The ports of Yara are open! Far Cry 6 is out today and there’s a lot to do on the massive island of Yara. Over the last week, as I’ve been shooting, jumping, and dying on the island myself, I have been writing down tips and tricks to help you make the most of your time in Yara. I tried my best to mix up the guide to be for players both new to the Far Cry series and veterans who have been around since Vaas was posing with machetes.
Before we get to the specific tips, let me preface this with some general ones. For example, frequently go to a workbench and upgrade your weapons. Go to Juan Cortez or one of his people and buy new Supremos and Resolver weapons. And, for players on next-gen consoles, the first step to enjoying Yara is making sure it looks beautiful. That means installing the 26 GB texture pack that adds upgraded visuals to the game.
Optimize Your Arsenal | In Far Cry 6, you can carry three primary weapons along with a sidearm and a Supremo. Make sure that one of those primary weapons is a silenced weapon. While you can go in guns blazing, stealth is the safer (and often more fun and intense) method, and having a suppressed weapon will let you carefully breach FND run areas without fear. Keep in mind, that the suppressors the guerillas use have a cooldown. If you shoot rapidly, the silencer will blow and your weapon will go back to sounding like normal. So it’s best if you use it on a single-shot weapon.
Be Precise | It’s good to have eyes on your enemies at all times and though the method that the game teaches you on Isla Santuario is to press UP on the d-pad to bring up your phone and mark enemies from a high vantage point that way, there is another method as well. One of the pieces of equipment you have in your arsenal is the Precision Grenade. You can throw these in the general direction of a group of enemies, the grenade will ping them for you and you can track their moments through walls. They were so useful that by the late game I was just chucking two grenades into enemy bases before I went in. Making it easy to take out at least a few before shit hits the fan.
Aim for the Head | This may seem obvious, but like any first-person shooter, headshots in Far Cry 6 do a lot of damage. What you may not know is that as long as you’re not spotted by an enemy, a headshot is pretty much a one-hit kill, even against enemies that are of a higher rank or armored up. That is also another reason to stay stealthy as long as you can.
Keep Your Amigos Close | Say you’re in an FND base and your cover is blown. Well, that’s where Amigos come in. Amigos in Far Cry 6 are a variety of animal companions that you can choose to have by your side. Unless you get the Ultimate Edition, which comes with two extra Amigos, you’ll start out with Guapo, the crocodile. Amigos will immediately start attacking enemies when you fire shots, so the best technique to use Amigos wisely is to order them to hide in a bush near the front of the base you’re infiltrating. Then, once you’re in a good vantage point, or your cover is blown, you can call in your Amigo to attack and in that confusion kill a bunch of guards.
Be the Supremo Victor | Let’s keep going with the scenario that your cover is blown, and the alarm is rung. (Here’s a tip within a tip, disable alarms before you start firing.) Soon you’ll have helicopters on you and they are tough to bring down. This is where you use the Supremos. Supremos are something you unlock in the opening area of the game from Juan Cortez, and they can be extremely effective in dealing a ton of damage to helicopters and tanks. With a good hit, they can one-shot a helicopter, but don’t be foolish (like me) and think you can take down a tank solo unless you have more explosive to go with it.
Stay In Your Lane | To keep the wonderful transitions going, on the note of helicopters and tanks, be wary of where you wander off to. Yara is a vibrant map with lots to do, but don’t just go to where the waypoint marker is set because sometimes it can lead you to areas where the required rank is well above your own. This means enemies are much harder to kill and you will likely die a lot faster because of it. If you’re ever in a death loop (no pun intended) check the area rank to see if you’re punching above your weight.
Use Autopilot | Speaking of staying in your lane (see what I did there?), when driving a car on the main roads of Yara, once you select a waypoint on the map, you can click the L3 button and set the car to autopilot. This leaves you free to look around the car or check your texts while you zoom towards the objective. One thing to keep in mind though is that this is not a Tesla and the autopilot can sometimes crash into things and require you to step in to correct the path. If you don’t, the vehicle will keep backing out and driving forward and backing out and driving forward. It wastes more time than it saves. Additionally, the autopilot doesn’t work too well in large trucks, so you’re better off driving those yourself.
See the Local Wildlife | It’s fun to drive around the map, but take some time to run around the Yara wilderness and see the wildlife that attacks you on sight. Like the damn wolves for example. Instead of hunting for a specific animal when the time arises, just pick them up as you go. In Far Cry 6, you simply need to walk over the animal’s body to grab resources, not interact with it, and start an animation where you slice it open like in previous games. This means it really doesn’t add too much time to your playthrough and it can help you in the long run. Case and point, when I finally had the opportunity to unlock Chorizo, I didn’t have to go hunt for the materials needed because I already had them in my inventory.
Upgrade the Camp | While you’re in the Madrugada camp getting Chorizo, you can also check out the foreman, who you interact with to upgrade the camp. The camp system in Far Cry 6 is not too complex and upgrading it is as simple as gathering resources throughout the map and using them with the foreman to build new parts in the camp. Here’s another tip within a tip, as you explore the map, you’ll find scraps, gasoline, metals, and more. Collect them as they are all valuable for upgrades. Now in Madrugada specifically, constructing the Hideout Network will immediately unlock the wingsuit, which is a wonderful way to navigate the map.
Go off the Beaten Path | The last tip is perhaps the most important to enjoy Far Cry 6. The map is full of things to do and it sure can be daunting. Because of this, a lot of people tend to stick to the main questline and b-line it through the campaign. However, I highly encourage you to explore side objectives because that’s arguable where a lot of the charm in Far Cry is packed into. As much as the game’s personality is on display in the main story, there is a lot of wacky missions scattered across the map and you can miss those if you only do the main storyline. That’s how I found The Mongoose and the Man and stumbling onto it while playing the game gave me a good laugh.
With all these tips and tricks out of the way, this is a beginner’s guide and so I want to address those of you who are actually beginners. Far Cry 6 has two difficulties, action and story. Action is what is recommended for most players and offers the true Far Cry experience. However, if you want to focus more on the story and not worry as much about the shooting, then you can switch at any time to the story mode. It’s your gaming experience, make the most of it as you see fit. I hope this guide served you well, and as you all pick up Far Cry 6 in the coming hours and days, I hope you have much fun in Yara as I did. If you’re still undecided about the game, click here to read my full written review for Far Cry 6. And if there’s a tip you think belongs on this list, leave a comment below for others to read.
