Oh right... Guess I should review Far Cry 6...

 

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. 

Why is Far Cry 6 so boring?

 

The other day I sat down, duties of the day put to a swift and lasting rest, and loaded up my list of games on Xbox (The computer I'm using currently being somewhat preoccupied for the time.) and clicked up Far Cry 6. I found myself loading into a cave wherein a quirky mad scientist with a dog in a wheelchair told me to gather up three somethings-or-others in order to get his napalm machine up-and-running, that being where I had left the game some month or so beforehand. And do you know what I did? Do you know what my course of action from there was? I turned off the game. Just like that. I sighed, somehow instantly exhausted from that 5 seconds of simply realising what it was the game was asking me to do, and I suddenly became too tired to play games. That, in itself, is an achievement for which I award only a very few games in my life- Far Cry 6 makes gaming unappealing.

To be fair, though, I can't pretend that Far Cry 6 is the only game which has done this very same thing to me over the past few weeks. I also found myself affronted with the very same insta-exhaustion after loading into Assassin's Creed Valhalla once and being faced with a 'clear the camp' objective, but I came around on the chore eventually. Far Cry 6, I've been unable to come back and pick up again- and it's starting to worry me somewhat. I always knew that Valhalla was going to be a challenge to endure after the road-rash that was playing through the entirety of Odyssey, but Far Cry has never dragged for me before. Hell, I finished Far Cry 5, my previous least favourite Far Cry game, twice for some reason. Once on the hard-mode. Why is it that I can't stomach even a preliminary playthrough of 6? Where has the magic of Far Cry got lost?

I found the very start of Far Cry 6 to be very awkward, in the way that the game seemed confused about the fantasy it was attempting to perpetrate. The context and narrative wanted to tell me it was about a rag-tag guerrilla army squaring off against a fascistic military dictatorship, but the game's idea of deliberate and ramshackle home-made assault landed me a back-mounted missile launcher pretty darn quickly. And a one-shot armour piercing rifle, which seems to totally invalidate the new 'ammo type based' gameplay system, as my literal second weapon in the entire game. And from there, almost 10 hours later, the game never really found it's footing. Far Cry 6 hasn't really gotten around to enforcing it's premise, or enriching it's fantasy, really at all. It kind of feels like the game just wanted to push me out into it's open world as quickly as possible and pray that everything came together from there. It didn't.

For me the real problems with Far Cry 6 start with it's characters, none of which seem to fully grasp the world they're currently living in save for your soon-to-be-dead friends from the very intro. Everyone seems just that tad too extreme and archetypical, silly, overdramatic, incomprehensively grumpy and largely annoying. They all seem to want to be my friend, which contrasts wildly with the Far Cry I know wherein most of the cast are self-driven and potentially suspicious. Where it's sometimes difficult to tell if that CIA agent is really working with you in this moment of aligned goals, or pushing you into deeper into a hole you can't escape so they can walk over you to get what they want done. Characters in those games were sometimes deranged, sometimes duplicitous but never so obvious that I figured out who they were in a single conversation and then filed them away under (cardboard cutout) before the game could get anything out edgeways.

Now I don't want to pretend that Far Cry 6 doesn't try with it's characters, because rather uncharacteristic of the Ubisoft brand- they actually did. These people have character moments and emotional pitfalls and actual professional voice acting performances! (God I missed effort from all my time playing Valhalla.) The problem is that none of these characters are interesting, or different, or note worthy. They all feel like trace-jobs over various 'break out' characters from popular franchises, ripped from their context and slapped in the middle of a Far Cry game to hopefully stand out. They aren't products of the cruel Cuba-analogy world they inhabit, they're products of the pithy Marvel Universe or a zany James Gunn production- they swear, fully embody their one quirk and undergo very basic arcs that basically just further affirm their own personalities even harder. They're one trick ponies, to a man.

