I’m infiltrating a slave camp to destroy anti-aircraft cannons and secure a new piece of territory for the resistance, all while my ally describes the horrors of Anton Castillo’s tyrannical rule to me over the phone. This moment is dark, twisted, and shrouded in melancholy, the sun-drenched splendour of the beaches laid out before me making it clear that Yara was once a beautiful paradise. With the touch of a button this illusion is shattered as my pet crocodile chomps into unaware fascists as I riddle them with a CD launcher that fires weaponized versions of the Macarena. Once the cannons are dealt with, I hop onto my horse and seek out another point on the map to do it all over again. Never change, Far Cry.
Far Cry 6 has a huge tone problem. At times it weaves a compelling tale of political revolution across a likeable cast of characters all striving to make their home a better place, fighting back against a regime willing to enslave and murder them at a moment’s notice. Yet so many other moments see this poignant message of progress undermined by Ubisoft’s desire to make it a tongue-in-cheek open-world adventure where anything is possible. You can recruit wild animals to murder hundreds or fire poison clouds and rockets from a lethal backpack. This game wants to be silly and over-the-top, yet it also wants to tell a story that deals with the heavy themes of fascism, slavery, genocide, and the act of sacrificing everything in pursuit of casting aside those who wish to take everything away from you.
As you might have guessed by now, Far Cry 6 doesn’t stick the landing - but at times it gets so close to striking the perfect balance. You play as Danny/Dani Rojas, a young revolutionary who spent their formative years being trained by the military. Now she’s (I played as Dani, the female option) back in Yara, a fictional country inspired by the luscious scenery and political history of Cuba and similar places rocked by revolution in decades past. This imaginary setting allows Ubisoft to distance itself from any real world comparisons, while utilising the stories of genuine revolutionaries to paint a picture that feels both accurate from reality while making no vague connections to it. It feels like political tourism, even more so when its serious thematic elements are so frequently ignored so you can partake in a round of cockfighting or stop to pet a saccharinely sweet wheelchair dog. Yes he’s cute, but that’s part of the problem.
This island was once a beautiful place, but is now under the rule of Anton Castillo, a tyrant given a commendable presence by the excellent Giancarlo Esposito. He’s the series’ strongest villain yet, possessing a layered sense of development that previous antagonists have sorely been lacking. Anton is a man whose entire life has been defined by revolution, with his country’s pursuit of political change resulting in the untimely death of his father. This changed him forever, his father’s corrupt views becoming an idealistic vision of the perfect world that he’s desperate to shape Yara into. People can be murdered, oppressed and demonised for being unworthy, but it’s all in pursuit of progress that he honestly believes is angelic. Anton only surfaces every few hours in cutscenes or as part of major story missions, but his figure is everywhere in Yara. He’s plastered on billboards, satired in graffiti, and talked about on the streets as a man who is beloved and feared in equal measure.
Yara is in possession of a unique crop that allegedly holds the cure to cancer, a discovery that Anton believes is both a saving grace for his people and a bargaining chip for the rest of the world. This is all of the context we’re given before being thrust into an underwhelming introduction that does a mediocre job of establishing the stakes of this revolution, and how Anton Castillo has become such a powerful figure. Turns out he was elected on a platform of wishful thinking and broken promises, much like other tyrants in our own world - he used the plight of his own people to position himself as supreme leader, and it’s our job to take him down.
The real heart of Far Cry 6 is found in the people you meet along the way. Clara is the leader of the resistance, a young woman who realises that killing Castillo won’t change things right away. People will continue to struggle and put their lives on the line for a better world, and the systems and laws that this horrible man helped enact will need to be displaced and dealt with long after he’s put into the ground. The inhabitants of Yara are rightfully conflicted. One mission has you saving a doctor who is working on the aforementioned cure, yet is eager to pull himself away from the regime and be with his family. The tale that Far Cry 6 presents is never black and white, and it’s so much stronger for that approach.
Diego Castillo sits at the centre of this, the son of Anton and the inevitable heir of his gruesome empire. He wants no part in it, hoping to protect innocents and change Yara for the better. But whenever he tries to escape, his father hunts him down. Oppression comes in many different forms, regardless of what side of the fence you’re on. It’s a shame so many of the excellent characters and worthwhile themes are pulled down by the game’s eternal desire to be zany and eccentric. Meaningful cutscenes are bookended by goofy mechanics and playful characters that don’t lean into the best parts of Far Cry 6. It’s okay to have fun and be silly alongside a serious narrative, but not in a way where so many of the elements contradict one another.
This happens time and time again and it’s a constant distraction, even if I grew close to many of the characters and locations I encountered. Being a ‘guerilla’ is romanticised as a playful occupation filled with weapons, explosions and camaraderie - when in reality it was about sacrificing things for the greater good and rising up against oppression no matter the cost. While all of the chaos is fun to partake in, using real stories as the backdrop for these battles feels disrespectful to those who put their lives on the line for the world we live in today. Except Yara isn’t real, so Ubisoft seems to think this pastiche of Cuba’s revolt is fair game.
