Far Cry 6 Review: A Strong Revolution with Weaklings
Far Cry series is my all-time favorite series, and when I was told that I will get the opportunity to review Far Cry 6, I was quite ecstatic, to say the least. I have played Far Cry 3 for about 43.7 hrs (according to Steam), Far Cry 4 for about 17.4hrs (life happened), and Far Cry 5 for about 23hours (on Xbox One X).
And let me spoil this review right out of the gate, It holds the Far Cry Series Torch well.
Far Cry 6 is out on 7th October and is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One S, X, Xbox Series S, X, and Stadia.
The main story is about 15-20hours long, depending on your playstyle. It took me 18 hours to finish the main story and few side missions. It also costs about Rs 3999 on console & Rs 2999 on the Epic Store (250 Rs Cheaper than Ubisoft’s last game). The game also has in-game cosmetics & booster pack (at least at the time of writing) microtransactions. This review was done on PC using RTX 3080 & Ryzen 3700x.
Story
Synopsis
Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their ruthless oppression has ignited a revolution. You get to play as Dani Rojas, a Guerrilla with a dream to settle in the USA leaving everything behind in Yara. The game shows the journey of a nobody turning into the face of the revolution and how they break down Antón Castillo and strip his power away, one step at a time.
Breakdown
On the face of it, Far Cry 6 has a terrific story of Revenge, Revolution & Politics, but when you get into it the thick of it, it is quite clear that Dani Rojas, our guerrilla protagonist has little to no incentive to be here in the first place. The story itself starts with Dani Rojas planning to run away to the USA, and the game never even tries to justify why Dani even joins the revolution. In previous Far Cry games, we had reason to fight and stay, like in Far Cry 3, We had the incentive to save our friends. In Far Cry 5, we are the Sherrif, and it is the job of the Sherrif, but here you are a nobody, with no incentive to fight the dictator. However, keeping this point aside, the story is put together quite well. It puts you on a journey of liberating multiple factions into your rebel group that is named “Libertad”. The Format of the game is a bit similar to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, where you go to different factions and solve their unique problems with their own enemy/side villain/side boss, and then ask them to join your Rebel Group, to fight for freedom.
What I did not like about Far Cry 6, however, is that the side villains were not as fleshed out as previous games, like Far Cry 5 & 3. The side villains had more life and character in previous installments than this one. Without spoiling much, the side villain fights aren’t as exciting or entertaining as the rest of the story or even previous games’ side villain fights.
The side characters though are really well fleshed out and the different factions and their past and backstories are really interesting. I would strongly suggest you do most, if not all of the side missions because the game’s side character and Yara, the island, has a rich history and the side missions bring them out really well.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, it honestly feels more of what we have already been getting from the Far Cry series with few cutbacks and few additions, here and there. The game has new checkpoint locations which are literally a checkpoint and that in turn gives the world a bit more legitimacy. A bit more logical. You can fast travel from any location to a specific location which you have to liberate beforehand. There are also the traditional capture points, where you go and capture, and then you can fast travel though once liberated, you do not have any reason to go back. Also, if you are a fan of Far Cry 3 & Money Heist, then there is a special mission for you. It’s all about Revolution.
The vehicle gameplay remains unchanged as well, however, there aren’t many types of vehicles in the game. You do have horses in-game, but riding the horse feels jarring, and does not change the gameplay in a significant way. When I saw the leaks of the horse, back in 2019, I got excited and thought that it would be fun, but they are not as fun as I had hoped. Traveling via car is more fun, and you can call for it anytime you like as it just spawns near you.
The enemy/soldier AI kinda feels wonky as they are easy to kill, regardless of how “Specially trained and heavily armed” they are. If you have the “Right tool for the Right job” then you can kill them in one shot. The game reminds me a lot about the Ghost Recon series minus the drone as the gameplay and the sound of the weapons are pretty similar and satisfying. Ubisoft has nailed their weapon and world structure, in fact, it is so good that they are going beyond the conventional weapons and giving their own version and variants of it. Guns have a cooldown function for silencers, they just burn out for a couple of seconds and do not break, as there is no crafting system.
The game also supports DualSense 5 adaptive trigger, you can feel the resistance when you pull a bow or trigger gun, you can feel the haptics very well. The game also has side activities such as Cock Fighting. They are very Tekken/Street Fighter-Esque in gameplay. You can also play Dominoes. As for the core gameplay, It feels like Ubisoft moved from the whole climb the tower and unlock the area, to liberate the area and ask the local faction to join them. This does give them flexibility with story and gameplay, so ultimately it is a good thing.
