Far Cry 6: Lost Between Worlds DLC review for Xbox, PlayStation, PC

Platform: Xbox Series X
Also On: PS5, PS4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M

Far Cry is a franchise that grew on me later in the series’ history with Far Cry 3 and not the main game. It took Blood Dragon (our review here), one of the best pieces of standalone DLC content to be released ever, to pique my interest. Also thank you to Blood Dragon for one of the best intro songs in years and for such a fun retro action flick in game form. The love of this game was my gateway into Far Cry.

Fast forward to December 2022, almost 10 years later, for Lost Between Worlds which was new DLC for Far Cry 6.  The trailer looked promising with some similar color schemes and level design reminiscent of Blood Dragon. While it was not advertised to be anything like that Far Cry 3 content I hoped and was excited to revisit Far Cry 6, which I reviewed here.

The difference with this Lost Between Worlds DLC is it was not part of the Season Pass, and is advertised as a Story expansion. The trailer threw me off because we see the main game protagonist encountering an alien lifeform and end up in a Space Between Worlds of sorts which is where the content takes place. In essence, it may have you playing as Dani, but this is a very contained DLC unlike the post release Rambo content including Danny Trejo.

Let?s just get into it. There is a lot of great an innovative mechanics implemented throughout my time with the DLC. The biggest departure, is the roguelike elements which include randomized enemy encounters, and dying will lead you back to the beginning of the layered levels which have a branched out sequence that requires revisiting.

You do have a way to revive mid-level if you collect items called Glints which will be used as currency. If you run out, it’s back to the beginning of your run. The premise of the levels are broken up into 15 sections called Rifts and each have very otherworldly appearances but share some familiarity with the core game. Each Rift focuses on different challenges to get through. Some are simply combat focused, while others are puzzle solving which is a nice addition.

As you make it to the end of a rift, there is two branching exits which you will see mapped out during your initial run. The goal is to get to the end of each branch and collect 5 Shards complete your main objective. You will start like the primary story with nothing and will gradually find weapons and other items. This leads me to the biggest difference in the game mechanics.

The combat is not as straight forward as you would expect, and Ubisoft has implemented something new called the ?Chromatic Combat System?. The enemies you encounter in each Rift are called Shardfaces and are colored either Red or Blue. This gave me Superhot vibes, for better or worse. The weapons you collect have ammo that is based for each color so you will need to change the color of your weapon as you face in some cases a large variety of these two enemy types and this was my biggest turnoff for the game.

I?ve spent a lot the time dying from fumbling the toggling of weapon colors since muscle memory wins here. The levels became frustrating for me as I would run out of glints and have to go back to the beginning when I was at the last Rift in a run. It was borderline uninstall frustrating and I play Soulsborne games.

Personally, I?m here for the open world, story building and pure action when I turn on Far Cry. I commend Ubisoft for going in a vastly different direction and the visuals give me mixed feels reminiscent of Blood Dragon, Trials Fusion and Future elements from the Assassin?s Creed franchise. It?s not bad in any way, just not for me.

I think fans of rougelike games may enjoy this via discovery like I did with Blood Dragon. It?s not Far Cry in spirit but it follows a similar trend of out of the box DLC for the Far Cry series. It costs $20 and you can usually get the base game at a reasonable price.

Note: Ubisoft provided us a Far Cry 6: Between Worlds code for review purposes.

Grade: B-