DLC REVIEW: ‘Far Cry 6: Lost Between Worlds’ is a small twist (XSX)

The newest DLC for Far Cry 6 takes the game in a new sci-fi direction. Lost Between Worlds kicks off with a meteor crashing into the island of Yara, causing the player’s character Dany to investigate. When they do they get stuck in a pocket universe created by the damaged alien ship with an alien presence called Fai. To escape, the player has to collect five shards broken off the ship to repair it. 

However, getting the shards is much easier said than done, as they are spread out across a web of inter-connected simulation realms. Each of these realms has its own theme and mechanics. There are 16 in total, with effects like having lightning periodically strike the ground, having water that damages the player when they are in it, or having lengthy segments of swimming for players to navigate. 

In each of the realms, players have to explore to find resources and navigate a path to one of its two portals. Most of the time in each realm is spent exploring with small encounters with enemies popping up throughout it. However, the pleasure of exploring the realms falls below exploring in the base game. While the gimmicks of each realm are intriguing at first, the feeling quickly diminishes because of how uninteresting their layouts and contents are. 

The realms also suffer from not having a lot to explore for. Players can find cases that can contain a small selection of weapons, shortcuts that can be accessed on later runs with better equipment, and small bits of a new currency called Glint. Since Lost Between Worlds is built on a light rogue-lite structure, the only use for Glint is purchasing a revive for 100 Glint after dying. 

Rogue-lite structure is nothing new to Far Cry 6, as all three of its previous DLCs were small insulated rogue-lites. Those previous DLCs took much greater advantage of the format, however. In Lost Between Worlds players get randomized loadouts from a very limited pool of weapons and have to restart runs in dying, but there is very little else to add personality to individual runs. The omission seems particularly glaring as the unique realms would lend themselves very well to players being able to prep for a run by building a unique loadout that compensates for it. 

The other main attraction of Lost Between Worlds is its new color-based combat system. In realms, players don’t run into human enemies, but instead, a new enemy type awkwardly called Shardfaces that can be red or blue. While in combat, players have to switch the color of their gun between red and blue to match the enemy they want to shoot. Otherwise, their guns won’t do any damage. For most combat encounters, players don’t need to change their gun’s color frequently because they mostly only have enemies of a single color. When players do have to switch back and forth between them, it becomes an annoyance more than anything because of how much switching between them lags and slows down the player’s play. 

There are also numerous different types of Shardfaces to mix up combat encounters. There are ones that have snipers, knock the player down with melee weapons, ambush players after being invisible, or can place a shield down on the ground to hide behind. These work to help keep players on their toes by forcing them to adapt to their limited resources. 

However, the biggest detriment to the combat throughout a playthrough of Lost Between Worlds is just how sparse it is. Many encounters only feature a few enemies that can quickly be dealt with, making the realms feel empty and dull. This is particularly unfortunate as there is little else to play the DLC for. Its narrative is merely a husk to justify its aesthetic and format, its only unlocks are cosmetics for the main game, and its unique mechanic doesn’t do enough to transform the experience. 

This means the only reason for someone to play the DLC is that they want an excuse to shoot more bad guys in Far Cry 6, but it struggles to deliver that with its small enemy count and lack of player choice in encounters. It isn’t like the game’s previous DLCs or the base game, where players have enough room in the world to take different approaches or experiment with their gear. It is effectively a shooting gallery with pretty colors for players to watch out for, and I don’t think that will be enough to motivate most players to check it out. 

Far Cry 6: Lost Between Worlds is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.