Review: Far Cry 6

We got our vaccine passports, travelling papers, weapons, cigars, fighting spirt. Everything ready to start the liberation. Viva la libertad!

Hey Macarena!

We are already at Far Cry 6, the latest in the series, and what a party it is. I had the pleasure, thanks to a review copy, to enjoy this feast early and report to you people how my travel through Yara has been. After copies of Far Cry 3, this one feels honestly refreshing. It is a good sign for me when I just want to explore and get new items, not progress the story, to not finish it to quickly, and with this one, this is happily the case.

Every second I walk through Yara, it is a fun to explore. It is fun to do mission and every fight feels challenging. Your progression isn’t tied to some weird tatoos or other “magic”, but it is tied to the items you find, craft and loot. Not the right item at the moment? Be prepared to have your booty whooped. I am a stealthplayer first and a “rambo” second. I will try to kill as many as I can before I go in guns blazing, and this is the preferred method of this game.

As in previous entries of the series, you have outposts you need to clear, and those have the alarms that need to be destroyed or disabled, so they can not call in reinforcements, and to be honest, it is best you disable those, otherwise you might be overwhelmed by powerful enemies.

As in previous entries, a sense of humour isn’t lost on the developers and you get the crazy backpack weapons crafted by Uncle Juan, that give you extras like for example rocket launcher on your back. The most fun weapon I found, and which also has been teased in trailers, is the gun that shoots CD’s based on the New Dawn saw gun, with the fun extra that when you aim, it will play the summer hit of the 90’s, Macarena. Nothing is more fun than taking over an outpost while doing the “macarena”.

Tocking 7

One of the things they changed in this one, is the addition of animal companions that you can call next to you, instead of the human companions in far cry 5 and New Dawn. Chorizo, the disabled wiener dog, has been teased before in trailers, and is an absolute joy to play with. Not only is he adorable and I do my extra best to protect the little guy when he gets shot at, but he is useful in taking over outposts. You have Guapo, the crocodile, the one with the golden tooth. He is less subtle than Chorizo, but more deadly. Enemies will run when they see him coming. The one that looked most fun, but one I haven’t found yet (despite my 13 hours in game) is the rooster, Chicarron. I would love to send this feisty rooster towards an enemy and see what happens. No luck yet.

What I have found, and might upset animal lovers, is that you can do a cock fight mini game,which looks so similar to a fighting game, that I had to call this heading after one of my favourite fighting games (Guess which one).

Weapons

Weapons. Otherwise it would be a dull first person shooter. This one has plenty to offer in that sense. Plenty of customatisation too. Every weapon can be customized with upgrades that you craft yourself, using the workbenches that are stationed almost anywhere that you plant your flag (eg. an outpost you have taken over). Juan has a rule for that somewhere. You need resources to craft those weapons, but they are not that hard to find, but also it gives you a challenge to find them.

Like in Far Cry 5, you need to find the weapon before you can use it. This makes it more fun to explore the map and track the hints the developers have given you to find the weapons. It gave me a great satisfaction (cue rolling stones) to find the one bow I was looking for.

Accessibility

When you start the game, as I was very pleasantly surprised, as this is sadly not yet the norm in gaming, there is a very wide selection of accessibility options so we, disabled folks, can customize the game so we can enjoy the experience as well, and not have to endure the onslaught to our senses or miss out because the game doesn’t have a color filter that matches our colorblindness. What I also liked, and I haven’t seen it before, was the option to set the menu’s to an easier version, so people with learning disabilities, like me, can enjoy the game when the menu’s become overwhelming.

The content warning at the beginning of the game is one that also makes you feel that they have taken care of you, and I must say that it is greatly appreciated. To be honest, it would be better if they mark certain missions with a trigger warning, instead of only at the beginning of the game, so you know that you can take on that mission if you are ready for it, as for a story mission, where something triggering for me happened, I was having a good day, but cried when it happened because it triggered me.

Not all sunshine and roses

It is sad that nowadays things have bugs, but I can gladly say that this isn’t riddled with them. Like I said, I have traversed Yara quite a lot. I have 13 hours in the game, and I kept a list of all the bugs I have encountered, and I only encountered a handful. I encountered floating assets, bushes that were floating at a checkpoint. Smoke that looked pixellated. A camp that respawned several times while I was still in it and only seconds before cleared it. A story-character that was invisible at the beginning of the game (being extra vague so you don’t get spoilers), and last one anti-aircraft that I couldn’t destroy due to a weird bug that was fixed after a reboot. These are all the things I encountered during my 13 hours.

One thing that did bug me though, was one of the luitenents that I saw at the beginning of the game, was a man missing a leg (with a prosthetic), but still. We, disabled people are sick of having the disabled villain trope done to us. I get why that luitanent would have a prosthetic leg, being in the military, but still…

conclusion

Like you have read, I think this is the best follow up Ubisoft could concoct to Far Cry New Dawn and I am looking forward to the content they are going to bring during the year, as I will be sipping this one like a finely aged rhum, together with a nice cigar, together with Uncle Juan and taking over Yara.

Bella Ciao! Viva la Libertad.