasn’t changed. If you’re looking for a sequel that shakes up the series and brings a gameplay revolution, you’ll be disappointed, but if you love the classic Far Cry collection game and just want a whole new sandbox to explore and blast, you won’t Tired of everything Yara has to offer.
