KEY POINTS

  • "Far Cry 6's" story will deviate from the standard formula of the previous games
  • Real-life political revolutions were used as reference materials for writing the game's story
  • The game is expected to be morally gray with its depiction of tyranny

The “Far Cry” games have always had a “stranger in a strange land” theme, with nearly every mainline “Far Cry” game placing an outsider in the middle of an ongoing internal conflict in a certain location. “Far Cry 6” will deviate from this by telling the story of an ex-soldier-turned-guerilla fighting against their country’s tyrannical leader.

Fighting a revolution is bound to get political, and Ubisoft made it clear it is aware of this. “Far Cry 6” narrative director Navid Khavari expounded on the game’s setting and backdrop in a blog post, noting how commentaries on real-world issues and politics are involved in his writing.

“Our story is political. A story about a modern revolution must be,” Khavari said in the statement posted Monday.

“Far Cry 6” is set in the fictional Caribbean nation of Yara, a country that has been under the iron-fisted rule of Anton Castillo, otherwise known as “El Presidente.” At a glance, Castillo seems like the typical dictator figure, but Khavari said there’s more to the Yaran revolution than a fascist at the helm.

Far Cry 6 will feature a collection of odd-yet-lethal weaponry
Far Cry 6 will feature a collection of odd-yet-lethal weaponry Ubisoft

“There are hard, relevant discussions in Far Cry 6 about the conditions that lead to the rise of fascism in a nation, the cost of imperialism, forced labor, the need for free-and-fair elections, LGBTQ+ rights and more within the context of Yara,” Khavari stated.

He also noted that he and his team have taken inspiration from real political revolutions that occurred in the recent past. Khavari mentioned Cuba but emphasized that they have taken other nations into consideration as well.

However, Khavari also made it clear that “if anyone is seeking a simplified, binary political statement specifically on the current political climate in Cuba, they won’t find it.”

The team working on “Far Cry 6” attempted to recreate the same sort of political atmosphere that lead to revolts in the 1950s and early 1960s. Khavari mentioned that they even brought in experts and consultants in the field of politics to make sure that they’re capturing all of the necessary elements for a political narrative without being insensitive to the real-life atrocities caused by actual regimes.

The recently released gameplay preview of “Far Cry 6” showed a somewhat comical and borderline cartoonish perspective of the game, but Khavari said that they want to implement the same level of political complexity found in the real world into the context of a fictional nation.

Time will tell if the team will succeed in achieving its vision, but in the meantime, fans will have to acknowledge that story-wise, “Far Cry 6” will be in a completely different league than its predecessors.