I've been a Far Cry fan for almost 20 years, and have many fond memories of playing Ubisoft's long-running series of lavish, exotic open-world shooters. When I saw the original's stunning rainforests for the first time in 2004, I wondered, naively, if video games would ever look better. In the years since, I've loved popping malaria pills in the jungles of Bowa-Seko, silently sniping enemy outposts on the Rook Islands, buzzing around Kyrat's snowy Himalayan mountains in a gyrocopter, and taming prehistoric beasts in Oros.
But Far Cry 5 lost me. The toothless politics and forgettable Montana setting were a big part of it—but mainly it was the feeling that the series was sticking too rigidly to an established formula, and was scared to innovate or push itself creatively. And after a four-hour demo of Far Cry 6, which launches October 7, I'm disappointed to report that it seems like this trend is continuing. It looks like a good Far Cry game, so if you just want more of the same in a new setting, you'll be fine. However, if like me, you were hoping for something fresh and exciting that breathes new life into the series, prepare to be underwhelmed.
Far Cry 6 is set on an isolated Caribbean island that has been frozen in time for 50 years. It's all faded colonial architecture and rusting American cars from the 1950s, although it most certainly is not Cuba: it's called Yara. Under dictator Antón Castillo, Yaran scientists have bio-engineered a tobacco leaf called viviro that can cure cancer, which the megalomaniacal despot wants to use as a bargaining chip on the world stage. But people have had enough of the military brutality, land theft, pollution, and forced labour involved in the production of this crop, and a revolución is brewing—which is where you come in.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5)
You play as Dani Rojas, a Yaran who reluctantly joins Libertad: a guerrilla movement dedicated to bringing down Castillo's regime. So far, so Far Cry. We've got a charismatic Bond villain ruling an exotic setting with an iron fist, oppressed citizens yearning to be free, and rebels seeking to end their tyrant’s reign of terror. Castillo is played by Giancarlo Esposito, of 'Gus from Breaking Bad' fame, who brings the kind of softly spoken, dead-eyed menace we've come to expect from this talented, somewhat typecast actor. But despite this (admittedly quite cool) piece of stunt casting, the whole premise just feels a bit too familiar.
Before you set foot on Yara, the first chunk of the game takes place on Santuario, a small island a few miles off the coast. It's here you meet Libertad and are taught how to become a rebel fighter by an exceptionally annoying former guerrilla called Juan Cortez, who explains the game's many systems to you. Unfortunately, Ubisoft's love for obnoxious, unfunny characters is still going strong in Far Cry 6. It might as well have called Santuario the Isla de Tutoría. It's a relatively safe, controlled space where you're introduced to everything you'll be doing in the hours ahead. The developer pulled a similar trick in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and—Cortez's corny dialogue aside—I quite like it.
On Santuario, Dani meets Libertad's leader, Clara Garcia, and must prove him or herself (you decide the gender of the character) by disrupting Castillo's operations on the island. Although his forces have a smaller footprint here than on Yara, there are still plenty of soldiers on patrol, as well as the series' trademark enemy outposts. In terms of structure, Far Cry 6 (surprise, surprise) follows the expected, slightly worn-out formula: a blend of scripted, cinematic story missions, and more ambient, freeform tasks like clearing out roadblocks and outposts in the open world as you explore the island.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5)
One story mission takes place aboard two ships anchored together, which Dani has to protect from waves of enemies, hopping between decks and shooting down kamikaze bombers. Fairly typical stuff for a Far Cry game, but with a nice sense of scale and dramatic visuals that are superficially exciting enough to distract you from the fact it's just more shooting. If other games in the series are anything to go by, it's in the open world—using your collection of weapons and gadgets to clear enemy-controlled facilities in creative, inventive ways—where Far Cry 6 will really shine. This has always been the series' greatest strength, and it's encouraging to see the outpost system making a return.
Once Libertad accepts Dani into its ranks after pulling off a series of daring guerrilla attacks, my demo moves to a region of Yara called El Este, which is made up of jungles, mountains, coffee plantations, and a large town called Concepción. I also catch a glimpse of Esperanza, Yara's capital city, in a heavily scripted intro mission designed to illustrate just how inhumane Castillo's regime is. How does it do this? By showing me one of his comically cruel henchmen pointlessly executing a citizen in a stairwell as he pleads for mercy. I think we, as a medium, can do better than this heavy-handed, needlessly violent, self-consciously edgy scene-setting to get an obvious point across. It feels very early-to-mid 2000s, when this kind of thing was seen as the pinnacle of 'mature' video game storytelling.
Yara is more evocative than Far Cry 5's Hope County, but it still strikes me—based purely on the regions I've seen, it might get more interesting later—as one of the series' weaker settings. Its mix of jungles, ruins, shanty towns, and palm-lined coastlines, once again, feels like familiar territory for the series. Only the larger, built-up urban areas set it apart from other Far Cry games. But really—who plays this series to run around on streets? Artistically, the environments also feel strangely drab and lifeless, with muted colours and a general lack of visual spark throughout. I hope other parts of the island are more geographically inventive, because right now I have no desire to explore this place.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5)
Far Cry 6 makes frequent use of the Spanish word resolver—a reference to how post-Soviet Cuba's lack of imports forced people to make do with what they had. It's a very lofty-sounding concept, but really just a new way of framing Far Cry's usual crafting mechanics. Crates litter the world, stuffed with crafting materials that you can use to upgrade your guns or build new jury-rigged weapons. Not the most thrilling concept I've ever encountered in a game, no matter how they dress it up. You can also equip back-mounted superweapons called supremos, including one that launches a Mandalorian-style volley of missiles.
This is a perfect example of Far Cry 6's wildly inconsistent tone. One minute you're watching a soldier coldly shoot someone in the head for no good reason, or Castillo casually sentencing people to death. The next you're firing rockets out of your back like Boba Fett and recruiting a chicken dressed like a 1970s punk rocker, or an alligator wearing a tracksuit, to fight alongside you. It's fine to be goofy and outrageous, but it just feels weird swinging between this kind of outlandish slapstick humour and a largely straight-faced story about a brutal dictatorship oppressing and murdering its own people. Far Cry has always had problems with tonal whiplash, but it feels more glaring than ever here.
I have a weakness for Ubisoft open-world games and have sunk hundreds of hours into them. But there are a few things that bug me about them—namely the way their systems never feel truly organic. The tasks, objectives, and distractions presented to you rarely seem naturally integrated into the world and story, giving them a kind of distracting artifice. It's very gamey, for want of a better word, and that's something I felt in this early taster of Far Cry 6. As Cortez teaches Dani the ropes, the game repeatedly pauses itself to bring up snappy, digestible three-step tutorials breaking down systems like crafting, equipping gear, and so on. This feels at odds with the idea of being a scrappy, resourceful guerrilla fighter, and more like a well-spoken Ubisoft developer giving you a PowerPoint presentation.
If this sounds overly negative, it's only because I want the best for Far Cry. It's a series that has given me countless hours of entertainment over the years, and the idea that the next big game is leaving me cold is disappointing. But hey, this is all based on a demo of only a few hours—and you only really get a sense for these games when you're playing them yourself, at your own pace. I'm gonna retain a little cautious optimism, but from what I've seen, I can't help but shake the feeling that this one will pass me by in the same way Far Cry 5 did.