Ubisoft
Far Cry 6 isn’t out to revolutionize video games—but a revolutionary backdrop in a gorgeous tropical setting once again drops players into a sandbox with nigh-endless options for fun.
Originally intended as an early 2021 release, the latest entry in the historic franchise from developer Ubisoft Toronto comes on the heels of 2019’s Far Cry New Dawn and leans heavily into the power of next-generation consoles.
Where New Dawn was just a smaller, narrative spin-off from Far Cry 5, though, this new release is a full-fledged experience that tabs heavyweight names like Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, etc.) to tell a gripping tale atop the usual highly individualized styles of gameplay experiences while liberating an entire chain of islands.
A massive effort for solo adventurers or co-op sessions, Far Cry 6 works hard to capitalize on series strengths while upgrading with a fine attention for detail and modern gaming mechanics.
Graphics and Gameplay
Yara (essentially a fictional Cuba) is a diverse, depth-riddled joy to explore.
Out away from where humans have settled down, the wildlife chirps, rivers gush and foliage sways in heat. Players can quickly become the victim far from where human ears can provide assistance. But in cities, impressive depth, back alleys, secret paths and plenty of NPCs keep things visually interesting.
As a whole, the player eventually has free reign to explore a series of islands. Some militarized sections are sprawling in nature, while little hut-based settlements might boast a few dirt roads and a shoreline bar next to a dock.
Far Cry 6 is one of those games that is just stunningly gorgeous at a distance. It’s breathtaking to reach a high point on the map and just take it all in, whether it’s lush jungles, a detailed harbor or town, examples abound.
But the same isn’t always true up close. Getting up close and personal with that great-looking fauna can reveal some of it clipping through the ground or just featuring odd textures. Other characters in camps early in the game, though impressively detailed and varied in their actions, don’t pass the eye test at all times (get too close to one guy sharpening a blade with a rock and it’s clear both blade and rock clip through the ground itself).
What doesn’t struggle at all when players get up close? NPC models look fantastic, and the lip-synching is surprisingly good most of the time. This is even true for civilians out on the roads, not just story characters.
Though the visuals might be hit or miss at times, the sense of fun immersion isn’t. While traveling, players will stumble across civilians in a variety of different vehicles, NPCs dealing with soldiers or wildlife and sometimes in outright open conflict or reacting to what the player does. At one point, swerving at an oncoming car caused the NPC to veer off, smash into a pole and limp away. NPCs also (somewhat admittedly hilariously) react realistically when the player decides to torch some underbrush with a flamethrower.
Simply put, getting from Point A to Point B is a great time. It’s not free of boring stretches, but romping around on a horse is a great addition. It’s really fun to get a good-feeling, first-person experience on horseback. It even comes with the “follow road” feature made popular in games like Red Dead.
It sure doesn’t hurt that the player isn’t just unrealistically shuffled into combat situation after combat situation while exploring. Far Cry 6 bucks that usual video game-ism in a realistic manner.
It’s hard to express just how much more dynamic an open world feels when it’s done like this. The player’s character isn’t just up and considered hostile by all enemy forces, whether out in the country or in a town itself. If the player holsters a weapon and doesn’t do anything to raise suspicion while exploring, it’s not a shoot-on-sight situation, which is really refreshing. In many cases, players might whip out a weapon to help a civilian being harassed by a soldier, or they could blend in with bystanders in order to avoid combat.
That this has seamlessly transitioned from immersion and presentation to gameplay mechanics says it all—Far Cry 6 does a really good job of blending the two. Keeping that weapon holstered might even let players find a double agent of a soldier willing to sell them information about their army. Approach with a weapon out, though, and it’s a shootout.
Far Cry 6 is also up there as the top contender for best-feeling shooting in a video game. Recoil matters, so do the perks that players slap on a gun. The feedback, including rumble, is superb, and enemies react in a way that really sells the punch of weapons in a realistic manner.
More importantly, it’s so refreshing to see just how much weapon customization and ammo types matter. Trying to shoot an armored enemy without armor-piercing rounds is a seriously bad time. Slapping poison rounds on a weapon to do some damage over time while ducking into cover is a fun element.
This does sometimes create one of those situations where enemies can feel like bullet sponges—but it’s the fault of the player for not properly preparing and/or using the right ammo types. Granted, sometimes it does feel like players have to spend almost too much time at a workbench tinkering, but it manages to keep a nice rhythm. Assisting in this area is a new backpack-styled weapon dubbed a Supremo that lets the player house a handful of gadgets and pull off a super-styled move after a cooldown. Nothing wild, but it’s a fun new gameplay wrinkle.
The usual Far Cry gameplay loop benefits from this added layer of impactful strategy. Scouting out a base or outpost beforehand from afar and using a cellphone to reveal enemy types and what they are weak against, then looping to a workbench to best prep for the task at hand, simply feels great. In prior entries there just wasn’t this much strategy or thought available.
Also freshening up the tried-and-true gameplay loop are new classes of enemies. The ideas themselves aren’t wildly new to gaming—some enemies can lay traps, medics can revive their allies and the big bads of a certain area can call more reinforcements. But when put into practice in the Far Cry formula, it’s a fresh jolt the experience clearly needed that will prevent players from going on autopilot.
It helps that enemy AI itself is solid. They’ll communicate, call for backups and respond to non-player threats well. There’s the goofy behavior here and there and stealth can still feel hit or miss as far as detection goes, but it’s not like blasting through braindead AI found in other games that actually diminishes the experience.