Side missions which are known as “Yaran Stories“, are pretty well done, There is a mission named “Spur of the Moment”, which is one of the scariest and funniest missions the game has to offer where you go into a hell-Esque cave and get mauled by….. Roosters. Also, the Side missions and checkpoints/capture points scale to your level, so you do not have to stress about liberating and finishing it all together. However, even if they do scale to your level, the game is pretty easy. However, Levels don’t honestly matter much, apart from how powerful your weapon gets. Weapons have their own level up to 4, but once you get a level 4 weapon, it scales the damage according to your in-game level. Side character talks with disrespect no matter how high u climb the level-ladder.
Soundtrack
I personally do not listen to much of the game’s soundtrack, while in the game or otherwise. But in this game, there are many heavy hitter songs. And Ubisoft has probably paid a bomb for the songs like Havana (Camila Cabelo), Macarena, Bella Ciao. There are also some amazing songs in the game which are not as famous, but still catchy and they actually make the world feel more natural. Here is one of the best songs from the game – La Rubia. The Songs are so good that you can catch Dani hum the song or even sing them while they are being played. Little attention to detail, like this, goes a long way. Also, there is a special mission, right around the start of the game, that pays homage to the Revolution Song – Bella Ciao & Far Cry 3. I do not want to spoil it much, but it makes me think about it, and that easily is my favorite segment in recent memory.
Difficulty & AI
Difficulty setting in this game, shouldn’t be named Normal and Story, it should be Easy & Very Easy. I completed 30% of the game in Story Mode, as I wanted it to be more immersive for the review than punishing, however, I was hardly even enjoying the game. The AI would just not damage me enough. Even while being attacked by a helicopter, it would take ages to even lose 1 slot of health, in fact, regeneration was faster than damage. After 30%, I changed the difficulty setting to Normal, and it was certainly better. But still easy, honestly this game could have been a bit hard, especially because you get armor-piercing bullet at the very start of the game itself and you can kill any soldier with 1 shot to the head, and it is very easy to do so.
While the world is immersive and well crafted, I cannot help but feel that the city locations weren’t done enough justice to. There are about 2 or 3 Mission set in the town of Esperanza, which is the main town captured and controlled by Antón Castillo. And those missions are very good, because of so many underground paths and narrow lanes that you can use to move around. They really put their thoughts into it but did not utilize it properly.
Even though the enemy AI is half-decent, the Amigos and the NPC AI are pretty good, for example, if your Amigo gets caught on fire then they will run towards the closest water source to put out the fire and roll in the water. Or if your amigo is Boom Boom, a dog, then random NPC will come up to him and interact & play with him.
You cannot be interrupted while healing yourself, and as there is no crafting, you have a cooldown before you are able to use the heal-pack again. And same goes for Amigos too, they don’t die or have cool down like previous Far Cry games, you need to revive them if they go down, and if you don’t, they will just disappear after some time, and then you can summon them anytime, you want. The only time there is a cooldown for Amigos is when you manually remove them from your game using the menu.
Skills & Crafting
Unlike the previous Far Cry in the series, the game does not feature any skills or crafting, which is a bummer because these were some of my favorite things about the series and I really hope they bring them back in the future. You do not have much incentive to hunt an animal because you cannot craft. You can take the hide/body of the specific animal and get something from the store that you help to settle in the camps, but apart from that, the skills and things you carry remain the same throughout the game.
In the previous game, you had to upgrade your pouch to carry more grenades or knives, here you do not have that option. You carry the whole arsenal with you from the start itself. And that kind of makes the game a bit monotonous. No plants gathering at all, I think there is this one mission where you have to gather some herbs, but even that is done via cutscene.
However, not everything is bad. You get a new weapon lineup in the game known as Supremo Backpack & also a special custom DIY weapon lineup. While it is unrealistic, in-game, it is really overpowering and fun to play. They do take the game and things to a different level and its full of fun.
Graphics & Optimization
Graphics
Graphics are a delight in any Far Cry game, I still remember the fire spread in Far Cry 2, it was glorious. And Far Cry 6 has gone above and beyond to look and run great. There were a few hiccups here and there, but overall the game looks fantastic and runs smooth as a hot knife on butter. I did run into few texture issues, and even though I have RTX 3080 with 10gig VRAM, I was unable to use the HD Texture Pack. This is kinda surprising as RTX 3080 is on their Recommended System Requirement. You need at least 16GB VRAM to run the game with HD Pack on. But even without the pack, it looks terrific.
High-Resolution Texture Pack size is about 38GB, It adds high resolution to all the textures in the game.
