That’s according to the game’s narrative director Navid Khavari, who – awkwardly – had previously claimed that, nah, it isn’t.
For context, Far Cry 6 introduces Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito as the fascist “El Presidente” of Yara, a made-up, retro-contemporary Caribbean island state based on Cuba. Protagonist Dani Rojas is a “military dropout” who two-ups with a crocodile and joins the local revolución to take him out. That’s obviously political, isn’t it?
It wasn’t this weekend.
Talking to The Gamer, Khavari claimed at the time that “it’s a complicated island and our game doesn’t want to make a political statement about what’s happening in Cuba specifically”. Which, okay, it’s not about what’s happening in Cuba specifically. But it’s also kind of disingenuous – the discussion about games and politics isn’t new, and some publishers and developers have been frustratingly ambiguous on the subject, perhaps to mitigate the inevitable Twitter drama. Including Ubisoft.
Besides, it’s hard to imagine that a game inspired by actual, real events in Cuba is completely divorced from the actual, real politics of everybody involved. The developers even consulted actual, real Cuban guerrilla soldiers for the game.
So conceding that the game is political because “a story about a modern revolution must be”, Khavari has now explained exactly what that means for Far Cry 6.
“There are hard, relevant discussions in Far Cry 6 about the conditions that lead to the rise of fascism in a nation, the costs of imperialism, forced labour, the need for free-and-fair elections, LGBTQ+ rights, and more within the context of Yara, a fictional island in the Caribbean,” he writes on the Ubisoft website.
“The conversations and research done on the perspectives of those who fought revolutions in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and beyond are absolutely reflected in our story and characters. But if anyone is seeking a simplified, binary political statement specifically on the current political climate in Cuba, they won’t find it. I am from a family that has endured the consequences of revolution. I have debated revolution over the dinner table my entire life. I can only speak for myself, but it is a complex subject that should never be boiled down to one quote.”
I mean, he’s not wrong. It is complicated. But making a political statement in a game, even specifically about Cuba, shouldn’t be controversial, anyway.
Far Cry 6 launches on PC and consoles on 7 October and it’s #political.