GUERRILLA RADIO

FAR CRY 6 demonstrates why the series needs a revolution of its own

Lauren Aitken

The fictional island of Yara is as beautiful as it is predictable. There are sunny beaches, friendly locals serving street food you’re for some reason not allowed to buy, and sharks in the water that want to take a bite out of you. The music you hear blasting from homes and cars is upbeat, there’s constantly a a party vibe in the air, and there are wild horses you can actually ride.

That’s where Yara’s uniqueness ends and an uneasy sense of parody begins, for me. While Ubisoft is determined to make Giancarlo Esposito’s despot, Antón Castillo, feel like a real and credible threat, he’s more of a satirical mash-up of Franco and Castro. He’s definitely a bad guy, with a vision for his country that he holds above all—even family, as he often reminds his son and protégé, Diego—but there’s a two-dimensional vibe I just can’t shake. We’ll have to come back to him later.

CURSE OR CURE?

Far Cry 6 is a quintessential Far Cry game. You begin as an underdog who quickly ends up with the moniker of hero, fleeing some tyrannical bastard who’s wrecking the lives of the locals to make his dream a reality. In this case, he’s made a smokable cancer cure, Viviro. Viviro is farmed and produced by slaves from Yara. Castillo labels them as ‘outcasts’ and ‘fake Yarans’, setting the us-and-them tone in the game’s opening sequence. Much like its predecessors, you can grapple your way up cliffs and buildings— truly revolutionary stuff, I know—use your phone to track enemies and their weaknesses and, for the first time, simply holster your weapon so you don’t look super sus running around with a sniper rifle.

Ubisoft has borrowed the cloaked mechanic from Assassin’s Creed in the sense that as long as you and your holstered weapon don’t stand too close to guards or act in a suspicious way, you can pass through checkpoints with no violence. It also works as a stealth mechanic, where you can saunter up to a vehicle, quickly whip your pistol out and assassinate the driver before stealing a prison truck. You’ll also want to destroy anti-aircraft guns when you find them, otherwise, you won’t be able to fly around Yara—or progress the story in some sections. There are still the usual animal hunting missions, too, and new Criptograma Chests that lead to unique gear.

Much like Far Cry 5, you can choose whether you want to play as a female or male Dani Rojas, though you can’t customize their appearance—not unless you get the same bug I did after using the photo mode, where Dani was stuck with an unfortunate wink/cheeky tongue out combo in cutscenes for an hour or so. Dani is an orphan who was previously conscripted into Yara’s military, so is familiar with the people fighting for El Presidente and country—and that not all of them are bad guys. She begins as many underdogs do: Unaware of what she truly believes in. As she comes to understand the plight of the people and Diego’s suffering at the hands of his father, we see her alliances shift and her core beliefs strengthen. Family—whether through blood or friendship—is a core theme in Far Cry 6, and one Dani struggles to reconcile given her history.