Mainline Far Cry games always tell a new story, with new heroes and villains to get to know. However, Far Cry 6 breaks from tradition by including one direct, unexpected, and slightly puzzling connection to Far Cry 3.
This story contains major spoilers for the ending Far Cry 6. Don't read any further if you don't want to know more.
While Far Cry 6 very much tells its own story, the ending offers a surprising connection to Far Cry 3 by reintroducing the voice of Vaas (played by original actor Michael Mando). After the credits role, an audio-only scene plays out featuring a conversation between guerrilla fighter Juan Cortez and a character referred to in the captions as 'Smuggler', but who is very clearly the voice of Vaas.
The conversation is fairly innocuous, discussing the final events of the game and establishing that Juan is supplying Viviro (the fictional cancer drug produced in the Far Cry 6's setting, Yara) to the smuggler. But the fact that Vaas is here at all is more interesting than the chat itself (which you can listen to in the video below).
The thing is, Vaas is very much supposed to be dead. In Far Cry 3, protagonist Jason Brody stabs the iconic villain multiple times (although, to be fair, Vaas does appear to be still faintly alive the last time we see him). Far Cry 3 is set in 2012, while an alternative ending in Far Cry 6 all but confirms that it takes place in 2020 or 2021 by mentioning pandemic lockdowns.
So, does this mean that Vaas survived after all? And, if so, does Ubisoft have plans to bring him back into the mainline Far Cry games? We know that Vaas will be a playable character in upcoming Far Cry 6 DLC, but that's depicted as an in-world video game, so this cameo might be hinting at something larger in the character's future. We've asked Ubisoft for comment.
It's not the only Far Cry connection we learned about recently. In our IGN Inside Story about the making of Far Cry's villains, director Clint Hocking confirmed a long-discussed theory that the villain of Far Cry 2 was an older version of the protagonist from Far Cry 1.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].