After the presentation we attended just over a month ago, we got our hands on the PC version of the new Ubisoft effort and the last child born in the Far Cry home: Far Cry 6. The expectations were high and now we can take stock Wound and his revolution against the dictator Castillo.
After a short preamble we are asked to choose the sex of our character, there is no canonical protagonist, but for convenience, having chosen Dani in the feminine, we will refer to the relative pronoun during the text.
Far Cry 6: The Beginning of the Revolution
Dani is finally ready to abandon Yara together with her best friend and there is already a boat waiting for them moored at the port, but just during the night of the escape, Castillo’s men break into the neighborhood looking for her, who became a guerrilla after a short parenthesis in the army. After a daring escape Dani reaches the boat, not without difficulty convincing the manager to let all the desperate people present on board, but something goes terribly wrong. Having just left, a helicopter lands on the bridge and Castillo himself enters the scene, perfectly aware of the fact that his son Diego was also present among the desperate people, on the run with the emigrants. Diego begs his father to spare the inhabitants of the boat by promising to return to his side and his father accepts, but has his soldiers open fire shortly after climbing the stairs of the hold.
Only Dani survives and will continue to look for a way to escape from that hell that has now become the island of Yara, but the meeting with Clara Garcia, the militant leader of the Libertad group of dissidents, will not just change his plans.
Castillo is well perched in his stronghold, surrounded by his lieutenants who have control of three well-defined areas, committed to repelling as many rebel groups ready to sink the knife into the dictator’s throat: the Montero family, the Legends of ’67 and the Maxima Matanzas . Only by succeeding in gaining favor with the revolutionary groups scattered around Yara and obtaining the help of their armies will it be possible to put an end to the oppression of the dictator.
Far Cry 6: a revolution in every sense?
It is now assumed that when we talk about Far Cry only one word comes to mind: Villain.
The expectations for the main enemy, after the now iconic brackets of Vaas, Pagan Min and Seed, are always higher from chapter to chapter and Ubisoft is forced to always climb a step higher. Seen in this way, the choice to take on a sacred monster of the caliber of Antonio Esposito in the role of Castillo, who knows something about the interpretation of villain (if we mention Gus Fringe of Breaking Bad should turn on more than a few light bulbs), it certainly does not turn out to be a ‘ exaggeration.
At the narrative level in general we are certainly faced with the already mentioned “revolution” several times: for the first time we are not playing an empty character with no face and name, but a protagonist in flesh and blood, with his ideas, his jokes and his ways of doing that on the one hand could remove a hair of immersion compared to the previous chapters, in which many took pleasure in actually imagining themselves in the shoes of the ‘anonymous protagonist, on the other hand several avenues are opened on the narrative side and on the interaction between us and the various supporting actors.
Roads that have been effectively trodden given theexcellent dialogue writing and that perfect blend of seriousness, comedy and black humor that also permeates the sixth chapter of the series, with jokes always on the piece to which we are now pleasantly accustomed.
It is perhaps the excellent writing of the supporting actors that is cast a shadow on the antagonist, for years now almost the true co-star of the series, who at times is a bit stereotyped despite Esposito’s acting skills transpire in all their splendor. Castillo, however, carries on his shoulders a legacy so heavy as to push the parent company to build a DLC totally focused on the villains of the series and not always the dictator of Yara seemed so charismatic and unpredictable to have touched the peaks reached by his three ancestors .
As for the gameplay, however, this revolution has only been partially seen: Far Cry 6 remains the usual Far Cry with some changes aimed at guiding the player to certain areas compared to others, but without taking away an excellent sense of freedom.
Orphans than usual skill tree, eg, we will unlock all the mechanics that in the previous chapters would have cost us some important perk quite soon and automatically, like the wingsuit or the parachute, leaving us free to explore the island of Yara far and wide since our first landing on the continent, with due caution in terms of power relations with the enemies.
The growth of the character is centered on the very slow ascent of our level which will unlock new weapons from the dealers and new possibilities of crafting to the various dedicated stations, but we will not be absolutely prevented from venturing into well-guarded areas to steal some weapon or advanced vehicle from the enemy camps.
Speaking of vehicles, we are granted a certain freedom even for those: just grab any one and deposit it in the appropriate garages in order to always have it available. The only exception is helicopters and airplanes that yes, we will be able to fly right away, but until we shoot down the various anti-aircraft turrets present in the various areas of Yara, we will not be able to use them to explore the island or under penalty of almost instantaneous killing.
The playability
Far Cry 6 has some problems at the level of shooting experience which, eventually and fortunately, could be fixed with the help of some patches. Despite the equipment designed to increase our ammunition, automatic weapon magazines seem to run out almost immediately, a detail that joins the fact that Dani seems to know how to shoot up to a certain point, also aided by various accessories attached to the weapons that should help her in this regard.
Stealth kills still take the lion’s share if you do not want to be tormented by continuous enemy reinforcements, but the close ones, due to the slow maneuvers that we will be forced to do to get to a certain distance behind the enemy without being discovered, leave too much room for the “remote killing” option making us prefer bow and silenced sniper rifles, transforming Far Cry into a sort of Sniper Elite.
The idea of introducing animal companions is excellent, each with its specific abilities: from the alligator that throws itself on enemies killing and creating havoc, to the very nice Chorizo that will distract them by opening the doors to our beloved stealth killings, but continuing in the game unfortunately we will make less and less use of ours animal friends, even going so far as to park them in the inventory so as not to be in the way.
Castillo’s soldiers are lethal and finally we have a set of well-differentiated enemies, each with a different type of armor and armament to deal with different types of bullets and this, many times, in the most excited moments, puts us in front of real crises forcing us to flee. If on the one hand this is right (we are still facing an organized army), on the other hand the way it happens can be frustrating since we will be constantly hit by an AI that focuses almost everything on the number of reinforcements and there is happened several times to remain helpless inundated with shots from enemies that we could not even see.
Home Sweet Home
Once we get to know the various dissident groups we will be invited to their camps where we can take part in various activities. One of the most interesting is certainly made up of special operations: missions instanced in certain scenarios in which our task will be to take possession of a fundamental chemical weapon and bring it to safety. These operations, as indeed the game in its entirety, can be carried out both in single player and together with other players and, in the case of the aforementioned special operations, we may use a matchmaking that will support us users looking for help and company to complete them.
There will also be the possibility of gather captains and free imprisoned guerrillas scattered around the island and use them for semi-automatic expeditions to hunt for new resources to use for crafting and camp growth.
In conclusion, Far Cry 6 seeks revolution as in its storyline, but only partially succeeds: a little because of the expectations, a little because of the really heavy legacy we didn’t have the courage to take that real extra step that we wanted from the saga, in a videogame universe in which even a cornerstone like Assassin’s Creed has managed to see each other again and upset.
Taken for itself it remains a hilarious open world fps / gdr and will give at least thirty hours of fun without counting the various secondary activities, but with that bittersweet aftertaste of not being in front of the sequel that was really expected.