And then there's the presentation, terminally confused I would call it. For some unexplainable reason every time you enter a mission giving camp the game shunts you into third person mode, something no other Far Cry game has ever done, forcibly subjecting the player to the fashionable disastrous visage of whatever crude selection of armour you've chosen to don yourself in. Again, for no reason. It adds nothing. And then there's the actual mission briefings themselves. Presented like it's an MMO, with a control-arresting context screen whilst the quest giver talks lifelessly at the camera and explains the context behind the mission. Of course, this somehow respects your time worse than your average MMO given there's no written summary of the trash they've got to say, skip it an you'll have to figure things out on the go. (The plot is largely paper-thin anyway, you don't need a PHD to guess without the brief.)

Then there's just the lack of cohesion between the world and the gameplay we're supposed to engage with. Fascistic dictatorship that stamps on our freedoms? How, with those increadibly rare outposts that are so sparsely manned you can drive right through them without picking up a tail? Jungle pathways and horse hitching posts, presenting the resourcefulness of underdog as an alternative play style? Why bother when I can summon a bullet-proof turret mounted car at any time for no cost? The game utterly fails to reinforce the guerrilla fantasy in it's characters, it's world, it's systems- (the guerrilla weapons are all laughably useless in general play) it's only really the narrative desperately insisting that we're playing as scrappy cave dwellers to remind me what this game is even supposed to be about- which makes it hard to bring the disparate pieces of the game's construction together into something, well, cohesive.

I don't want to play any more Far Cry 6 because, to be honest, there's nothing really to it. Far Cry 6 utterly fails to stamp out an identity for itself to justify it's existence as a sovereign entity from any other open world adventure title like the one's Ubisoft spits out bi-annually. They try, but at this point it mostly just comes across as an old man, far past his prime, trying to piece together memories of his glory days to breathe some form of life back into them- whatever that's worth. "Lets do the flamethrower mission, reviewers loved that ten years ago!", "Oh, the bad guy needs to make a speech here- make it rambling and circular- it'll be just like the Vaas scene!" There's no soul to the game. And you want to know the worse part? I'm still going to play it. Not today. Not tomorrow. But some day. Why? Because I hate myself. And I want to suffer. And whilst no one exists to tell me stop, who cares enough to try and keep this thin scattering of dying neurons I call a mind healthy- I'm going to keep drowning them with pathetic trash just like this until my eyes pop. So thanks Ubisoft- your mediocrity will literally be the death of me.

Ubi-Cry 6: Lost the magic.

Punching bag: Acquired. 

When it comes to my admonishment of what it is that Ubisoft has become and how their lacklustre approach to video game design has erased their heart, it can be hard to really present that to a public still caught up in their nostalgic memories of how the company used to make them feel. I mean, Assassin's Creed Valhalla was a commercial and critical success despite the bad taste that game left in people's mouth as a perfect amalgamation of all the things wrong with the obvious design trends the Ubisoft machine has been treading towards for years now. Bloated narrative, ceaseless busy tasks, challenge represented only by damage numbers and limp RPG-lite levelling structures. What you need is something overtly bland and empty coming out of the company. A presentation so unashamedly soulless and paint-by-numbers that it defies the nostalgia centres of the brain in how blatantly 'modern Ubisoft' it has become. Oh, hi there: Far Cry 6: Lost Between Worlds!

Seemingly based on a similar naming convention to Disney's worst performing animated movie of all time, Lost Between Worlds is a DLC that follows the convention of the other Far Cry 6 offerings. "Screw building upon the base game, let's do something different!" An approach that Far Cry has been desperately chasing for years now ever since the release and success of 'Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon'; A game which outlets are now telling me 'perfectly nailed the Ubisoft gameplay loop without dragging it out'. (Huh, and I thought 'Blood Dragon' was mind-numbingly boring; guess I'm just not cut out for the Ubisoft style.) Far Cry 6 has spent it's time trying to psychoanalyze the many villains of it's franchise and call it DLC, to varying results; but their latest DLC offering is perhaps the purest distillation of the Ubisoft vision. An undiluted liquid embodiment of exactly how creatively empty Ubisoft is at a deeply core level that cannot be rectified. They went the 'Survive' route.

