Far Cry 6’s protagonist, Dani Rojas, was revealed during Ubisoft Forward last year. They are a native of the game's setting, the fictional Caribbean island of Yara, who will get involved in the revolution against Anton Castillo, the nation's dictator played by Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito.
There is one obvious twist that Ubisoft will need to avoid when crafting Far Cry 6’s story, however. It’s a twist that has been used in several other games, including previous installments in the Far Cry series. It may also be an extremely tempting twist to turn down considering the plot of the next game.
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In Far Cry 3, the player character arrives on the Rook Islands for a vacation, is kidnapped, escapes, and eventually begins helping the native Rakyat people fight back against the pirates and drug-traffickers who have taken over much of their homeland. In the end, however, it turns out that once the other forces on the island are defeated, the Rakyat and their leader Citra are just as brutal as Far Cry 3’s main villain, Vaas.
In the game’s final decision, Citra demands that the protagonist Jason Brody sacrifice his girlfriend, Liza. If Jason does so, Citra also kills him, and if he doesn’t, Citra is accidentally killed by one of her followers who is furious at him for rejecting her. Either way, it’s revealed that the faction the player was trying to help was in fact as bad as the one they helped overthrow.
This twist can be found in other games too, though not always at the end. In Arkane Studios’ Dishonored, for example, the player attempts to help a group of loyalists restore the throne to an Empire’s heir. Once they have assassinated or eliminated all of the usurpers, the loyalists poison the player character and their leader attempts to rule as a regent. The protagonist survives and has to take them down.
The obvious twist in Far Cry 6 would be that, once Anton Castillo is killed or overthrown, the revolutionary forces which come to replace him are revealed to be just as bad and turn on the player. The player would then likely have to take out the revolution's leader, and the game would end on a relatively positive note but also a reflection on the island’s uncertain future just like in the Far Cry 3 ending where the player spares Liza.
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The problem with this plot structure isn’t that it makes an invalid point or fails to speak to genuine anxiety in real revolutionary movements. The problem is that the twist has been used enough at this point that if it's seen again in Far Cry 6 not only will many players predict it, but it will be hard to say what new point the game was making, instead transposing a common moral to Far Cry 6's new setting.
One aspect of the game’s story that has been revealed hopefully points to Far Cry 6 going in another direction. Anton Castillo’s young son Diego also features heavily in Far Cry 6’s cinematic trailer, suggesting he will also have a big role to play in the game despite not being the primary antagonist or the player character.
Whether Diego Castillo becomes the next dictator of Yara or turns against his father in some way, his involvement could help add a complication to the story which drives it away from an obvious twist. While Diego’s exact role in the plot will likely be kept under wraps until the game’s release, his fate could help Far Cry 6 explore new territory and face players with some unexpected questions if the character is used to his full potential.
Far Cry 6 is in development.