Far Cry 6 — An Island of Firefights

Far Cry games are my comfort food. I know what I’m getting. Plus, it seems like they are one of the few first-person shooters that provide a real single-player campaign. I hate playing online, and a perfect night is a good stout, a podcast, and a single-player first-person shooter. Thus, I spend many nights doing just that with Far Cry 6. I’ve been playing for hours and hours, digging into side stories, gunning for Breaking Bad’s Gus, and petting my various amigos.

Makarov in Far Cry 6 video game
It’s the ole Makarov in living color

Also, I’ve been killing lots and lots of Yaran soldiers, hearing the word guerilla said about a billion times, and shooting lots and lots of guns. One of the first things I did was fly around Yara, freeing caches and earning new weapons. Heck, I’m barely into the campaign because I spent so much time gathering guns. In today’s installment of A Gun Guy Goes Gaming, we will examine what Far Cry 6 gets right and wrong about the weapons of Yara.

The Resolver Weapons

Far Cry 6 introduces some homemade weapons. This makes sense for guerillas and has long been part of guerilla warfare. In the game, these weapons are far from practical and are novelties, more or less. They are insane and range from a gun that launches CDs to a flame thrower and engine-equipped minigun.

The Pieper Carbine and a sawn-off version of the MTs255 paired with a shield are about as normal as these guns get. That being said, they are fun, but we won’t be talking too much about these guns in this article. Nor will we be addressing the ‘Supremo’ backpacks. I’m sticking more to the real guns in Far Cry 6.

What They Get Wrong

Not everything is accurate. Sometimes it’s for balance; sometimes it’s because games are supposed to be fun, not realistic. Far Cry game shave never clung too hard to realism. We get the usual issues with video games like this 9mm SMG does more damage than this 9mm for no discernible reason.

Far Cry 6 reload projectiles
Notice the primers on these freshly reload projectiles, they are already struck! (Courtesy HarryNinetyFour)

Magazine capacities can be wrong. For example, the Dragunov only holds five-round instead of ten. Recoil balance is silly occasionally, and firing full auto often seems quite controllable with most guns. I shouldn’t be able to easily control a full auto MAC so easily.

One thing that annoys me is that the mounted M2s and Dshk 50 caliber machine guns seem to do barely any damage to anything. They should shred a guy wearing body armor, but they tend to be weak and lame to use. The same goes for the 50 BMG sniper rifle…lord forbid you use standard 50 BMG ammo against an armored target. They lose about 5% of their health.

What Far Cry 6 Gets Right

Far Cry 6 gets a surprising amount right when it comes to guns. Let’s start with the firearm selection. The fictional country Yara is a stand-in for Cuba essentially, and they did a great job producing firearms that fit the setting. Lots of Soviet Small arms that range from World War 2 era guns to more modern AK-type firearms. There are even some odd and rare bullpup rifles and SMGs from behind the Iron Curtain.

Russian small arms in Far Cry 6
The Russian Small Arms make a lot of sense in Yara. (Courtesy TigerField)

Past that, we also get some interesting Cold War rifles like the FN FAL. Two variants of the FAL are in the game, including the old-school StG 58 series of FALs and a more modern DSA carbine. We have lots of guns that are rather old but make sense, especially the double-barrel shotguns and bolt action 308s.

Only a few guns don’t make much sense, and they are the more exotic weapons like the KelTec KSG, the SRM 1212, the SPAS 12, the Desert Eagle, VHS-D2, and a few more don’t make a ton of sense in the setting, but are still fun to handle.

older gun in Far Cry 6
Some older guns pop up.

The firearms tend to be pretty accurate in terms of controls and design. Little things like the reloads are great. You do the uber tactical AK reload, feed a single shell into your lever gun’s loading gate, and open the top cover of your LMG to reload.