RayTracing
I would like to point out something, the implementation of Ray Tracing in this game is kind of pointless in my honest opinion. The game consists of two Types of RayTracing, Shadow & Reflection Ray Tracing. Shadow RayTracing, in my opinion, is a waste of resources, it’s something that you notice only when it is bad. As for Reflection RayTracing, I have attached two screenshot’s below with Reflection RT, on & off, and I myself have a hard time figuring out which is which. Ubisoft has kinda nailed the reflection in standard screen space, which is giving a tough time to RayTracing. On the bright side, Reflection RayTracing takes only 7% extra GPUTime. Shadow RayTracing takes about 5% extra GPUTime.
Graphical Options
Honestly, when PC Features of Far Cry 6 were revealed, I was very disappointed due to the absence of DLSS. But FidelityFX stole the show, and I can see why it was the only option that was given (though I hope DLSS gets added down the line for proper comparison).
I played the whole game with FidelityFX Super Resolution set to Ultra Quality, and I was hard-pressed to see any difference between Native 4K & FidelityFX Super Resolution Ultra Quality 4K. However, the game itself can look a bit blurry or rather soft with or without Native 4K (Even though I had FidelityCAS enabled). According to my guestimation, Ultra Quality operates at around 85% of a True Native 4K.
I would also like to point out that for some weird reason all the cutscenes are locked to 30fps, which becomes jarring especially when you are playing the game at locked 60fps and then jump to a cutscene and it has inconsistent 30fps.
Below are the screenshots of the features/setting’s game offers.
Optimization & Performance
Performance is terrific in this game, I go locked 60fps (56 actually, as i have G-SYNC Monitor, and need to limit framerate) throughout the game. In fact, even without FidelityFX Super Resolution, I was able to put 60fps at 4K. You will see the results down below.
PS: The Result below is without HD Texture Pack, because the HD Texture Pack was not working during this review, turning it on, would result in texture worse than Low.
There are 4 modes available for FidelityFX Super Resolution and 2 modes for Ray Tracing, I have tested the game in each mode along with & without RayTracing. Here are my results.
All tested on Ryzen 3700x with RTX 3080. – ALL Settings Cranked up to eleven except HD Texture Pack.
Both RayTracing ON, DLSS OFF: 45-56fps range majorly being locked at 56, and only dropping at intensive scenes. 10-15% GPU Headroom most of the time.
Both RayTracing ON, Super Resolution ON (Ultra Quality Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 35% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing ON, Super Resolution ON (Quality Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 45% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing ON, Super Resolution ON (Balanced Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 45% headroom in GPU. (Some reason it is same as Quality Mode)
Both RayTracing ON, Super Resolution ON (Performance Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 50% headroom in GPU.
As of the launch, I would suggest sticking to Ultra Quality or Quality Mode with Super Resolution when playing with or without RayTracing, as they give the best result with minimum loss in resolution.
Both RayTracing OFF, DLSS OFF: Locked 56FPS with an average of 30% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing OFF, Super Resolution ON (Ultra Quality Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 45% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing OFF, DLSS ON (Quality Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 55% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing OFF, DLSS ON (Balanced Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 60% headroom in GPU.
Both RayTracing OFF, DLSS ON (Ultra Performance Mode): Locked 56FPS with an average of 63% headroom in GPU.
Reflection RayTracing takes only 7% extra GPUTime.
Shadow RayTracingtakes about 5% extra GPUTime.
VRAM usage: Average usage of VRAM was about 5-8GB/10GB across all the modes.
PS: The above GPU Headroom is of RTX 3080, you can more or less calculate your GPU’s headroom or performance using the above details. All the above frame rates are not from the benchmark tool in-game but manual exploration and gameplay. Also, your mileage may vary from mine.
Bugs
There are few graphical bugs here and there and few crashes too, but nothing game-breaking or such can easily be fixed with a couple of patches. The scope of the game is huge, so it is quite understandable to have a few bugs.
The bug I faced the most was that the game would overload the GPU for a couple of seconds and would run like a PowerPoint presentation, but it would auto-resolve. It happens only after freshly launching the game, other than that, nothing much.
Characters, Animations & Voice Overs
Characters & Voice Over
Giancarlo Esposito, is terrific. He is a maniacal tyrant and by the end of the game, you would love to hate him. Not for a second did he made me feel that he was not Antón Castillo. Anthony Gonzalez, who plays Diego on the other hand, is torn between what’s right and wrong, what his father is teaching, and what he thinks is right. The performance is really good and makes you feel for the little guy.
Initially, I did not find Dani Rojas’ character as strong as the antagonist but over a period of time, their character starts to grow on you. I played the game exclusively as Female Dani, and the voice acting was on point. As for the character, I did felt that they have no motivation or will to stay and fight, though it changes in the latter part of the game.
There are a few other characters as well, like Carlos, Espada, Paolo, Talia, El Tigre, and many more, the cast is huge, but all of them have nailed their roles quite well. Their voice acting, accent, backstory all mesh together quite well and gives a genuine experience. The side villains on other hand could have been more fleshed out and given more roles, as it feels like a lot was left on the cutting room floor.
I would also like to point out that the lip sync and the character face animation are quite exceptional. Especially coming from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. In this game being in the first person, you spend a lot of time staring at faces. And Ubisoft has perfected facial capture and lip sync.
Animations
Animation wise, the game being in first person, the only things you see is your hands and the gun, and they feel right, however when the game moves to a third-person view, in the camp, your character does feel a bit stiff, and the same goes to side characters too, they don’t have a varied range of animations, and most of them have similar animations.
World Building
It is a Ubisoft Game at the end of the day, so it is bound to have a lot of things to do in the world including Exploration. There are many things you can do in this world, Cock Fighting, Dominoes, Treasure Hunt, Liberating Checkpoints among other things. The world is full of surprises. I would strongly suggest you go back in after the story to find hidden objectives and surprises. You can also bribe guards, however, I honestly don’t see a point to it as you can just go in gun blazing or stealthy and the outcome would remain the same at a specific location, like a checkpoint or settlement. They do give out some information about some hidden treasure hunts or locations, but you can find those details even without bribing them. But then again it does not hurt the in-game economy even if you do bribe them.
There are small stores/stalls set up next to the road and big drawings on mountains. Such small details are present throughout the world at a consistent pace. And such details do make the world stand out and lived in.
The map is split into multiple factions and areas, and every area has its own level cap, which increases whenever you level up, as more and more FND Soldiers (Castillo’s Foot Soldiers) arrive to kill you. The map is huge and glorious. It has a lot of parallels to Just Cause Series.
Map of Yara, Courtesy to GamesRadar
The game also features settlement-style camping like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, however, there are only 6 stores that you can set up across the 3 settlements you come across throughout the game. The whole camp building and trading feel half-baked, as not much importance is given to it and it does not really change much in terms of how you play. The only good thing I got so far out of helping camp to start a shop in, is a wingsuit. The main things you get out of such settlements are cosmetics and buffs that you can use throughout the game. You can hunt specific animals to get specific things out of these stores, and you can also get the maps to locate the treasure or animal from these stores.
MicroTransactions (MacroTransactions)
Unlike previous Ubisoft games, Far Cry 6 has more than just cosmetic MacroTransactions. You can buy many things which include weapons, cosmetics, cars and more. The worst part is that these are not available via in-game currency, and the only way to get them is by spending the money to buy Far Cry Credits and then buy them.
It kind of does not make sense that a first-person game is selling cosmetics in MacroTransactions. But then again they are also selling maps and USB songs.
FC Credits Cost
Post-Launch Content
The game has promising upcoming content, and I am excited to return to this game as Vaas, Min & Joseph in the 3 DLC scheduled for release in the next couple of months. The game also promises to have new crossover missions that include Danny Trejo and Rambo-Esque missions, along with Stranger Things crossover (which is kind of a weird thing to say, but it gets me excited for the franchise).
The future of the series and this game, in particular, looks great and I can see Ubisoft being committed to this game for a long time, as there is a lot to offer.
![[UN][News] Far Cry 6 Post-Launch Plans Revealed - KEYART](https://staticctf.akamaized.net/J3yJr34U2pZ2Ieem48Dwy9uqj5PNUQTn/3hRnnDl59Iy5HQ1HoT16WP/6ea56968dd87e48ff034f01580ed37fb/Roadmap960x540.jpg)
Once you complete the story, you will unlock Insurgency mode, which is basically a weekly update where a location will be taken over by the soldiers and you have to re-liberate the said location. I can see it being a bit repetitive but new contents are promised in the current Quarter itself.
NOTE: Huge shout-out to Ubisoft India for providing us with a PC game code for this Review.
Buy Link : Here
Far Cry 6 Review
Conclusion
Even though Far Cry 6 has a few drawbacks when compared directly to the previous Far Cry games especially in the plot department and when it comes to building up a proper backstory for the main character, it certainly makes up for it in its story and other side and major characters alongside its world-building. I am really excited for what’s next in the franchise, as I was after Far Cry 5.