As a whole, the presentation-gameplay tandem makes it a blast to explore the world in almost any way a player chooses to tackle it.
Story and More
Players drop into the shoes of Dani Rojas, male or female, and struggle amid the chaotic, disjointed rebellion in response to “El Presidente” Anton Castillo’s iron fist.
Giancarlo Esposito delivers a masterful performance, as expected. His character does a splendid job of walking the line between a timid, almost mild leader who wants the best for his country and a borderline psychopath willing to commit atrocities for the “greater good” of said country.
But Esposito’s performance is far from the only good one. The majority of big-name characters the player runs into have great voice acting and really sell things. Ditto for Rojas himself/herself. It all does really help sell this sense of “us against the world” as the player and friends are outnumbered at every turn.
It’s nice that the player’s character has an actual voice and personality again after past entries in the series suffered from a silent protagonist. Dani isn’t the most amazing character by any means, but Rojas quickly has very personal reasons to plow through the story and fight back. That same effect just wouldn’t be felt if the player’s character was silent and didn’t have any personal stakes.
The island, paired with the many strong gameplay systems, does just feel like a fun playground. One simple mission can turn into taking a horseback ride, using a grappling hook to get vertical, diving off a cliff, popping a parachute to float around a base, diving into the ocean and infiltrating from a cave system, working all the way up to the top.
Between checkpoints, outposts, actual cities, wildlife and fun things off the grid to discover, plus some serious verticality that players can quickly navigate thanks to the grappling hook, this is easily the most open and explorable Far Cry map to date. It’s intimidatingly big—like players will have their jaws drop the first time they zoom out—but that’s not a bad thing here.
Progression is where one of the big shake-ups happen that players should know about.
In past Far Cry games, earning experience points would unlock perks and RPG-looking nodes on skill trees. This time out, the series does away with that in favor of weapon and gear-based progression. Weapons and attire have numbers and stats tied to them.
Much of this goes the very trendy Destiny route. Certain pants have perks that allow for better driving. Some globes or bracelets (which all look cool and realistic, even in cutscenes) offer better damage against certain types of enemies. It’s a fun added layer of strategy the series didn’t have. Pair it with the ability to go slow in scouting out an enemy base, plotting the course of action and kitting out a set of weapons, gadgets and even companions, and there’s a ton of depth and strategy here that most games struggle to achieve.
While some might groan at the idea of another system like this, it’s worth pointing out that transmog is in the game, so players won’t have to stoop to wearing terrible-looking outfits that don’t match just to get the best possible stats or loadouts. That said, there, are microtransactions for this non-multiplayer game, but they seem only cosmetic out of the gates.
Granted, there’s still an overall “level” to grind as well, but it’s merely the player character’s rank within the resistance army. Climb higher, have access to more fun stuff, essentially.
Customization extends to the animal companions, which are both goofy and helpful. The first, a crocodile, follows the player over any terrain, even diving into water for a swim. It’s pretty impressive to just see the animals following the player, though incredibly goofy that a croc can go manhandle enemies during a fight.
Different animals provide different buffs (one can provide distractions for stealth takedowns, for example). But for some players, it’s going to be almost too goofy for the setting or type of playthrough they’d like to have, so telling the animal to stay put somewhere is totally an option.
It does feel like Far Cry is trying to branch out a bit slowly via the bases feature. Like the last entry, players can customize a few buildings and features here and there within a given base. When players enter them, the camera kicks into third person, presumably just to show off the customized look of the player better.
Far Cry 6 should also get a nod for its extensive list of accessibility and general options. There’s plenty here for most players, and as an aside, the game runs smooth and seems to make the most of the next-generation systems so far.
Speedrunning Tips
As always with Far Cry games, the player agency offered by the map and tools at a player’s fingertips would make it seem like speedruns could look quite different across the board.
But as always, it boils down to one thing—mowing through enemies as fast as possible.
Doing this in Far Cry 6 isn’t necessarily as easy as it was in past games (Far Cry 5 best times checked in under the four-hour mark). But memorizing menus and how to trick out guns as fast as possible is an important step to take.
Said tricking out needs to largely feature armor-piercing rounds to deal with the big bads of a mandatory base. For harder encounters later in a run, properly managing ammo on bigger explosive weapons and powerful ammo types (we won’t go too spoilery here) is a must, but players are never out of a potential record time because there’s no level gating.
Following the main path, skipping cutscenes and generally memorizing where, what, when and how will put players on fast tracks to top times. There isn’t a lot of side content players should need to hit and wasting a ton of time looting doesn’t feel necessary because the game feeds enough resources to the player on the necessary path to get the run-important upgrades.
It’s not a revolutionary set of ideas for a first-person-shooter speedrun by any means, but it should still see the game have a healthy running community simply because of the skill it will take to navigate the map and perfect routes.
Conclusion
Far Cry players are going to feel right at home with the latest entry in the series. It’s a whole lot of the same, with some really good tweaks to keep the world and progression system interesting, with a major assist from a great story.
Some players might yearn to get away from some of the goofiness that comes with companion animals and story elements or characters. But the game itself is a joy to explore, and players are free to not only take it as seriously or as lighthearted as they want, but to essentially play any way they want.
The result is a rock-solid foundation of a game that is what players want it to be. The story isn’t a landmark event for the series in the same way Vaas Montenegro’s tale in Far Cry 3 was, but this does feel like a landmark moment for the series from a gameplay and immersion perspective.
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