Far Cry 6 Review – Sins of the Fathers

“Fear will not defeat the revolution. The one who can cause fear will win.”

It makes no sense to invent: the sixth part of Far Cry since its publication looked like a homogeneous sequel to the famous series, adhering to the already somewhat sophisticated gameplay template, structure and style, like a tick. My impressions of the first hours of my own game were in the same spirit, but then I began to understand that everything had changed quite noticeably. The game is significantly larger and more mechanical and story-driven than the previous installments. No doubt also because, judging by the completely endlessly long titles, she worked on it almost completely. all ubisoft studios. The result is a title that, by its size and complexity, rather than previous episodes of the Far Cry series, reminded me of much larger and better-known open-world action games.

• Platform: PS5 (peer review), PS4, X1, XSX | S, PC
• Publication date: 7. 10. 2021
• Producer: Ubisoft Toronto (Canada) and others
• Genre: Open world first-person shooter
• Czech location: Not
• Multiplayer: 2 players online
• Data to download: 39 GB
• Game time: 25+ hours
• Price: 1799 CZK (Xzone)

The plot is addictive

Frozen by a bloody government coup in the last century, the fictional Caribbean island of Yara (clearly Cuban-inspired) suffers from poverty, among other things. It is here that President Anton Castillo promises to solve the world, which, thanks to a revolutionary medicine from local plants, will offer the world a cure for cancer, which should also bring wealth and prosperity to the inhabitants of the island. But in reality, they work on chemical-covered plantations where they die from omnipotent diseases. As the president tightens up his military regime on the island, a foundry of resistance begins to form and will join you as a man or woman named Dani Rojas. The Far Cry series has always built its story around an unmissable central villain, and many of us were very curious about how famous actor Giancarlo Esposito played the president. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you, in the game you actually see a lot, and mostly in indirectly related films that take place elsewhere. To make matters worse, I was always impressed by the weak, pitiful pensioner with the insinuating speech. Luckily, the game script compensates for this very well for other characters and parts of the story.

Far Cry 6 brings the traditional template of “a few interesting/meaningful missions and a lot of fuzzy side areas” closer to modern RPGs that try not to make large missions (or quests) boring, while also providing missions that are just as interesting to enter or story as the main ones. . As a result, you will enjoy both relatively traditional missions, from turmoil with machine gun turrets and air raids to silent crawling through enemy territory, as well as relatively unconventional missions, the goal of which will be to get drunk and get drunk. get close to one of the minor characters or properly celebrate victory in battle at a secret dance party. Thanks to this, you will get much better relations not only with various minor characters from the resistance movement, but also with your own. Dani starts out as a vague protagonist, but slowly uncovers her troubled past and builds up traumatic experiences through the many tragic deaths of friends or comrades along the way to liberate the island, as well as her surprisingly idiosyncratic relationship with the president’s son. After all, 13-year-old Diego is a much more interesting and unpredictable “villain” than his father. Otherwise, both the razor-sharp characters and the female Dani’s performance deserve special attention.

Thirteen-year-old Diego is a more interesting “villain” than his father.

So, while the game’s story begins slurred and predictable, thanks to its diverse cast and focus on character relationships and protagonist development, it will eventually win you over. The overall tone is also helped by the ability to swing from all-out fun with drunken friends to a raw dark tragedy full of betrayal and death. The performance does not require any napkins and serves up some scenes with really brutal brutality, which is also facilitated by the very film music of the Brazilian composer Pedro Bromfano. The central melody also seemed unclear to me when I first listened to it, but as he worked with variations of it as he played, it ended up sinking into my soul very deeply, as did the atmosphere and story of the entire game. If you’re looking for a great single-player story-driven campaign, I can recommend Far Cry 6 and wonder if the next two great shooters of the year (COD and Halo) match its story-driven qualities. But it’s also great fun for those looking for a traditional explosive mix of rampage with a varied arsenal of weapons and vehicles.