If you don't remember, back when Hideo Kojima had his falling out with Konami and was forced to leave his Metal Gear franchise behind on his way out the door; Konami took to try and immediately prove why they didn't need the help of the auteur to make their games. So the suits rushed to Metal Gear to pool their ideas, and then immediately took to snatching all the most overdone and tired industry tropes to be guidelines for their next big MGS entry. As such, a franchise formed around spy-action narratives that intelligently explored wider themes that sometimes went as far as to touch on pertinent political issues through the lens of fiction suddenly became a Survival game about base building during a alt-dimension apocalypse full of crystal-head zombies. I get whiplash every-time I think of that genre switch, and so did the audience given that Metal Gear Survive has widely been rejected as the most pathetically soulless entry to a popular AAA game franchise ever conceived.

Well, Ubisoft ensures none of it's franchises can ever gain something of a unified creative lead that could instil a personal heart and identity inside any of it's series; so there's no real over-arching vision to betray with any of their design choices. Still, Far Cry has been a franchise that largely explores mostly everyday people being thrown into environments or circumstances that are a 'far cry' from the world that they are used to. (Yes, that is why the franchise is called that.) Large crosshairs that could theoretically touch on anything; yet somehow even then a limp dimension hoping narrative with colourful crystal-headed enemies and a conveniently weak 'shattered geometry' aesthetic feels just that bit too far. In that, it feels just unrepentantly and irredeemably bland. Something that I'm sure Ubisoft is getting very familiar with hearing of late.

The world of Far Cry 6 was, surprise surprise, it's greatest asset at launch. The Ubisoft development team in charge of creating the worlds of their games are always underserved by the games built around them, and it's almost as if those teams are kept in a total vacuum away from the rest of development. But I digress. Lost Between Worlds drags players out of the revolutionary land of Yara and throws them into 'generic land' with crystal shards, island fauna and bright colours everywhere. Now on paper, that actually somewhat visually interesting, doesn't it? Yet in practice it deflates like a popped balloon and I just can't figure out why! Everything you want is there, surely; you have bright colours, broad tropical fauna and... and... Man, I felt the same way about Far Cry New Dawn...

There was another game that sought to shake up the base Far Cry experience with a totally out-of-left-field journey, although that time it was in a mutated apocalypse that tried to mix the chaos of Mad Max with the colourful whimsy of Fallout and fell short of both. I think the difficulty with really identifying the key issue is identifying everything obvious is in the recipe that made both of these concepts work, from which we can distil that New Dawn's problem is more intrinsic. As superficial as it feels to just say, I think what Ubisoft's modern games are lacking, even in what should be their most creative ventures, is the charm and soul of these worlds. Splashing colour on a canvass is going to light it up, but without the intelligence of impassioned design and purposeful intent, these settings feel kitschy and synthetic.

Which doesn't even go into mention the absolutely laughable proposition of enemy types, as though Far Cry has envisioned any new enemy types since 3. Every outing brings us the standard units and then the heavies, and every thing else in the entire game is just additional bullet fodder. I don't think the FPS model of Far Cry provides enough dynamism in it's design to allow for meaningful enemy types. Sticking different colours on the AI heads doesn't bridge that gap or fill in that maw of design; it just makes them easier to spot and shoot against the scenery. And again, it just reeks of that lack of creative and intuitive spirit which shackles the entire Ubisoft line-up. Has the development team ever been reckless enough to really test the limits of their gameplay to find new avenues of fun? Of course not, and they won't; not in this DLC, and not in any future release of any key Ubisoft franchise.

I know I'm making these analytical dunks on the nature of Ubisoft pretty often, but I feel the need to remind myself just what exactly we're missing out on with all the wasted talent at Ubisoft. My review of Watch_Dogs Legion was born of the frustration of a company that have been making the same mistakes for years now, on every single on of their entries, and the bitterness of realising what everything that their games could have been. Right now the only game they have which is pulling any weight for them is Mario and Rabbids; which still felt like a bit of a weird award win for them when paired next to it's weighty competitors. Ubisoft lost the magic of the dreamweavers long ago, and more and more I see their dead, animated husk callously shovel out mediocre trite and it just breaks my heart, year after year.

