I am not a big fan of rogue-likes, but if it isn’t the most appropriate genre for Far Cry 6‘s first expansion Vaas Insanity, then I don’t know what is. Out of all of Far Cry’s villains over the years, Vaas continues to be the most memorable one for me, and he’s not even the real villain of Far Cry 3. This could easily have devolved into a repetitive slog through increasingly difficult trials — as many rogue-likes tend to do — but there’s enough of a hook to keep you going. That said, once you complete the adventure there’s not much incentive to go back. You can try harder difficulties if that’s your thing — and it can get very hard if you want it to — but the story is otherwise done.

The biggest worry I had going into this game is that it would reveal too much about Vaas. After all, he works best as an unknown, unpredictable element like he was in Far Cry 3. This expansion toes the line, and it might even step over it a few times, but on the whole, it expands on the Vaas character without undercutting his previous appearance. Certainly, a lot of that is from Michael Mando‘s excellent voice acting, but the writers hold their own, too.

If your only experience with Far Cry is more recent entries then you may not get too much out of this, but in that case, I would encourage you to try Far Cry 3 before jumping into this. If you did play and enjoy Far Cry 3 previously then definitely give this a run. I can only hope the remaining two expansions do as much justice to their subjects as Vass Insanity does here. If I have a complaint about the first DLC it is that this probably should have been a stand-alone release rather than as an add-on for a game that is unrelated except in name.