Yara is split into a number of gigantic islands, ranging from dense metropolitan cities to sprawling jungles filled with wild animals. Each region is ruled by a member of Castillo’s regime, nestled alongside a group of supporting characters and a hub world you’ll come to know across each branching questline. You can tackle these locations in any order you like, and beyond a ranking dictating the challenge of certain enemies and outposts, it offers a sense of freedom the franchise has never had before. In many ways, this is the best Far Cry ever made, because it recognises the strength of its core formula while building upon it with meaningful quality-of-life changes and narrative that isn’t stalled by mechanical progression at the halfway point. I haven't gotten bored yet, which isn’t something I can say about Far Cry 5.
Towers and outposts are replaced by checkpoints and distinct locations that serve a purpose in the game’s world. You might take over a coffee factory to grant your people an unexpected luxury, or raid a tobacco farm for precious fuel supplies and allies being used as slaves to tend the fields. How these places are discovered is also more emergent. You’ll talk to fellow resistance members or find notes in the environment that spawn icons on your map, allowing Far Cry 6 to feel like a rewarding game to play instead of a list of icons to tick off like arduous busywork. It all just feels a little more natural, and as a result it’s much more fun to play and experiment with everything that Far Cry 6 offers you. Supremos are the hottest new mechanic, a backpack which rests upon your character and essentially acts as a super attack for wiping out tanks and larger objectives. It’s endlessly satisfying, and being able to curate it with my own personal selection of mods added some much needed depth.
Weapons follow a similar trajectory, and there’s a decent variety of pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, and unique firearms that possess their own distinct perks and attachments. You can opt for these special gadgets or instead craft your own, and Far Cry 6 offers a stupendous amount of options when it comes to honing your arsenal. Ubisoft leaned into the idea of a ‘guerilla fantasy’ prior to the game’s release - from a mechanical perspective it’s accurate, but when it’s put up against the narrative it’s tonally abhorrent. Liberating a nation from genocide is all fine and dandy, but it feels silly when I’m doing it with CD launchers and an evil chicken by my side. If you can handle this juxtaposition, this is one of the most inviting open worlds of the year by a decent margin.
You can choose to be a stealthy saboteur or an aggressive soldier as you delve into enemy territory. I love mixing things up, since as long as alarms are disabled, there are few consequences to screwing up your sneaky approach and going loud. Fellow resistance members will often emerge to lend a hand, and you’ll frequently find them duking it out with Castillo’s soldiers on the streets as you’re passing by. Far Cry 6 allows you to put your weapons away and walk around the world as a normal citizen, which makes Yara so much more appealing to explore. Past games had foes raining hellfire down upon you the moment you passed them, but here you just need to behave yourself until the moment is right. This incentivises stealth as I can murder someone, hide their body, and act like nothing happened. It’s a living, breathing place now, and not just a sandbox that revolves around the player. Dani Rojas’ role as a spoken hero helps cement this further, since she’s keenly familiar with Yara and why saving it means so much to so many.
There’s also amigos - the cute animals that Ubisoft has marketed most of the game upon. It's a shame that they’re largely pointless from a gameplay perspective once you’ve tired of the novelty each one grants. I just kept Chorizo by my side, distracting enemies as I pulled off headshots since so many of the other louder, larger animals would give away my presence and make most combat encounters a chore. Given it’s their silliness that drags down much of the story, I can’t help but feel Far Cry 6 would be so much stronger if it did away with the cynical animal charm entirely and strived for an experience that actually wants to say something. Ah well, at least we have a cute dog on wheels, that’s something, right?
It feels like a meaningful evolution of the formula thanks to the implementation of RPG elements and a more engaging storyline, but it’s still Far Cry. You are still exploring a vast fictional place filled with territory to reclaim, resources to gather, and an evil villain to overthrow. Those who are familiar with the series will feel right at home, yet this won’t change the mind of hesitant detractors. It’s the best Far Cry has been in close to a decade, yet it abides by a stringent set of conventions that at times are all too familiar. For me it was just enough, but I’ve no desire to comb over the land in search of extra goodies after completing the main story. Even Yara’s beauty isn’t that appealing.
Far Cry 6 is an inconsistent joy that I was rather smitten with, although its storytelling is rife with clumsy political messaging and a fictional setting that tries to wipe away any connections to its real world inspiration. Such an identity makes the finished product feel cowardly, a crying shame given the characters, locations, and themes explored throughout the engaging campaign are so compelling and ripe for further expansion.
This is a game that understands the importance of fighting back against fascism and taking a stand as part of your own personal revolution, yet it’s often held back by gameplay that wants to distance itself from that idea as you fawn over cute puppies and fire off outlandish grenade launchers. Yet it’s still a start, and a bold step forward for a company that has long sat on the fence of political discussion. If you’re after more Far Cry, this delivers and pushes the formula forward into exciting new territory.
Score 4/5. Review code was provided by the publisher.