Assortment, variety, events

I do not know the exact area figures, but as soon as the entire map of Yara and the smaller islands adjacent to it opened up in front of me, I immediately got the impression that this is so far the largest open world in the series. In recent years, Ubisoft has demonstrated in its games (Wildlands, Odyssey) the ability to create truly beautiful, expansive, colorful and complex game landscapes. Far Cry 6 is no exception, on the contrary: if the right time of day and the weather converge during your journey through the jungle, climbing one of the local hills or climbing some of the buildings in the local towns, you will be amazed at how well and real this game can look . This is not always and everywhere true, but when it works, you will see beautiful landscapes. Everything works perfectly on PS5, whether you’re playing alone or with a friend.

The gaming experience is further enhanced by dynamic events. It will happen to you more than once that you get involved in some kind of random skirmishes between the inhabitants of the island and the military regime, and much more often this is a full-fledged shootout (including falling helicopters, etc.) than just some kind of generic NPC character animation. Of course, you can also participate properly, with a much richer arsenal than ever before. Weapons and armor have 4 levels of “quality”, but thanks to a fun customization system, a popular first level pistol can easily be made into an excellent weapon for the entire passage of the game. Personally, I rather avoided “resolver” weapons, which with their absurdity (CD thrower, etc.) spoiled the realistic atmosphere of the game. But it’s worth investing in your resolver backpack because you can unlock different types of grenades and gadgets. You can also modify your own armed vehicle and gradually build a complete garage from horses and motorcycles to tanks or helicopters.

The gaming world is helped by the fact that it is full of dynamic events.

In addition to many story and side missions, the world is also full of blocked roads and enemy bases for you to occupy. I, for one, really enjoyed shooting the anti-aircraft turrets from afar, so that I would get lost in the jungle before the shocked soldiers of the station found me. However, the game cleverly adjusts to your improving equipment and abilities, gradually improving the enemies, who will begin to wear better armor and weapons, as well as more aggressively seek or pursue you. But this is not as exaggerated as in Far Cry: New Dawn, the vast majority of enemies you kill in the entire game with one blow to the head. Artificial intelligence as such can conjure up both pointlessly stupid situations and very exciting and fun activities. This also applies to your animal friends “amigo” – sometimes they literally crawl under your feet, and sometimes they really help. A great mechanic is the ability to hide weapons and walk among enemies as a civilian, while some soldiers gain the ability to pay bribes. A good experience of game mechanics is also greatly helped by the DualSense driver, which currently works better than all action games (including Black Ops: Cold War or Returnal). Thanks to the tactile feedback, you will feel not only the caliber of the weapon in your hands, but also the weight and inertia of your vehicle or, for example, every trot of your horse’s hooves. After this experience, I refuse to play future action games except with a DualSens in hand.

Other observations

In addition to dozens of main and secondary missions and dozens of other (optional) bases to keep the game busy, you’ll also find plenty of bonus activities that usually make a significant contribution to the game’s overall resource savings. In order to improve your bases, equipment and vehicles, you will have to collect not only money, but also fuel, materials and medicines. Since the arsenal is really diverse, you always have something else in your hobby that you would like to buy or improve, so the exploration of the island is enriched by a meaningful search for resources. Or you can win them in large numbers at once, such as in cockfights (somewhat in the style of classic threshers) or in an additional manager mini-game where you send your captains on expeditions for certain resources. You can do as many different things as you like.

In addition to the campaign itself, you can also play special missions for two in cooperation with a friend (which can also be played with public matchmaking or in one player). These individual missions are made specifically for collaboration and even have their own story cutscenes, it’s not just some cheap reworking of content from the main game or hordes or something like that. During our game, only the first two were available, and more will follow later. We tried a covert procedure with crossed sniper support (“you take on the left, I take on the right – three, two, one – poof, poof – they fell, we go on” – or who survived the Chernobyl mission from the original Modern Warfare, have an idea) but also a funny mechanic when we had to bring an overheating “bomb” to the end of the map, with which we had to move in the shadows and sometimes cool it with water. Developers certainly have no shortage of ideas. We can only hope that future additional content will maintain a decent quality bar.