WTF?! Far Cry 6 Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition launches on Friday as an inexplicably strange bundle and costs $120. Several things make this version of the game weird, which I will touch on, but the main takeaway should be: Don’t buy it. We don’t want to encourage this type of marketing.
I’ve observed that game-of-the-year editions usually have a few things in common. They typically come out around a year after the title’s initial release. Far Cry 6 turns one year old on Friday.
More often than not, the GOTY version includes Some or all of the already released DLC. Far Cry 6 GOTY bundle consists of all currently available DLC, the upcoming Lost Between Worlds expansion, and strangely, the 2013 Far Cry 3 expansion, Blood Dragon. It is also throwing in three cosmetic/weapon packs. These special edition bundles are often at or below the game’s original MSRP.
Finally, GOTY editions, at least those I have purchased, actually won a Game of the Year award at some show or expo, be it BAFTA, Dice, The Game Awards Show, or other well-recognized organizations. Far Cry 6 does not share this distinction.
Now don’t get me wrong. Far Cry 6 is not a bad game. It mostly follows the franchise’s winning formula. However, it was nowhere close to my favorite game of 2021, and its award wins reflect that.
It was nominated for Best Music at BAFTA but lost to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It earned three nominations at The Game Awards but didn’t take home a trophy. The National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) gave it a bunch of nominations. However, it only won Outstanding Lead Performance in a Drama for Giancarlo Esposito’s portrayal of dictator Anton Castillo and Outstanding Graphics/Technical. NAVGTR was the only organization to nominate it for a GOTY, but it lost to Deathloop.
The bottom line is that while FC6 was a good game, it was up against some stiff competition and never won Game of the Year. So Ubisoft is only using the designation as a marketing gimmick to drum up interest in a game that has seen its sales dip considerably since release. It seems a bit shady to me.
You’re better off skipping this bundle, and here’s why. Weapon packs are worthless, in my opinion. They are mainly cosmetic and don’t add value to the game, so let’s leave them out of the big picture.
The three DLCs — Collapse, Control, and Insanity are worth the fun and go for $15 each or $40 if you buy the Season Pass. Coupled with the game, that’s $100, the exact price and content of the Gold Edition. Blood Dragon is another $15, the same price as when released in 2013. Ubisoft has not announced how much Lost Between Worlds will go for, but based on the GOTY bundle, you’d be getting it for $5, which is good.
However, the three DLC are overpriced, in my opinion. Remember, I said they were “worth the fun,” not “worth the price.” You’d be better off waiting for these to go on sale and picking them up then. Blood Dragon is also asking a lot at $15 for a title that is almost a decade old and takes about two days to complete with a 100 percent trophy.
Wait. Let me rephrase that. Blood Dragon is worth its normal $15 price tag because of its hilarious one-liners and 1980s retro vibe. But it frequently goes on sale. I recently bought it for $8 and today it is on sale for $7.50 on the PlayStation Store.
Speaking of PlayStation owners, all three DLC and Blood Dragon are marked down 50 percent. That price is $10 less than the Season Pass and throws in BD for free. Unfortunately, Epic isn’t running a sale, and the game is unavailable on Steam, so if you want a discount for PC, you’ll have to be patient.
I’ll close out by saying that the FarCry 6 GOTY Edition is disguised as a good value. Indeed, it is the best deal you can get right now if you are in a hurry. However, the bundle currently can be picked up for cheaper on PlayStation by individual purchases, and it probably won’t be long until Epic has a similar sale.
The other thing is that buying a game of the year edition for a title that did not win a GOTY encourages developers to grant themselves awards or use obscure publications to justify giving their titles GOTY status just to boost flagging sales. Not something I would like to see become a trend.
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