Impressive Scatterguns

A lot of the shotgun reloads are great—especially the KelTec KSG and SRM 1212 model. The KSG has the tube selector, which is used in the game. The SRM 1212 rotates its tubular magazine every three shots, and it’s impressively accurate. You only reload a single shell if you reload the double-barrel after firing a single shot. If you empty the pump-action MP-133, you’ll load the first round through the port.

Far Cry 6 SRM Shotgun
The SRM shotgun has a very realistic reload. (Courtesy HarryNinetyFour)

Although that being said, the SPAS 12 has a left-side ejection port, which I don’t think ever actually existed. Of course, this takes away from the detail they used in the game. I’d imagine the SPAS 12 was an older asset from another game where they didn’t pay a ton of attention to the details.

Far Cry 6 KSG tube selector
Loading the KSG shows a devotion to realism, notice the selector for the different tubes. (Courtesy HarryNinetyFour)

I like that you can use different shotgun ammo types. You can use buckshot and slugs, as well as a few other, more novelty ammo types.

The Ammo Types

One of the features I liked in the game was the ammo-type selections. Every weapon can use a variety of ammo types. You have standard rounds, which are just a balanced choice. Armor-piercing works well against armored targets but not great against unarmored targets. Soft point ammo can devastate unarmored targets but suck against armored.

fort infiltration in Far Cry 6
The right ammo makes a big difference when you start fighting.

We also have blast and poison rounds. Blast rounds work well against vehicles but suck everywhere else. The poison rounds can make an enemy go crazy, switch sides, and make them super flammable. That being said, I stuck to the more realistic standard, armored piercing and soft point ammo types. I like the ammo types and the idea behind them.

Accessorizing Your Blaster

If you have a favorite weapon, you can accessorize it with optics, muzzle devices, lasers, and more. Some are neat, and some are silly. I love the homemade suppressors, but I think the homemade optics are just silly. Something about a crappy suppressor made from assorted junk gives me that guerilla feeling. You can also toss on a compensator to reduce muzzle rise, which I found super handy with SMGs.

Far Cry 6 FAL with homemade red dot sight
The FAL mixed with a silly homemade red dot makes one heckuva weapon.

You can use red dots, ACOGs, and other fictional optics that give you enhanced range and speed. I stuck to iron sights most of the time. Iron sights are always fun, and the iron sights in the game are quite realistic. I appreciate that.

GunPlay and GunFights

Far Cry 6 did a weird thing where it made a lot of targets bullet sponges and gave silly, nonsensical ranks to weapons. Why is the M60 so much less powerful than the HK21E? It’s annoying and ensures you might not use your favorite real-life weapon just because it’s significantly weaker than standard guns. (Also, why does the .45-70 do less damage than an airsoft gun?)

SKS in Far Cry 6
Look at that old SKS.

Headshots still work, and so do knee shots. One neat thing is the enemy’s reaction to being shot. If you shoot someone in the knee, they fall down, which makes it handy to take down armored enemies. I love knee-shotting a bad guy and finishing them with a machete.

Some guns get a little crazy.

Another neat feature is the ability to use cover. You can crouch behind cover and peek over the top or around the side to engage. It’s pretty fun, and I try to make my gunfights in the game more realistic and cling to cover.

Yay or Nay?

If you like Far Cry games, you’ll like Far Cry 6. If you tuned out after Far Cry 3, you won’t be brought back into the fold by Far Cry 6. However, if you want a solid single-player campaign with a healthy amount of guns available, then it’s the game for you. I found it a little easy, but if you start disabling the HUD features and target highlight, you’ll find it significantly more challenging.

If you like guns, I think you’ll be impressed by what the Far Cry 6 is capable of.

Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner and a lifelong firearms enthusiast. Now that his days of working a 240B like Charlie Parker on the sax are over he's a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is probably most likely the world's Okayest firearm instructor. He is a simplicisist when it comes to talking about himself in the 3rd person and a self-professed tactical hipster. Hit him up on Instagram, @travis.l.pike, with story ideas.

Sign Up for Newsletter

Let us know what topics you would be interested:
© 2024 GunMag Warehouse. All Rights Reserved.
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap