REVIEW: “Vaas: Insanity” is an Excellent First Far Cry 6 DLC (PC)

While Far Cry 6 continued to push the franchise to the next level, the Season Pass content takes a look back at earlier iterations of the Far Cry series. “Vaas: Insanity,” released November 16th, is the first of these, and it takes a look inside the chaotic and troubled mind of Vaas from Far Cry 3.

Vaas Montenegro is arguably the most interesting of the Far Cry characters, so the idea of taking a deeper dive inside his mind is an extremely interesting one. The story delves into his relationship with his sister, Citra Talugmai, as well as other characters from Far Cry 3. I don’t want to give away too much information as to who you encounter, as it’s pretty much the main focal point of the story included in “Vaas: Insanity.” It’s fair to say, however, that Vaas is quite insane, and your journey into his mind is wild and exciting from a story perspective. You don’t even need to have played Far Cry 3 before to understand what is going on, although that prior knowledge does make some of the revelations and interactions more enjoyable.

The gameplay loop is arguably even more interesting than the story, which should excite fans. You start off as Vaas locked in a room listening to his sister speak, and when you exit are only armed with a pistol and one health syringe. The world the campaign takes place in is modeled after Rook Island from Far Cry 3, but with some really unique locations (and even features some flying sharks). The objective is to complete missions to obtain Citra’s blade and prove yourself in order to escape Vaas’ mind. There are only 3 main missions, but there is plenty of side content that explores Vaas even deeper and is worth taking the time to check out. The character development is excellent, and the returning performance of voice actor Michael Mando as Vaas really drives the performance home.

Since you only start off with a pistol and limited healing abilities, exploring the world is going to be vital if you want to be powerful enough to tackle the main missions. There are several different challenges that unlock different types of weapons, and while they aren’t incredibly mechanically interesting they are still more than worth it for the weapons they can unlock. You will also gain cash while playing through the campaign which is used to unlock more permanent upgrades. This is extremely important, since any non-permanent items, as well as cash, are lost if you die. There are permanent upgrades that can help you hold on to certain things, but you’ll need to make your way back to the center of the map to use the mirror and armory to unlock those. It’s a really interesting mechanic that makes staying alive and playing intelligently vitally important.

The overall game difficulty is also quite interesting in “Vaas: Insanity.” There are various different “mind levels” that increase the difficulty each time you play through, instead of simple difficulty selections that can be changed during gameplay. Even when playing in co-op mode, the difficulty only changes based on the mind level and doesn’t scale at all. This makes it a little bit easier when playing with a friend, especially on higher difficulties. Co-op in Far Cry 6 is already a blast, and it remains so when playing “Vaas: Insanity.”

Overall, “Vaas: Insanity” is an excellent first DLC for Far Cry 6. The look into the chaos of Vaas’ mind is a really interesting one, and the gameplay loop is as intriguing as it is challenging. It can be fun solo or with friends and is absolutely worth taking the time to check out.

“Vaas: Insanity” releases November 16th on Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC, and Stadia.