Far Cry 6 Review

"Paradise of Destruction"

Campaign

October 6, 2021 at 5:00am
By Jason Stettner

This is most certainly by far the largest Far Cry experience we’ve ever had. The paradise location of Yara is massive in terms of scale and in the quantity of activities that are available for you to take part in. It’s rather crazy actually, just how much you can do and it does feel endless. Alongside this expansion of content, there is a deeper narrative present as well.

It aims to provide something with a bit more meat to the bone. You’re battling against Anton Castillo; a ruthless dictator aiming to restore his nation’s former glory, no matter the cost. He’s paired up with his son Diego, a hesitant individual that is following in his father’s footsteps. It’s really interesting to see the dynamics of the two, as Diego is taught about how things have to be run in order for Yara to be successful.

That is of course, from their particular perspective. There are others that don’t feel the same way, especially in how the duo is getting things done. You take on the role of Dani Rojas, a local Yaran orphan turned into a powerful freedom fighter that’s taking part in the guerilla revolution to liberate the land.

You’re given the choice to play the character as male or female, no particular differences have been noted. I chose to play as the latter after some debate with the performance being quite well done from what I experienced. It’s also worth noting that cutscenes are now in the third person, and some camp areas put you in third person as well which is rather different.

Anyways, you’ll be meeting a variety of colorful individuals that all have their own unique quirks and engaging in a large volume of missions to get the job done. These stories are fairly deep, and I feel that tonally this is quite serious. It definitely has some fun with the action, but it comes across as something darker and you’ll notice that right off the start of the game. It’s quite to the point that these are dark times, but you do get to have a lot of fun too.

It’s got that zany heart to it which is expected. There really are a good selection of main missions to take part in, split by various key figures you’ll head out to meet. Aside from more narrative missions you’re taking over various posts, eliminating foes and going on special treasure type hunts. That’s just to name some of the many activities you can take part in. There is of course the typical hunting and fishing now too which was cool.

Coop
You can play the entirety of the game in coop with another player. Your progression and various content will carry over no matter who you play with. There are also new cooperative strike like missions that you can take part in.

These send you off to a new area to explore, and complete objectives. This includes the likes of going across an area to collect an item and then keep it cooled with water as you exfiltrate. It’s a neat new system to expand the scope of the game and to provide some extra to take part in.

I wasn’t necessarily huge on this aspect, but I get the purpose it serves for adding more long term elements to the game. I imagine more options will be released over time. These missions could also be tackled solo, but I thought it made sense to include them under the coop aspect as that’s what they’re largely meant for.

Gameplay

If you’ve played the previous entries in the series this one will feel basically the same. It’s just much bigger, and with minor adjustments to the experience here or there. You go about in first person blowing things up, annihilating enemies and building quite an arsenal. You can do so on foot and in vehicles which can be summoned on the go, to a degree.

You’re free to drive around, enjoy horseback riding or also fly various vehicles. Customization is a theme here too, you can modify various vehicles with mods and the same goes for regular weapons that you collect. That means there’s a bit of a gear selection here, but it’s very light in terms of what you gather which was fine.

You also won’t have to battle alone, you can have amigos back you up which are typically wild creature that assist in battle. These helpers seemed smart in this game, and decently effective during combat. Being an open world game you’re free to use everything I’ve mentioned to traverse this massive environment. It’s big, filled with tons of trees and depth to it.

The draw distances are very impressive and it was a blast to play around in this world. It’s got day and night cycles, with the latter taking forever and even some weather variations too. It’s very majestic to take in, the whole world that is. It’s filled with color and vibrant visuals. I experienced it on Xbox Series X where it’s Optimized providing a 4k resolution at 60fps with HDR support.

There are also high resolution textures that can be downloaded to make everything look better, I used them and had the day one update applied as well. It ran very well, with visuals that popped and it loaded swiftly too when going to new areas using fast travelling. I didn’t really notice any pop in which is impressive for an open world game and it looked generally fantastic no matter where I visited.

From higher cliffs, to hidden secret underwater caves. It’s filled to the brim with life, details and excitement to behold. If you want to capture that atmosphere, there’s a photo mode that’s quite in-depth as well. I did want to note that some checkpoints were a tad rough in where you’d end up, but I didn’t notice any sort of odd glitches or anything. It all run well and without issues which impressed me a ton.

The Conclusion

Far Cry 6 is by far the biggest entry in the series, providing an impressive open world that’s filled with content to explore and what feels like endless hours of gameplay. You might feel overwhelmed by the amount of things to do, and that’s fine as well since you don’t have to do it all. For the completionists out there, good luck.

You can gather, and collect so many things outside of actual missions. I would say in general though that this does feel very similar to the games that came before it. There are some changes to the style, but it’s very safe in terms of what’s been changed. I didn’t really have any issues with what was provided, it was a ton of fun to play. I liked the large focus on story, and the characters that were present.

It was still about going to an area, blowing things up and leaving. You do get a bit more of an option to use stealth in scenarios, but for me things always go astray. It’s great fun to play this in coop, but you can of course enjoy it entirely in single player as well. The new strike type missions are a good idea to expand the experience in quirky ways, I can see that being fun for some people to enjoy.

It’s just a really big, absolutely massive Far Cry experience. A thrill ride of explosions, over the top action and insane toys to play with. You can traverse the lands freely, and continue to be blown away by the things you come across. There’s variation in what you do, and fans will enjoy a more classical type of setting. It’s a grand time to have for sure.

Read our Far Cry 5 Review
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Far Cry 6 Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Ubisoft

Rating Overall: 8.5