Far Cry 6 will take players to the fictional Caribbean nation of Yara, based roughly on Cuba. There they will fight in a revolution against a powerful dictator, with the game's setting and story combining several elements already seen in Far Cry's past.
Far Cry 6 has a huge legacy to live up to, posing a unique challenge for a franchise with such a clear storytelling formula. This indubitably means challenges it will face and, hopefully, unique innovations on its part to stand out.
The Far Cry Formula
The Far Cry series has a key formula first fully established in Far Cry 3. The game's usually follow a character thrown into a region with an intense and divided culture. The protagonist then explores an open-world filled with different animals and enemies as they work do undo the machinations of a charismatic villain. This formula has defined the games for years, but now also poses Far Cry 6 with a unique problem.
Far Cry has built up an incredibly specific set of expectations from fans, despite every game essentially telling its own story with only a few crossover characters like Hurk Drubman, Jr. Each Far Cry game is expected to star an actor delivering a world-class performance as the villain, an expectation first established by Michael Mando's groundbreaking performance as Vaas in Far Cry 3.
Far Cry fans expect to be presented with meaningful choices that affect the outcome of the plot. Over the years these choices have included whether or not Jason sides with Citra at the end of the third game, and who ends up leading Kyrat at the end of Far Cry 4. While the series' formula is one of its greatest strengths, it also poses some of the biggest challenges as new games are developed.
The Far Cry franchise would struggle, for example, to tell a story which had less of a central focus on its main villain than past games. If it did so, the game would simply feel like less of a Far Cry game. However, this also means that Far Cry 6's new villain Anton Castillo has a huge legacy to live up to.
Repeating The Past
Anton will be played by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad and The Mandalorian fame, one of the highest profile actors to have worked in the Far Cry games so far. While he is sure to deliver a strong performance as the game's villain, that performance must live up to villains like Vaas, Pagan Min, and Joseph Seed without Anton seeming too similar to any one of those characters.
The risk of repetition is a big problem for Far Cry's formula. It's already clear that Far Cry 6 will feature a revolution, which is described as "divided and without unified leadership." This sounds a lot like the Golden Path, the internally divided revolution in Far Cry 4's Kyrat. Not only that, but Anton Castillo's call to "reconstruct paradise" uses some of the same religious and utopian language found in Joseph Seed's Project at Eden's Gate cult.
Ubisoft will have to tread carefully to make sure it's bringing something fresh to Far Cry 6. The upcoming game's setting on a tropical island also has parallels to the Rook Islands of Far Cry 3, though the nation of Yara will also have a large city named Esperanza at its heart to diversify its environment. Few game series last as long as Far Cry has. Now, Far Cry 6 faces the challenge of living up to the extremely high expectations of its past without retreading old ground.
Overcoming Far Cry's Legacy
Far Cry 6 has an interesting ace up its sleeve, if it should choose to use it. The game may be inheriting a huge legacy, but it also has the opportunity to explore legacy as a theme within the story. Anton Castillo was witness to a revolution in Yara which, fifty years before the game will be set, executed his father. This deeply shaped Anton's philosophy and his idea that the Yaran people need to be controlled in order to save themselves. In turn, Far Cry 6's cinematic trailer shows Anton preparing his young son Diego Castillo to be the kind of iron-fisted dictator Anton believes Yara needs if it's ever going to become the paradise he believes it once was.
The relationship between Anton, his son, and the game's player character could be the key to Far Cry 6 telling a new story without abandoning some of the vital mainstays of the Far Cry formula. Far Cry has explored the idea of reluctant heirs before, particularly in Far Cry 4 where protagonist Ajay Ghale is the heir to Kyrat, and where a young girl around Diego's age is believed to be the reincarnation of Kyrat's goddess. However, those plotlines have never been so explicitly a part of the premise of a Far Cry game.
If anything, there's been a strange decentralization of Far Cry 6's player character Dani Rojas so far in the game's marketing. At worst this could lead to another undeveloped protagonist like the voiceless heroes of Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn. It has already been established that Dani has a voice actor for both the female and male versions of the character, which could help avoid that issue.
While Far Cry 6 has a huge legacy to live up, the last two games certainly give it some breathing room. While Far Cry 5 and New Dawn had a classic charismatic villain in Joseph Seed, many fans found the customizable protagonist uninspiring, and the game's potentially apocalyptic ending disconnected from the actual choices they were making in the story. As long as Far Cry 6 has a compelling protagonist in Dani Rojas and allows the player to make choices which have meaningful, logical implications for the plot, the upcoming game may already be a step-up over the last two.
Whether Far Cry 6 will be able to live up to the legacy of past games in the franchise remains to be seen. It's possible that its combination of elements from previous games could be the perfect balance, or could make the game too familiar to feel truly exciting. Giving the villain a young son to play off in the story could heighten the performances of both Anton and Diego, which could prove to be the game's greatest asset. However, it could also see the protagonist's characterization left by the wayside. Far Cry 6 has some unique challenges, but at the very least it also has a uniquely rich and established formula to work with and hopefully subvert in the next game.
Far Cry 6 is currently in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.