Far Cry is a long-running series, with the original coming to players in 2004. Although it was first brought to us by Crytek by way of the (still amazing) CryEngine, Ubisoft then gained the rights to the game and have continued to release more iterations. With 6 main entries in the franchise, and (at least) 3 spin-offs or subentries, it’s fair to say that the game has featured a lot over the last 17 years. Although there have been highs and lows, Far Cry 6 is somewhat of a return to form for the series.
Although Ubisoft has failed once again to change the game or bring something new to the table, that’s not to say that Far Cry 6 is a bad game. It takes all of the features and highlights from the last 3 main games and rolls them all into one of the best packages on offer for open-world FPS games. However, if you bounced off the last few games or decided that it wasn’t your type of game, I don’t think it’ll be able to change your opinion.
On the 7th of October 2021, Far Cry brought us to the beautiful world of Yara, featuring the journey of Dani Rojas (who can be a male or female character), and their journey in attempting, to bring down “El Presidente” Antón Castillo (played by the fantastic Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad or The Mandalorian).
Since Far Cry 3, the games have featured some of the best and most well-acted big bads in games and Antón is no exception to this history. However, the game could have featured him more it’s a slight waste to have such a great actor featured so little compared to the size of the game. Unfortunately, as great as some of the main bad guys have been, Far Cry does have a bit of a history in this misuse, with Vas from Far Cry 3 having one of the most unsatisfying endings in recent memories.
However, let’s go back to the positives and take a look at what makes Far Cry 6 worth a bit of your time.
First off, performance. Although I’ve played on PC, performance seems to be really good across all platforms. 8th gen (Xbox One and PS4) play at around 30 FPS, with 9th Gen consoles making the jump to 60FPS. On PC you have access to additional features like Ray Tracing and AMD FidelityFX. Having recently jumped back into the last few games, outside a few crashes (which might be linked to my recent instal of windows 11), the game runs really well compared to previous titles.
In terms of AMD FX, it’s still not quite as good as what’s on offer from Nvidia DLSS (not on FC6), but the performance gains are totally worth it. Alongside this, Ray Tracing looks really good, but I can’t say that it looks that much better than the graphics on offer with High or Ultra settings considering the performance hit. So far in general for most games, Ray Tracing is lovely to look at but the effects can be recreated in-game with good production values.
There is however a bit of an issue when trying to make the game look its best at launch. Although performance is over 60FPS even on the highest settings, only a handful of GPU’s has the VRAM required to use the game HD texture pack. Just now, the 35GB additional download just doesn’t work right on my 3070. This can result in some textures looking really dated and of low quality. I hope that this can this requirement can be lowered in the forthcoming patch. You can find the specs needed here.
Moving on to the gameplay, it’s more of the same that has been featured in the last few titles. Nevertheless, there does seem to be more of a shift to the RPG nature that recent Assasins Creed titles have moved to. Weapons and player outfits now have numbers and stats attached and so far (as much as I am early in-game), this seems to be a good match for the game. Guns have weight and feedback when shooting and I look forward to seeing more of the abilities that can be gained.
Already I can see that there is a lot to collect and upgrade, with the game noting this as “resolvers” upgrades and mods, and then a weapon classed as a “Supremo’s”. Although ammo and mods can be upgraded on weapons, like changing normal bullets for armour piercing rounds, “Supremo’s” are re backpacks that allow you to carry various gadgets such as throwing knives, dynamite, gas grenades, and more. Evening going by the gameplay on show in the trailers shown before the game’s launch, they seem like they have the ability to cause massive destruction. These can also be upgraded in the players own choice, highlighted in a mission early on in the game. I’ve chosen to throw knives, but it will be good to see what else is on offer, with dynamite and grenades on offer.
When using this weapon the game also moves to make to show a 3rd person view, and although the game should stick to its normal (1ST person) perspective, I’d like to see any travel with vehicles and horses move to this more natural perspective. The map in HUGEEEEEEEEEEE and this change would make it feel a lot tighter and easy to experience. So far I’m struggling with the camera view during horse travel as the field of view is quite narrow. (Even after changing my settings to as wide as possible on Pc)
Moving on to mission structure, this is where the game falls a little, with missions and the story having similar notes to both FC3 and 4. There is plenty here with the story taking around 17 hours to complete and for a 100% playthrough your looking at all the way up to 60ish hours. But the game fall’s into the same issues that I’ve noted before in reviews of Assassins Creed Valhalla. Loads to find and explore, but do you really want to?…
- Takedown Base ✅
- Climbable Structure ✅
- Animal Hunt ✅
Ubisoft has a formula, that was established in FC3 quite solidly. Unfortunately, they haven’t really much on much since then.
Your character Dani will also gain some friends during his travels in the form of Amigos. These are animals that fight alongside you and offer abilities like enemy takedowns or scout ahead distract people to let you sneak past guards or unleash stealth executions.
Starting with Guapo the crocodile there are another 6 to find after this (including one locked behind the Blood Dragon DLC). Every time I see a picture of Chorizo, the puppy with wheels for his back legs, it melts my heart. It’s easy to see why he has featured so heavily in the pre-launch marketing.
This is very much a better version of the gameplay that Far Cry has offered in its last few outings and the refinements made are totally worth If. If you haven’t played the last few games, newcomers will find this to be an outstanding experience.
Voice acting is great and even though I’m early in the game its pulled me in and made me what to know more and what the end game is. Considering some of the terrible video game movies that have been released in the last 20 years it’s really surprising that Far Cry hasn’t made the jump to the big screen.
If you’ve played Far Cry 3, 4 or 5, and didn’t enjoy your time you probably won’t find much joy here, although gameplay and story are as good as they have been. Ubisoft has a tendency to refine rather than reinvent and for Far Cry 6, this rings truer than ever. It doesn’t change the game, but what they do have is better than ever.
Going forward, it might be time for FC to change the format going forward after Far Cry 6. The DLC in FC5 took players to Mars and introduced Zombies and was a blast to play. Alongside this, FC 3 offered in my own opinion, one of the best DLC offerings ever, in Blood Dragon. Outside of Red Dead Redemption Nightmare Unleashed, I’ve not had a better time playing additional content and I’d love to see Ubisoft lean into this lore and pick it up as a mainline entry in the series.
Far Cry can be anything and the story and acting so far will carry what they have. Far Cry 6 should be admired for the refinement of previous games is worth a try but probably not for everyone.