A ubiquitous saying about fiction is that the quality of a story and the greatness of a hero is measured by his villain, which we could perfectly apply to video games. Characters like Andrew Ryan, GlaDOS, Kefka or Handsome Jack most definitely levitate the epicness of their corresponding titles over the gaming stratosphere, and even industry icons like Mario and Sonic wouldn’t be the same without their eternal daredevils against Bowser and Robotnik.
Suppose there is something that we are very clear about. The industry has countless great enemies and rivals who have made their games better for one reason or another. Probably one of the most illustrative examples of all this we have in the Far Cry series. This series has been giving utmost importance to the figure of its villains since its third installment, to the point of being the protagonists of its covers and most of the promotional materials.
Vaas, Pagan Min and Joseph Seed gave off charisma from all sides and knew how to put us on the ropes numerous times. Still, with Far Cry 6, Ubisoft wanted to go one step further and hire the talented actor Giancarlo Esposito ( Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian ) to give life to our next great rival to beat in an ambitious delivery that closely follows the usual formula of the series and that bets everything on the motto of “bigger and better.”
El Presidente
Thus, we are again faced with an open-world, first-person action-adventure that will take us to Yara. This fictional Caribbean nation is subjected to the ruthless dictatorship of El Presidente Antón Castillo. How could it be otherwise? We will play Dani Rojas, a girl (or boy, since we can choose her sex at the beginning of the game) who for various reasons ends up becoming a guerrilla and joining a revolutionary movement to liberate the country, thus giving us the perfect excuse to undertake all kinds of missions and activities in pursuit of freedom.
The script is quite simple, and, as with most Ubisoft games, it tries to address exciting, complex and delicate topics. However, it never really delves into them, limiting itself to raising them on the table (and not always with hit) while showing us the different faces of this chaotic revolution.
Of course, Antón Castillo is the true star of the show, an imposing figure, well built and with ideas so clear that he will make our hair stand on end on more than one occasion with his terrible way of thinking and reasoning. He will not hesitate to sacrifice until the last civilian to achieve his objectives and destroy anyone who dares to oppose his government. In general, he is a much more severe and less extravagant villain than those of previous installments, which does not mean that he also has that point of madness that all the antagonists of the series show, only reflected in a much more creepy way for how real and recognizable it is, which gives it a special and unique touch. Here we also want to highlight the striking counterpoint that his son Diego gives him, who we will see doubt the cruel actions of his father while following an exciting and coherent evolution as the story unfolds.
Revolution is here
As we said before, we face an extremely continuous sequel that rarely seeks to get out of the established canons in the playable. In this way, we will have to explore a map of considerable size, conquer bases and control points, improve our equipment, drive vehicles, participate in minigames and complete a good handful of missions, whether primary or secondary. And of course, all this while we show off our stealth skills or hit left and right shots to unleash chaos wherever we go.
If you have played any of its latest installments, you will know what exactly you will find here, as it is a Far Cry through and through, for both good and bad. We are not going to assess whether the formula is exhausted or not, but if something has become clear to us after living dozens of hours of adventures in Yara, it is that we continue to enjoy a lot. Not surprisingly, we are talking about a game with quite good gunplay, missions that, without being the height of originality, are well designed and know how to be varied, optional activities that are more careful than usual, a well-measured progression system and a map that makes exploring worthwhile.
About this last point, we are forced to highlight how much we liked Yara, probably one of the regions that we have enjoyed the most in the entire series. Not only is it a true artistic delight with its beautiful natural landscapes and the Latin atmosphere that permeates everything, but it also more than fulfills its function of offering us a fun and enjoyable game environment that is a pleasure to get lost in. There are lots of secrets waiting to be discovered, the scenarios favour all kinds of situations to occur and that we have to use all our resources to move through them, and how everything opens before us is very well studied to Let it be progressive and let us have enough freedom to mark our path.
What’s more, here, there are no towers to the crown. Suppose we want to discover the locations of the points of interest. In that case, we will have to explore and participate in other activities that can give us the clues we need to find a secondary mission, a treasure hunt, a base that we must conquer, etc.