Far Cry 6: An even farer cry

 Cry harder

Do you know where the term 'Far Cry' comes into the far cry games; it's significance and meaning? I only ask, because I'm starting to think that Ubisoft themselves have blanked once or twice with the definition. It's simple actually, the 'Far Cry' refers to being put in a situation that's a 'far cry' from your typically world and day to day. Now if we take that to be directed at the gamer than this is a pretty stupid and meaningless title because literally every game lines up with that, but if we instead match that up with each game protagonist then it sort of makes sense. This is a series about people being thrown vastly out of the depth and struggling to survive against the odds; that's your 'Far Cry' in a nutshell. Far Cry 1 had a mercenary who ended up stranded on an island which eventually became overrun with mutants; Far Cry 2 had another mercenary who rocked up for a quick assassination and ended up being at the centre of an African civil war. Far Cry 3 starred a gang of annoying rich kids being abducted by pirates and 4 had a young man returning to his land of birth before ending up a freedom fighter in a civil war against a king-tyrant. All examples of characters thrown out of their depth and hoping to survive. Far Cry 5 was perhaps the greatest test of this model, as it was specifically designed to be based on cookie cutter recognisable America, but the murder cult systematically brainwashing the local populace really pushed things back into 'Far Cry' territory. As such, I think that Far Cry 6 might represent the first major deviation from the concept.

Don't get me wrong, at paper on face value it works. We have a military droppout in a fictional south American country trying to escape with their life and ending up as a guerrilla warrior for their homeland. Sure. Except something doesn't sit right by me. It starts with this being the land of your birth, something that's been stressed in the trailers we've already seen, which means this place and it's dictator are well known to the character before the events of the game. Then there's the fact that this is a person thrown into a position of warfare, which is a situation they'd be familiar with being a military drop-out. (I've always loved, and thus will miss, the unexplainable lunacy of 'this trust fund kid just gutted an entire boat of hardened pirates without breaking a sweat.') And the kicker, the part which really makes me scratch my head and wonder if Ubisoft have completely lost their reference guide for their games, is the fact that we as gamers have been here before. A country on the verge of civil war because of the tyrannical machinations of a charismatic despot? That's Far Cry 4! I played that game, it was good. Why are we looking at the exact same premise just lifted to another continent? Are Ubisoft truly that lost on ideas that they're forced to cannibalise their old ones? (Big if true.)

It fits a pattern in Ubisoft that I have been signalling about for a while now: the homogenisation of their games to the detriment of each franchise's soul. Assassin's Creed, for example, literally has no right to bear it's namesake anymore because it has nothing to do with Assassination and only adds those systems as poorly implemented afterthoughts nowadays. Rainbow Six, is a freaking zombie shooter game now that we'll go into at a later date. Splinter Cell is totally missing in action for another whole year, unless you count that garish mobile game which Sam is set to make a cameo in. (I don't. You shouldn't really either.) So whilst fans who watched the Ubisoft E3 event were picking through the scene we saw an critiquing the quality, or lack thereof, of the visuals; (It actually had worse visual atmosphere and lighting than the Far Cry 4 intro) I was looking further and wondering if we're getting to the point where Far Cry is going to start losing it's soul like Assassin's Creed has.

Having to think like that is a total shame too, because barring this anaemic footage in Ubisoft's pretty rough E3 showcase, I think that the Far Cry 6 footage we've already been seeing is actually pretty cool. It's very cool in fact. I think Yara, the fictional country we're 'liberating' this time around, is actually incredibly beautiful and expansive, maybe enough to justify some more topographical variance then we saw in the last entry. I love the fact we're going to have a large built-up urban area to explore at that will be the first time in the series for such a battlegrounds, and the fact we're even looking at getting to pilot tanks sounds nigh-on transformative. (Heck, at this rate we may even be granted the chance to finally get in one of the those attack helicopters that have plagued us since Far Cry 3) There's also the atmosphere of Yara that seems a formula for success, with half of it leaning on this wild untamed wilderness and the other going towards a locked-down military state with barbed wire and nighttime patrols everywhere. (I just hope that's actually represented in game and is not just trailer talk.)

