Far Cry 6 review: An action-packed, exhilarating fight against tyranny

Let's start with where you will be spending your time while playing, the beautiful island of Yara. Less beautiful is how the country is run as it is under the rule of a tyrannical leader who is happy to kill anyone and everyone - and he wants his son to grow up to be the same.

Yara is the best playground Far Cry has given us yet. This is a huge map and full of things to do. Each main area of Yara feels different. You have the more urban areas, the rural, the beachside - each has its own quirks and its own type of people and getting the lay of the land was a joy.

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Our hero here is Dani and you can choose the gender you will play as. I played as the female version of the character so I'll be referring to Dani as a 'her' but the choice is yours right off the bat. Dani is a really strong character - helped by the fact that we get to see her in cut scenes and in third person form at base camps, which is something the Far Cry franchise has not done before. She is voiced perfectly by Nisa Gunduz (and I did start the game with the male voice to compare and Sean Rey is equally as good).

Her journey is a simple one and there may not be a ton of depth in her writing, but she's relatable, fun, likeable and I'd be more than happy to spend more time with her. It's worth noting here there are no major differences between female and male Dani.

Travelling between areas on this vast map can admittedly be a bit of a chore. Fast travel zones are few and far between and even after nearing the end of the game, there were still moments of needing to get somewhere with no quick way of heading there. Your best bet here is to clear the airspace by taking out the anti-aircraft sights whenever you are near one, at least you can fly quicker then.

That being said, you'll be up in the air a lot anyway. You have a wingsuit and a parachute which will both be used frequently. Rather than fast travelling to a hideout, you can airdrop in and it's a handy way of travelling that extra bit of distance faster, even if the mechanics of the wingsuit are a bit cumbersome. Hilariously with the parachute, you can pull your rip chord from a mere few feet off of the ground and survive the landing - silly, but handy.

Speaking of silly, Dani's quest can be aided by animals that will do her bidding. The first two you get are a crocodile, and then after that comes Chorizo - AKA the cutest gaming companion in years. As fun as they are, they do feel at odds with the very serious and relatively realistic storyline that is going on. You can target areas and they will go off and attack for you, although it felt like most of the time I was reviving them when they get taken out.

Combat feels great and extremely satisfying. Getting headshots is fairly simple and always fun and there is enough variety in the weapons, particularly with all the mods and improvements you can make, to make gaming weapon enthusiasts happy. If like me, you aren't a massive fan of filtering through mods and making a weapon all it can be, you don't have to use the workbench that lets you do all this that frequently. It's there for those who love it which is great, but it never felt like it was a consistent necessity.

One thing notable about the combat was how less satisfying it became when switched from playing on the Xbox Series X to the One S. It felt far clunkier on the older model and while differences are to be expected, it was a bit of a surprise how much worse it was. Happily, most of the game was played on the X for this review, but it is something to bear in mind if you haven't yet been able to upgrade.

As for the weapons, there's a wide variety here and many of them are fun. A lot tend to be parts from different tidbits that have been assembled to make weapons and trying several out of them was fun. I didn't really feel the need to change weapons too often though, but the choice is welcome. You also get a super weapon of sorts that can do things like fire multiple rockets and it's here where the fun of experimenting came into play.

As for the main missions, there's a nice amount of variety to them that range from blowing up giant gas canisters to saving prisoners, and all kinds of different things done to grow power within your network. Before Dani can take on the main foe, she needs to build up enough support to bring him down, and then means trying to convince all the rival gangs on Yara to unite against a common enemy. You earn their trust by completing missions for them and each central character in each group has their own missions with many having vastly different tones.

They do tend to end up feeling like they go the same way too frequently though. Keeping track of how many times I was pitted against a helicopter would be nigh on impossible - it's almost parody level how often they turn up - and there are missions where it feels like you have spent just a tad too long picking off wave after wave of enemy. This only really begins to feel like a problem as you near the end of the game but some may tire of this repetitive nature sooner.

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The difficulty scale is a bit strange. There are only two options and the harder one is super tough, while the easier choice essentially makes you a bullet sponge. It's bizarre there is no in-between here especially considering most gamers tend to opt for 'normal' mode.

The camps you visit and help to develop are populated well enough, with a few fun things to do such as dominoes, or cockfighting - more on that in a moment. However, the upgrades you make don't feel like they are having much impact on the world - or even the people at the camp. It feels like a very stripped-down version of the homesteads in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. In Valhalla, the settlement grows and expands. It feels populated and the people who live there have lives when you aren't there. In Far Cry 6, it doesn't matter if you come back an hour later or a week later - it feels like nothing has changed.

It is possible this is something that Ubisoft plan to grow in Far Cry 7 - and it's welcomed if done right, but here it misses the mark and barely feels worthwhile.

One thing that building camps does do is give you more soldiers for something of a side game. Another form of mission is the Bandino missions. You don't see them take place, but you give the orders from a camp and hope that all your soldiers come back. Rewards ranged from cash to weapons but this is another area of the game that feels tacked on and you could probably skip them altogether with little difference.

So back to cockfighting. The humour we know and love from the series is certainly present in Far Cry 6. And again they manage to get that balance right and it will feel natural going from one mission that's deadly serious to another that's a bit bonkers. Cockfighting is probably the most absurd the game gets. You have to collect your roosters that are dotted around the island and then take them into the ring, but rather than just watching, you become the cock and get a Mortal Kombat style fight - it's glorious and one of several moments of light relief that took me by surprise.

There are bonus missions away from the main campaign called Special ops and while there are only two available to play currently, they are fun distractions from the story. One involves stealing something that will explode if it overheats and requires you to sprint to shadows and water sources as you flee with it. These do not feel essential to the Far Cry 6 experience but they're fine nonetheless.

The game looks great too – certainly the best in the series to date which was to be expected. That’s not to say it looks mind-blowing. There are times where it does, and I spent more time than I should have playing around with photo mode. But get too close to objects like trees and leaves and they soon start to look blocky – a visual treat from afar but not close up. Enemy AI could do with a bit more variation too – it felt like watching the same two or three people die on repeat throughout.

Special mention must go to the soundtrack, not just the score which is beautifully done but the choice of songs too. All fit the area of Yara you are in and there is a great mix of lesser-known tracks with some bigger ones thrown in. And Ricky Martin was played once, so bonus points for that.

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When it comes to issues, there were some moments I would like to erase from my brain. Fishing is a chore with a terrible mechanic that makes me never want to go near a fishing rod again. Ordinarily, this is not a problem as it is a side quest feature, but when one mission forces you to catch one, the frustrations with it soon become apparent. Worse is that there was a man saying the same thing over and over again as I was trying to catch one and blowing him up just made him scream endlessly without dying. It wasn't enjoyable.

There were some strange glitches along the way that forced a couple of restarts. One example was a hunt for crocodiles who seemingly had early news of their impending deaths and fled en masse. There were instances of Dani dying from the smallest of drops and when it happened at a crucial moment. And there were times where our super-powered death weapon missed its target for no reason whatsoever.

But issues aside, Far Cry 6 is a stellar series best for the franchise - certainly the best since Far Cry 3 at any rate. It feels like a natural progression to what these games are, while at the same time experimenting slightly with what they can become. And not only that, but we have some exciting DLC already announced so it looks like this Far Cry adventure is just beginning.

Far Cry 6 launches 7th October 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Google Stadia and Amazon Luna. We reviewed the Xbox Series X version.

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