Far Cry 6 - Pagan: Control DLC Review
I don't care i never really considered far cry a series that was ripe for the roguelike treatment and unfortunately far cry 6's control dlc doesn't do much to convince me otherwise this looping gauntlet provides an interesting exploration of one of its more complex villains but control's small scale open world doesn't really deliver the same satisfying freeform fun as the base game the time has come idea are you are you sure am I sure control has you take control of far cry 4's pink suited pagan men who trapped in a prison of his own mind must complete a series of trials to help restore his sanity or perhaps more accurately his delusional self-image to do so you'll need to collect the three shards of his golden mask from around the bizarro version of a karate valley that's become his subconscious home yeah it's a little on the nose i know it's not clear whether this is a hallucination or just some sort of weird dream but the concept feels like a natural extension of the chirpy sequences that have become a series staple the world itself is a neon splatter trip down memory lane for fans of far cry 4 and while it can definitely feel like you're seeing a lot of recycled material ubisoft definitely nailed the look of this mental monument to pagan's hubris and while it could have devolved into an otherwise forgettable slog between combat encounters what truly sells the delusion is the return of voice actor troy baker as the starring villain and a clever insightful script by the story team helmed by lead writer nikki foy what is this what have i found the more you kill the stronger you'll get i could have done with a more refresher on the events of a seven-year-old game at the beginning but it does a good job of delving into min's perspective on far cry 4 and especially the importance of the family drama that preceded it all makes for an interesting exploration of the villain's true nature made even more ambiguous by the increasingly unreliable narration you get from pagan's conversation with his own inner demons which are some of baker's best moments good gold is that really what my voice sounds like there may be some aspects of his personality that are clearer than others he's definitely still a narcissist with a flair for drama everything that's ever happened it's not your fault but after the roughly five hours it took me to roll credits the first time i had a decidedly more nuanced view of the character that went well beyond the rather stereotypical charismatic psychopath i remember him as guys you can't have a statue without my head the head has my best feature on it outside its story moments however control stumbles a bit in pagan's luxurious loafers its take on the roguelite formula is pretty standard you have one chance to complete all three combat trials and survive a final challenge if you die you start again with nothing though you can purchase persistent upgrades that will make you and your limited arsenal more powerful on the next try it's an interesting use of far cry's mechanics in theory but the constraints demanded by the roguelike concept means that this dlc leans heavily on fairly basic gunplay and little else leaving that signature sense of freedom the series is known for almost entirely off the table there are only 9 weapons so far as i could tell and everything other than the pistol needs to be unlocked by completing challenges across the map the unlocks are persistent which is handy but once i was able to start a run with an assault.
Rifle grenade launcher or what might be far cry's slowest shotgun i was well enough equipped that i never really felt compelled to unlock any others you can really only choose whether to run in guns blazing or try and keep things stealthy and that's only if you bother to unlock the bow or manage to roll one of the randomized weapon loadouts that happens to include a silencer things have a free i suppose some of the upgrades you'll unlock are really valuable and worth working towards like being able to carry extra healing kits unlocking gear like the grappling hook and wingsuit or giving you the ability to keep some of the currency you earned on a run after you die others though seem hardly worthwhile by the time you bank enough cash to unlock them sure i could spend the six thousand plus points to unlock buggies in your safe houses but at this point i've already discovered all the teleporters that's at me around the map the best use of cash was usually unlocking an extra power up slot for the random buffs that dropped from chests and enemies around the map but there are only eight of those so eventually my upgrade options became a lot less exciting what ultimately left me convinced that the roguelite format was a poor fit for far cry was its lack of variety even if you revisited on the four higher difficulty levels the repetitive nature of its open world activities and the annoyingly frequent recycling of its few boss characters really sat my desire to challenge myself with additional playthroughs it took me four maybe five runs to get through my first escape and were i not duty bound to play more of it for this review i likely would have stopped there he promised that what happened to the goddess would never happen again the strength of far cry especially in six has always been its open-ended approach to gameplay and while there are echoes of that in the control dlc it's curtailed enough that it feels like a more basic fps troy baker reprising his performance as the self-obsessed king of karat is enjoyable throughout and the story provides some interesting new perspectives on one of ubisoft's most iconic villains even adding some interesting new details to the series lore however its roguelite elements are a bit too restrictive and its missions and battles are much too repetitive to make defeating pagan men's inner demons a devilishly good time for more check out the first 15 minutes of the dlc for yourself or our behind the scenes look inside how far cry's iconic villains were created for everything else stick.