I also really love the amount the effort that's going into the combat side of the game this time around, as often times it has felt like that has taken a back burner during improvements to gimmick stuff that you don't even end up using all that much. Sure, melee weapons are great and all but you'll just end up using those assault rifles at the end of the day, same for all those fancy takedown animations that they obviously put considerable effort into coding. This time around they've taken time to actually get really creative with the guns that you have at your disposal, resulting in very unique fabricated tools that seem like they'll be a lot more memorable to shoot. (Of course I'm talking about the CD-gun which shoots CD fragments at the enemy whilst playing the Macarena)

As for the stars of the show, we could hardly ask for a stronger front man to represent the insane villains that Far Cry retroactively decided they were all about after 3 in Giancarlo Esposito- I mean Giancarlo- wait, his name in game is... ahh who cares. It's Giancarlo. This isn't the first time that they've thrown all their chips behind the villain, but it is the first time they've taken the easy route and just thrown a character actor to do the thing they want. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to Giancarlo, I love him, I'm just not clasping my hands in anticipation for what he might do next. I know this character. I've seen him in Mandalorian, Breaking Bad, The Boys. They've tried to shake things up by giving him a son; "oh he's human now because he has a son and it's all for him, even if it's twisted." Imma be straight with you, Ubisoft, my very first question was "Can I shoot the kid". I sure this villain will be fine, but knowing Ubisoft I'll bet he's underutilised and quickly gone too. (I remember Joseph Seed)

The other star, the protagonist, is where I'm a little more interested for the time being. Far Cry 6 is allowing for a customisable protagonist, like last game, but this one actually has a voice! Whatsmore, and I may be extrapolating above my station here, but it almost sounded like they had a personality in some of the dialogue I've seen. Now that could, and likely will, amount to little more than 'I have the drive to do some stuff I guess', but there's a potential there to create something meaningful and maybe have a protagonist who isn't total trash compared to everyone else. (You know, like Far Cry is known for.) I want to see Dani undergo some form of journey and become someone else by the end, rather than show literally no character development and simply get told that they've evolved in the middle of some incredibly trite side-villain monologue. (>cough< Far Cry 5 >cough<)

So once again I'm of two minds coming towards Far Cry. On one hand I think the game looks like a lot of fun, and on the otherhand I'm losing faith in Ubisoft's ability to provide the quality their studio should be capable of. And I know that fans of these games have been brow-beaten to the point where they consider these 'turn off your brain' games and want for nothing more substantial, yet I'll always be asking for more because I know the team can manage it. There's no reason why Far Cry can't have strong characters and story, and heart, to match it's strong gameplay and I won't rest until that potential is reached. All that being said, Far Cry 6 does look just decent enough to keep my attention so far, even if that special little something hasn't jumped out at me yet. You know what I mean? That little elusive spark of "Oh! That completely turns things on it's head in a creative way." I wonder if Ubisoft even knows what it's like to feel that anymore...

Ubisoft Backward

The more things refuse to change, the more they stay the same.

At the funeral of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, many developers and manufactures took it upon themselves to carry the sodden torch of the yearly gaming-conference out of the noble desire to complete this year's marketing schedule at a fraction of the cost. Trying to go through all of these events one by one is proving taxing, I'm going to be at this forever, but none more so than Ubisoft Forward which is airing at 9:00 PM European time! You're a European based company you bunch of headcases, why are you making us suffer so? But I'm an idiot who's agreed on this strangely convoluted order of writing blogs which means that I'm going to scramble to get this one out in under 3 hours. However, I do have one saving grace in that regard; all Ubisoft games are the exact same so I can just copy and paste my blogs from last year. (That's a joke. No need to check to make sure, though.)

So, having watched the whole reveal event I was struck by one prevailing thought; wow, even when they've put together the event and venue themselves they still decide to fill the air with aimless nattering about nothing in particular. I mean, what exactly will it take to have an event that is actually somewhat focused, Ubisoft? Did you really take time out of our day in order to give a show reel of 'Rainbow Six: Siege' in order to 'Thank the players'? (See: Advertise without any new content.) Was there honestly a prolonged CG trailer mash-up in order to tease 'Elite Squad', Ubisoft's crap-tier mobile crossover title that they revealed a lifetime ago? Where's the real content that we've been waiting for like 'Skull and Bones', 'Gods and Monsters' or, heck, what about 'Beyond Good and Evil 2'? Is BGE 2 still a game that's real? Maybe it would do everyone some good to set the record straight on some of these lingering titles that Ubisoft have dangled about recently. But alas, seems not as the Ubisoft's event, dubbed 'Forward', was as standard, predictable and generic as Ubisoft's games themselves. Still, I thought it was okay.

Am I a settler? I never really took myself as the type of person to forge my own concessions in order to confide to the reality but I find myself doing that more and more with Ubisoft. I think that may come from how early I was at noticing how repetitive their games were (something the rest of the world was slow to cotton-on to.) but I seem to have blown right past the anger and frustration where I'm now slumped into begrudging acceptance. Ubisoft have all the money, talent and scale they need to be trailblazers, just none of the drive and creative freedom. Phil Spencer made a brief appearance during the event to sniff their wind and call them "Industry leaders", but the whole message seemed so canned it only really highlighted what a joke they've become in that regard. At this point, you either get on board with Ubisoft's, mildly antiquated, way of making games or you settle into hating them completely. I want to land on the former. (And as soon as they start charging reasonable prices for their old videogames, that is. You guys aren't Nintendo, so stop pretending you have their value margins.)

I was also very interested by, but not entirely surprised by, the inherent lack of real-time reaction to anything happening on the larger stage. For example, despite the CEO himself popping up in order to wrap up the show, there was no mention made towards the very public resignations that have happened in recent weeks due to sexual harassment allegations. Don't get me wrong, I understand from a business perceptive why that makes sense in order to keep the presentation positive, but it really looks terrible for optics, especially in this age. I can just smell those articles of "Ubisoft ignore their sex-assault investigations during event!" And it's not like they've never taken time out to amend their image before; they straight up apologised for the absolute state of 'Assassin's Creed: Unity' back in the day. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I would have preferred a section of sober condemnation over the waffle which made up roughly 50% of this showcase. (Does that make me a bad person? Probably.)

"What of the games, though? That was why you were there, wasn't it?" And indeed, we did get some rather substantial glimpses of Ubisoft's two bigboi's so I guess I can't complain too much. (A lot of gameplay does help to swallow the pill.) Firstly came the title that is set in my own backyard, 'Watch Dogs: Legion', and I have to say that I quite enjoyed what I've seen thusfar. Graphically it's encouraging to see how they've managed to keep up the quality from the reveal event as far as I can tell (I haven't gone back for a side-by-side comparison.) The writing is still superbly eye-rolling and the voice-acting raised my eyes at times. (They did hire English VO's for these recordings, right? I'm having a hard time telling...) All-in-all I think the game looked fine and will get more into it in a separate blog; 'Assassin's Creed: Valhalla', however, is a different story.

This is the game that feels like it's been through 3 complete reveal cycles, one time with it's own trailer, another during Xbox's conference and now a full gameplay reveal during Ubisoft's event; and I was not expecting my opinion to drop off this badly. After the Xbox conference I was left rather impressed by the fidelity of it all, but absolutely none of that was on display today; man, the title looked rough! The textures looked on par with 'Odyssey', (so nothing too bad) the combat animations looked decent, but the facial animations where honestly gross. I mean it was bad, to the point where I had to look about Assassins's Creed 2 footage to tell if it was always this rough. (And the result is: kinda, but given the age it was a lot more forgivable back then.)

When we talk about Ubisoft games that are drenched in generic-tropes, 'Valhalla' really takes the cake as a perfect example. The combat seemed recycled from 'Odyssey' which evolved it from 'Origins', the 'Build a settlement' feature is a holdover from Assassin's Creed 3 and they showed literally nothing in terms of it's depth, (So I'm guessing it's just as shallow as it was back in AC3) and the world's inhabitants look and feel totally devoid of life and vigour. The only points that stand out are- say it with me; the combat, world design and movement. God, it feels like I've been saying those exact same points about Assassin's Creed since birth; I must have come out of the womb critiquing Assassin's Creed fear of evolution. None of what I see from the footage looks like it has the potential to push the franchise forward apart from one moment which appeared to show active fire effects. (That was a holdover from 2008's Far Cry 2, but it was still kinda cool.) But will I get it? Not at full price, that's for sure...

But enough of all that transient garbage, I came for one thing and one thing alone; I wanted to see Giancarlo Esposito. And did we get that 'Far Cry' blowout we were promised? Yes- well no- well... we got a really cool cinematic. No gameplay. But, like, it was a really cool cinematic, though! Does that still count? The only rational explanation, in my mind, for Ubisoft's absolute reticence for showing off any gameplay for a title that is undoubtedly going to run exactly the same as their last game is because they have another 'Ubisoft Forward' that they're trying to drum up attention for. Sometime before the end of the year. (Be still my throbbing heart, I can't wait...) Instead all we got was a prolonged introduction to Giancarlo's dictator character making a very beleaguered point about how difficult it is to be a fascist or something. Okay look, script-wise it lacked the elegance perhaps of Vaas' soliloquy- but man, Giancarlo is such a great actor! I know I'm going to be watching that trailer over and over- it's really good! So somehow through the merit of showing me literally nothing, Ubisoft left me with a better taste in my mouth than they did with 'Valhalla'. (There's a lesson there somewhere.)

So overall I give Ubisoft a grand; "Should have just released the footage to Youtube" out of ten. Although I will commend the team for managing to capture all the pretentious pomp and grandstanding that we thought we'd lost with the cancellation of E3. (Great job, guys!) I may sound like I'm being supremely critical, and I am. Major publisher events get such a bad rap for the very reason that even when they have actual content to show, they still pad things out like their trying to impress the high-school football team. This time they had 30 minutes of commentary-tied 'Valhalla' gameplay, and they saved it for after the show; preferring, instead, to treat us all with CG trailers of a mobile game and a reminder that Brawlhalla exists. (Thanks?) Thank god there was actually content to the event or I don't know what I'd have done, likely eaten my own arm out of boredom. Still, I can't help but feel like something was missi- where was the 'Just Dance' trailer? Oh my god... there was none... I don't know how to- is this good, is thi- How do I react to this? I gonna need some time to process this, that's about it.

The leakiest ship springs another

Look at me Hector!

Yes I know it's kinda moot talking about a leak literally one day before it's full exposure but I think it might be a good test of my predictive capabilities. I mean, how better to guess what we might hear about in the near future than to literally give it a 24 hour deadline where I'm really on the clock to give this thing a once over, and then I can cover the actual game itself tomorrow? It's the perfect set-up  for blogs. (I'm a genius!) Thus for today I'll be going over a beloved subject here in this blog, my opinion of the former biggest European games company, (Congrats to CDPR) Ubisoft, and their upcoming game which is going to likely get a blowout tomorrow; Far Cry 6. (Jesus, are we on Six already? Someone needs to teach Ubisoft how to think out the box.)

So in the lead-up to the Sunday event tomorrow there has been a pretty huge 'leak' which has worked to drum up interest in a new Far Cry title after the largely meh, 'Far Cry: New Dawn'. (And yes, I put quotations around 'leak' because I think there's reasonable doubt considering whether or not this was an intentional details slip or not.) Over on the Playstation store in Hong Kong there was a brief period of time wherein the boxart for Far Cry 6 was shown alongside a listing that seemed just legit enough to be real. It should be noted, by the way, then when I say that I being slightly facetious, Ubisoft have since slyly validated the leak so it's really more of a spoiler for tomorrows 'surprise'. What we have is a, honestly rather bland-looking, front cover (at least when compared to some of Far Cry's other boxes) with the likeness of none other than Giancarlo Esposito. (Well hot damn guys, that's a good actor you've managed to bag!)

Alongside the boxart there have been some story details but we can save that all for later because right now I want to talk about the big news; Gustavo Fring is coming to Far Cry; how cool is that? The reason why people are so sold based on the Box Art alone is because 'Far Cry' has held a tradition, all the way back to Far Cry 3, where the mug on the cover always represents the fellow who will shape up to be the main villain for your impending adventure. As a franchise lacking in any real depth, character-arcs or message, the importance of having a strong main villain is paramount. (Just ask the showrunners of the CW's Supergirl who have never managed to bring any villain remotely memorable to their schlock-fest) Of course, in previous years the Far Cry games have managed this mostly well without having to resort to sticking famous faces on the cover, so some might see this as a little desperate on Ubisoft's part, but- I actually can't really defend that; it is really desperate. (Guess they really did run out of ideas before the twins.)

