Far Cry 6 Review - Save Yara From A President Mad With Power

Written by Brandon Hofer  on October 06, 2021

Reviews: The people of Yara need your help as you explore the massive world and try to liberate it piece by piece.

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With Far Cry 6, Ubisoft has given us a really fun open world to play around and get lost in. If you are a fan of the Far Cry formula you should have a lot of fun with this game. They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel here and I have no problem with that. In Far Cry 6, you need to liberate Yara from a ruthless dictator named Anton Castillo, played by the fantastic actor Giancarlo Esposito. He does a great job as the antagonist as he not only rules with an iron fist to build his version of paradise but also he tries to mold his son to do the same in the future. I’m not going to spoil any of the story but I enjoyed this premise and the journey that it took me on.

Far Cry 6 opens up with Castillo’s army raiding a city you are in trying to look for “volunteers” to join the cause. After an opening cinematic you need to quickly escape the area before you get caught and, yes, you can get caught. When I first started the game and after I gained control of my character I stood around for a few moments and was just exploring that area until Castillo’s guards busted through the door and got me. I had to restart from the last autosave and then I immediately headed out so the same thing wouldn’t happen twice. As you make your way through the area trying to escape the city you are introduced to the game’s core mechanics. If you have played a Far Cry game before you know what to expect here. Even if you have never played any game in the series but you are a fan of the first-person shooter genre, you generally know what to expect here.



Once I was able to look at my map and zoomed all the way out, I saw this enormous world for me to explore. Far Cry 6 is going to be one of those games that can take a very long time to go through if you are a completionist and want to try and experience everything. There are the main story missions of course but there is also a lot of optional content for you to consume during your journey. You have your main story missions, operations, Yaran stories, treasure hunts, military targets, and more. You can also hunt the wildlife if you want to try and get materials, build up different structures to help strengthen the resistance, rush to intercept supply drops before the enemy can, and much more. The action isn’t confined to the ground either as you can jump in a helicopter and fly around or perhaps get in a plane and get a bird’s eye view of the land. You will want to take out the anti-aircraft locations first though or you will get shot out of the sky if you fly into restricted air space. A story mission that I had a lot of fun with was getting in a plane and bombing the fields of the enemy while my fellow guerrillas were attacking other parts of his operation.

As soon as I started the game I immediately liked how the game felt. It plays really well and there are a number of different options to customize your experience. For example, there is an option to highlight enemies in the field so they are easy to spot. There is also another option to highlight items you can pick up in the world so you don’t miss them. As I went through my journey I frequently marveled at how the game looked. It is absolutely beautiful and there were many times when I took a break from the gameplay to utilize the photo mode. I was able to get some great screenshots of the different environments the game has to offer. You will also immediately notice that Far Cry 6 has a really great soundtrack. Jumping into a vehicle and racing across the landscape while the radio was blaring was fantastic and the development team picked great songs to play during those instances. There is even an upbeat song playing while you are in photo mode that will have you bobbing your head as you snap your pictures. I thought the voice acting was well done for the characters that you came across and the team(s) over at Ubisoft just did a fantastic job on immersing you into the culture of the island you are trying to liberate.



As I mentioned there is a lot to do in this game so it is a good thing that everything is organized pretty nicely. You can look at your journal at any time to see what missions (main and optional) are waiting to be completed, as well as the missions you have already finished. You of course have your map that will have points of interest highlighted, such as a checkpoint that you need to take over or one of your hideouts so that you can fast travel there, as long as you aren’t engaged in a mission or combat. This is also where you can customize your weapon loadout with having three main weapons in the weapon wheel at one time, along with a sidearm, and a few other things that you need. When you are in a friendly camp there will be a workbench you will want to visit frequently so that you can upgrade the weapons that you have with all of the materials you have scavenged during your journey.

You will also have an amigo that will be by your side if you choose to utilize them. Your amigo is an animal that will help you deal with your enemies. For example, the first one you meet early on in the game is a crocodile who will go almost everywhere you do and attack the enemy on command to help in big firefights. I won’t spoil what the other ones are but there is a decent variety and they each have their own specialty. Of course with the world of Far Cry 6 being so big you need a quick way to get around and that is where the vehicles come in. Three is a wide range of vehicles from cars, trucks, ATVs, jet skis, boats, and more. Some of the optional missions are timed when you are racing to try and get a supply drop before Castillo’s army does so using those vehicles is going to be an important part of your success in those instances.



As I mentioned up above you will want to scavenge the environment for items that will help you progress in the game. You can use these items to upgrade weapons, give your army a chance against Castillo’s by adding on to encampments, and more. You will also want to buy some maps as soon as you can so that hidden guerrilla bases appear on the map, which will allow you to fast travel quickly to their location, even if it is a part of the world you haven’t visited yet. In addition to all of this, there are a lot of collectibles to be found from criptograma charts, roosters, USB songs, and hidden histories. You will also want to keep an eye out for people that have an exclamation mark above their head as that means they have some information for you that you can use. This information can range from where an enemy checkpoint is located, to where the next supply drop is, them wanting you to help ambush the enemy at a certain location, and more.

If you are thinking that this sounds pretty fun but it would be better with a friend, you are in luck. Far Cry 6 does feature an online co-op so that you and a buddy can wreak havoc together. You can drop in and drop out at any time while you are completing campaign missions, side quests, or whatever. Unfortunately, this co-op is online-only, meaning that you can’t team up with someone sitting on the couch next to you.



As I am progressing through the story and exploring the world, not everything is perfect. One thing that would really annoy me is the placement of the notification when you were leaving one area and entering the next. The reason this was bothersome to me is that it was on the bottom left of the screen where my minimap was located. If I was trying to reach a location and using the minimap as my guide, these notifications would block my view and there were a number of times where I missed a turn because of it so I had to do a quick u-turn to get back on track. There were a few times when I felt that enemy detection was off as well. There was one specific instance where I was walking around on the outside of a base with no one around but all of a sudden the enemy was sent into high alert and everyone started coming after me. It was strange as just a few moments beforehand I had scanned the environment and didn’t see anyone. There are also a number of different add-ons and different items that you can buy to use in Far Cry 6 but unfortunately, the store wasn’t working prior to the release of the game so I can’t really say if there is anything worthwhile in there.

I had a lot of fun playing Far Cry 6. It utilizes the standard Far Cry formula, which for me isn’t a bad thing at all. I had fun running around the world capturing bases, intercepting supply drops, helping out the people of Yara, and more. If you have played the previous Far Cry titles you pretty much know what to expect here in terms of gameplay. It is a fairly safe approach to a new entry in this series but I don’t mean that in a bad way. Far Cry games are popular for a reason and they stuck with what works. If you are a fan of the previous entries in this franchise, you should feel right at home here and have some fun. If you haven’t enjoyed the previous Far Cry titles then Far Cry 6 probably won’t be the game that changes in your mind. If you are a newcomer and you are deciding whether to jump in, I say absolutely it as long as you enjoy these big open-world games. There is a good amount of variety here to experience, including a cockfighting mini-game but I don’t want to spoil the details on that. I enjoyed my time in Yara and I look forward to seeing how Ubisoft will support it over time.

Note: Ubisoft provided us with a code for Far Cry 6 for review purposes.