As I sat down to play Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there was actually another game on my hitlist I decided to pick up. Knowing the absolute depths of despair that was Odyssey, I thought the sequel to the actually halfway decent Far Cry 5 would act as a fine palette cleanser between torture sessions of 'The Viking adventure that never bloody ends!' But you know what- I ended up literally falling asleep during my playthroughs of Far Cry 6 so often that I literally forgot to take notes. I mean, what was I going to notify? How boring the game was? Far Cry 6 feels like such a distinct backstep from Far Cry 5 I can't help but suspect it was developed by a B studio during the development of 5 who just didn't really understand the franchise, how it's combat functioned, or how it's villians are supposed to be presented. And in efforts of what is perhaps the laziest Far Cry I've played to date, here's the laziest review I could muster.
Yara is their version of Cuba, without the direct finger pointing that got the Mercenary 2 devs in trouble. (Pretty sure the Venezuelan government are still pissed about that game.) And despite the fact that all previewss showed us urban combat sections that promised to revolutionise the Far Cry formula- that was all a lie. Yara is a jungle again, and largely flat unambitious jungle at that. It all looks pretty, of course, the prettiest a jungle can look- but it's mechanically underutilised in the exploration of the world. The game is stuffed with checkpoints to make driving annoying, anti-air gun sites to make the new flying options annoying and an amazingly lacklustre 'wanted' system to make general mayhem causing annoying. I don't think any Far Cry has made me feel less in control of the flow of battle than 6 has less a master of exploiting my environment, less a predator- in a game about being a literal Guerrilla! I don't even think wild animals even factor into the gameplay loop at all, so you can no longer exploit them to take outposts for you. It's just such a nothing world that I struggle to remember any specific moments of note exploring it's open sections- which is ghastly in a franchise that has been exceptional at that since Far Cry 2!
In an attempt to make their combat 'more involved' the team absolutely wrecked the easy-to-pick-up combat flow of the Far Cry games. Now there's a rock-paper-scissors system in the game where you have to juggle differing ammo types in order to deal with different types of enemies and weapons can no longer be purchased but have to be picked up from random locations across the world or crafted for rare materials. And also there's a low-key level locking system in the background that requires the pursuing of stronger equipment else you'll suddenly find bullets killing you much quicker for...some reason... It's a slight RPG revision to tried and true FPS combat which falls apart the second the game grants you your first modded weapon- a silenced rifle with armour piercing rounds. Because armour piercing cuts through anything. There's no longer a scaling procession of enemy archetypes who slowly come to invalidate your early game methods causing you to change up strategies, even heavily armoured light machine gun wielders die to a silenced AP headshot. I... don't think anyone actually thought this combat through, to be frank.
Far Cry 6 features a plethora of side characters, although to call them 'characters' might just be a insult to the craft of writing because from where I'm sitting they were all 'quirky traits' with facial features. Most seemed either too melodramatic to feel grounded in a story about revolution, or comic relief foil that seemed to relish in murder and mayhem- but in a 'Saints Row- we're too cool for consequences' sort of way, not a Far Cry type 'Wow, these personalities make me nervous' kind of way. They are an unbelievable and unmemorable cast who made me long for the Far Cry 2 mission where you are forced to kill all your friends in order to escape the River of Darkness. Only the Legends of Old Yara has a bit of actual character to them, and even then it wasn't exactly clever or insightful character- but sort of more the bare basic 'faded heroes who have grown jaded with their seemingly fruitless efforts' type of archetype we've seen before. A real step down from the Far Cry 5 side cast who I still remember to this day, even if most of them felt like they were leaning this more slapstick direction the whole time.
Far Cry 6 carries on the Ubisoft modern day tradition of not really having a core story of coherent events and progressing narrative, although at least this game has actual cutscenes to create the illusion of plot movement. Still, for a lot of the time the game provides basic one-and-done activities and calls them quests, in a manner that greatly undermines some of the actual climatic set pieces of past games. There are no moments like getting thrown off a waterfall and rising up to siege the bandit camp in Far Cry 3, being slapped into an arena of colour of mayhem in Far Cry 4 or even the prison siege in Cry Cry 5. The best I remember is a hotel siege near the late stages of the game that felt less structured and more like a prolonged wave defence from a team that never playtested the mission and so had no clue if the scene was going on too long or not. (It was. It went on way too long.) Even the two mission that take place in the supremely restrictive tunnel of streets that make up the capital, feel supremely withdrawn and intimate for what are supposed to be massive events of Guerrilla upheaval. Ubisoft dropped the ball severely with selling the fiction.
Far Cry's side content has never been the strongest with Far Cry 3's side mission perhaps boasting quite literally the worst acting to ever make it into a AAA game. Far Cry 6's side content- is largely unvoiced. In fact, a lot of it is really badly implanted notice-board style requests that seem to exist only to try and find a way for hunting to fit into the game, considering they seemed to have exorcised the collecting of animal parts from the core gameplay loop altogether. Exploration is as unfocused and scatter-brained as typical Ubisoft fair. Oh, and if you sign up to their cross over event with Stranger Things, do yourself a favour and complete it all in your first go around. If you need to exit out at any point you'll be kicked out and locked from ever playing again. Just a little collaboration breaking bug that is well reported and was never fixed. Because Ubisoft is a company full of clowns with 'developer' badges on.
And then there's the worst crime. The villain. Far Cry's most memorable claim to fame have been their supremely memorable villains, all supremely distinct and character driven if one note and occasionally hammy. But I think something broke in the Far Cry team around about the development of 5 where the pressure of one-upping themselves cracked the writing team in two. Joseph Seed is a dish cloth of a villain, but all the lore around him makes the man sound like a golden voiced mastermind of manipulation. But he's so boring in person. Anton Castille... is just Giancarlo Esposito. Everything that makes him interesting to watch is Giancarlo's performance, because his written dialogue is utter nonsequential babble. "Truth or lies" is his catchphrase, a choice with little consequence as the purpose or value of lies in never once brought up or considered, even by the lying dictator of the secret slave state. He makes a belated analogies to growing up with his father that are underlined with menace in performance, but are surface deep in analogue. He captures Diego on a boat, so talks about fishing with his dad. That it a literal example of what these people thought appropriately constituted the entirety of his perhaps six speeches throughout the game. (Anton communicates only in one-sided monologues, obviously. Can't be enigmatic in a conversation, afterall!) You just know the writers heard his 'Lucuma tree' story from Better Call Saul and totally missed the obvious analogy dripping in that expertly crafted and delivered story.
All and all- Far Cry 6 is the least interesting, most passionless, least playtested, most pathetic Far Cry game I have ever played. (I haven't played Far Cry 1, Primal or New Dawn. For context.) But do you want to know the worst thing? It's still better than the last two games I've played of Ubisoft's other current major franchises, Valhalla and Legion. It is much shorter than Valhalla, so it's boredom doesn't quite have time to set in the soul. And it has a functional complete gameplay loop, albeit one it steals from past games with no significant additions of it's own whatsoever, which makes it better than Legion's horrifically threadbare coma of a game. Far Cry 6 is the most Ubisoft Far Cry game ever, even without the tower-collecting that usually characterises this franchise. It is so Ubisoft, because it is the point at which the franchise finally drained the last vestige of it's unique identity, personal character and became as factory-produced as a AAA video game can possible be. Inoffensive, uncreative, unambitious, boring. D grade. For being such a disappointment.
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