But then let me throw some cold water all over those folk that are getting all hot and bothered by reminding them that this is by no means that first time that Ubisoft have bought quality actors to voice their villains, that's been around as long as this tradition has been. Vaas from Far Cry 3 was voiced by Micheal Mando, a Canadian actor who, let me remind you, was such a credit to the role that it was his idea to coin the manic personality that we know and love the character for. (The original script had him being all stoic and boring.) Far Cry 4's Pagan Min was voiced by none other than Troy Edward Baker, a ludicrously prolific and legendary video game actor who rocked the roll in a manner distinct to Vaas yet equally as memorable. Far Cry 5's actor was- lesser known in the gaming world but I'm told he did a good job. (I never played that one.) So what has really changed for this game? They stuck the actors mug on the character for free publicity? (That's hardly the most encouraging thing in the world, to learn that the team are resorting to gimmicks to sell their title.)

However, we're just talking about the cover and I think there's some old saying about not being so judge-y in such a situation, so let's look a little deeper. We also learnt a few details to go off on. Giancarlo plays Anton Castillo, a dictator for a fictional island called Yara which is based in Cuba. He's trying to restore the 'glory' of his country alongside his, soon to be dictator, son Diego, and I imagine this means there's going to be a whole lot of fascist tendencies to the way Anton decides to achieve his goals. Given the setting, I'd imagine there being some significant CIA involvement in the background this story as you take control of a local fighting for their freedoms, and I'll bet that Diego, who's just under the legal age to be killed in a video game without guilt, will likely survive the events of the game in order to succeed his father and do something really heinous that'll justify another in-between game that Ubisoft like doing so much. (Too much.)

It's hardly the most inspired guess in the world is assume that the gameplay is going to be the copy and paste (take-down outposts systematically) as it has been for every Far Cry since 3, but I think, in the light of the latest Assassin's Creed games and the less-than-stellar reception towards 'New Dawn'; there may be some steps taken to revise the formula. If I were to guess, I'd assume there may be some sort of newer system built into the game to add an extra layer to the gameplay loop, ideally I'd want something like the Nemesis system from 'Shadow of War', in order to enrich the gameplay, but I wouldn't bemoan them too heavily if the team opt for something more generic like a 'huge battles' system. Oh, did I forget to mention? This title is being slated to launch on Playstation 5 so it's likely that whatever gets planned will push forward the technology significantly from what these games have been using for so long now.

Although, I cannot offer a hand of peace without waging a little war, because I must admit that I think no matter what Ubisoft do with this newer Far Cry, they'll end up disappointing. (As evidenced by the way that they still charge £55 for Far Cry 5, which is now 2 years old. What, you guys think you'll need the backup?) The biggest clue in this direction is the Anton himself, I just don't trust Ubisoft to have a celebrity be the face of their marketing; it's like their goto in lieu of good writing. Then there's the fact that, despite all these titles having great villains, their contribution to the game is usually incredibly minimal and their final encounters are typically laughably bad. (I loathe to call anyone incompetent; but I've literally never seen a memorable final encounter in a Ubisoft game so the title really awards itself for that department.) I just suspect that Ubisoft are preparing to throw all their eggs into a too-thin basket that'll crumble in no time. Then there's the fear that Ubisoft might decide to go 'live service' with this game; but they wouldn't be that stupid. Not after Breakpoint... would they?

In summary, 'Far Cry 6' worries me. I like seeing a great actor make their debut into the gaming world, but I see the cynical nature behind it and I worry for the overall product. (You know, the thing that Ubisoft should be putting their attention into.) The Far Cry formula has grown impressively stale over the years and though I still somewhat enjoy their games, I think it's takes a truly haphazard mindset to rationalise investing triple-A money towards their latest game without a considerable step forward in quality from the team's part. (And especially not full-price for their 2 year old last entry. Get out of here with that price, Ubisoft, are you people out of your minds?) I'd be glad to have Ubisoft completely blindside me and change my mind tomorrow with their presentation, but I already know they won't; you know what they say about tigers and their stripes. (I just hope for a minuscule level of conceptual commitment from the team this time around, that'd be nice.)