Far Cry 6 Review

This was a title that always intrigued me. Mainly because it was the game that even people who stuck around with Far Cry after 4 don't like. Those who still enjoyed the Ubisoft open world formula aren't big on this title. There is also the fact that Far Cry used to release games annually or bi annually from Far Cry 3 up until Far Cry 6. This whole thing couldn't help but make me think, "how sub par is it" or "can there at least some enjoyment I can get out of this?" I decided to go through the series proper after my replay of FC3 and it got me more and more curious. After playing the game for about 33 hours, I can see why the series has been on a lengthy hiatus after this game's release. I wanted to say it's at least an okay game with enjoyable moments like Far Cry 5 and New Dawn but instead FC6 just test my patience the more I pressed on. I can't deny there are some interesting moments here and there which is why I finished the game but I also groaned a lot when playing the game in the moment.

The story might be something I'm more on the positive side about all though that depends. The game has an interesting spin on the premise of, "let's overthrow an evil tryannical dictator" story. It acknowledges that even by overthrowing the antagonist Anton Castillo, that alone won't fix everything and the real rebuilding has only begun. There is also stuff like how even some of the members of the various groups you meet throughout the game even admitted for voting for Anton which gives him more nuance as a villain. There is also some rather shocking moments like how McKay even mentions what Canada did to Indigenous people as an example to help Dani see reason. Anton himself tries to teach his son the way to rule with Dieago questioning and being confused by a lot of it. Anton didn't even want to have children at first but slowly started had an idea of having one.

Anton is one of the series' better villains considering Pagan Min was interesting at the start and at the end of his game. Joseph Seed was basically a 3D chess master who gets anywhere by cheating. Anton has more story about him revealed through the course of the game and doesn't cheat. He's the best since Vaas.

This is where things get on the negative side because all of this stuff I said, these moments are few and far between compared to what most of the game actually is. Most of the game is spent gather a bunch of resistance fighters to join your cause and that is what the game's plot is. You are basically doing all the work for Clara and she takes all the credit for what you do in the game. It was hard not to get annoyed that I'm just doing something for someone else. The scenes with Anton also get further and furthur apart. You could either do the "Dead Drops" mission either very early or late in the game and it's one of the first and few times Dani and him meet. It will either be very early or late into the game depending on when you do it.

To add one piece of positivity Dani is at least more entertaining than the Deputy from FC5 and has a fun enough personality to watch in the moment.

This leads to gameplay and this is where the game grinds my gears. On paper, it's the same FC gameplay that is introduced in 3. There are some changes now that are for the worst. The first big issue is that the most useful and powerful gun you get in the game is given to you right at the start. That is the MS16. Give it some armor pirecing rounds, a russian supressor and an ACOG sight and you can tackle many of the game's enemy encounters with ease.

On action difficulty, this weapon can break stealth in half the same way the tranq gun in a lot of the Metal Gear Solid sequels. Headshots are very satisfying to pull off which is a massive point to FC6's favor. The AI is much worse than past games. It will be a miracle if they will even be able to gang up and overwhelm you. It doesn't help that enemy locations are now red blots on the mini map so no need for tagging and looking for vantage points. 

To top all this you get a special move weapon called a "supremo" and the one you start with sends multiple rockets that can destroy much sturdier targets including helicoptors and tanks. The issues stem from whether or not the rockets hom in or are fired at in an arc. The former seems to happen when it feels like it. The insanely long recharge time also makes it inconvienent to use. I would buy a rocket launcher for my 3rd weapon slot but you now need to find blue prints to purchase it at a black market. Making it inconvient.

After a point, I lowered to story difficulty and started hip firing enemies with a custom LMG because I was just bored.

The reason for this is because the world is too damn big. Much of the missions of the game is either CoD campaign style scripted missions or doing it an outpost neither of which will be that long and then it's back to trekking from one side of the map to the other. The missions themselves can be very samey. The big issue is how much time spent traversing large stretches of land. Every place you have to takes ages to get to.

What doesn't help that security checkpoints deflats car tires and anti air cannons shoots down helicoptors and since missions is how you progress through the story, I wanted to get to them already adding even more to the tedious treks through the open world.

Overall, if the world was much smaller, it'd okay to find ways to mess with the broken AI and ponder on it's interesting story ideas but it's impossible due to the bloated open world.