Another detail that we should note is that Yara is divided into four large regions. The first three are governed by the foremost leaders of the Antón Castillo regime, and we can explore them in any order we want to complete their story arcs. The levels of the enemies will rise throughout the world as we progress through the main plot, and it will not be until we have conquered all the areas that they will allow us to go to the very capital of the nation to finish off the tyrant.
As you can see, there are not many new features, although the few introduced have seemed like a success. From the outset, we have to point out the elimination of the usual skill tree in favour of a more attractive and exciting team system that allows us to better adapt to each situation just by changing our clothes since each garment will give us a series of specific advantages, such as moving faster while crouching, speedier health regeneration or more incredible stamina against certain types of damage.
In the same way, the weapon customization system is fantastic. It allows us to easily create an arsenal to our measure, selecting even the type of damage that we want them to do so that they are more effective against certain types of targets. The more we level up, the better accessories and modifiers we can equip ourselves in exchange for the required resources. However, it is also possible to find special weapons with their improvements already installed as standard. And watch out for the new and crazy weaponry that we can get in exchange for enriched uranium, including things like a flamethrower, a nail gun and even a disc launcher with which we can blast our enemies at full speed.
Also related to this we have the new Supremos, some devices in the form of a backpack with which we can equip ourselves and that, depending on which one we carry, will allow us to put into practice a potent active ability or another, such as launching a rain of guided missiles. In addition, we can improve and modify them so that they give us access to various throwing weapons, such as grenades or Molotov cocktails. This is an addition that we liked a lot since it adds another layer of depth when customizing our character without breaking the balance of the adventure.
Now, this does not mean that everything has convinced us since it falls back into the usual vices and problems of the series, where the terrible AI of both allies and enemies stands out for the worse. Not only are we talking about suicidal rivals who behave erratically and who have severe difficulties reacting to unforeseen events or detecting us when we use stealth, but something as simple as following an NPC during a mission can become a real ordeal so much that it tends to run aground with walls and obstacles. Ubisoft should seriously consider reviewing the AI in its games, as this is reaching a practically inadmissible point and has taken us out of the experience on numerous occasions, breaking that guerrilla fantasy that the game tries so hard to achieve.
On the other hand, we have not been too convinced by the amount of “filling” activities that exist and that are practically a copy of one another, such as the conquest of checkpoints, the interceptions of cargo, the ambushes or the destruction of anti-aircraft weapons. A type of content that does not contribute anything playable and that we will get tired of repeating. Luckily, the secondary missions and treasure hunts do maintain an excellent level and are pretty fun. Even the conquest of the main enemy bases has their one thanks to the very different and elaborate design in their structure, always offering us an extra challenge when it comes to assaulting them.
Finally, we should note that completing the main story will take you between 25 and 30 hours. Of course, we can double this figure very quickly as soon as you propose to do everything, something to which we must add the return of their missions cooperatives and the possibility of enjoying the adventure with a second player through the internet, a highly recommended option that gives rise to even more crazy and chaotic situations.
Caribbean beauty
The graphic section is simply beautiful. Its tropical landscapes are an absolute delight to behold; the lighting is exceptional and helps to create very evocative prints. On a technical level, the graphics section can put a few drawbacks to its textures, effects, modelling, drawing distance and the enormous amount of detail it has in every corner of Yara. In addition, in the new generation consoles, it works at a very stable 60 images per second, which always scores points.
To finish, comment that the sound gives us a fantastic soundtrack with themes that know how to provide the necessary epic to the most critical missions, although you will not lack lots of licensed Latin songs that adapt like a glove to their setting. The effects are of very high quality and very varied; kudos to the sound fx team!
Final Thoughts
Far Cry 6 is a game that does not fool anyone, giving just what it promises: more Far Cry. If you like the series’ formula and are attracted to its new setting, we are convinced that you will have a great time with it, as it is still an enjoyable and well-designed experience that knows how to catch and take advantage of its strengths. We are not going to deny that we have missed some more novelty, a braver story that dares to delve into the topics it deals with, a minimally competent AI and fewer filler clone activities. Still, once you enter Yara and begin your fight against The President, you will hardly want to stop until you can regain the freedom of your people.
We prepared this review with a digital review copy for the PS5 version of the title provided by Ubisoft.
