Far Cry 6's 'Supremo' backpacks are so OP they feel like cheat codes
I usually play Far Cry games using stealth rather than gung-ho bravado. Scurry around in a crouch, scan and tag enemies, and pick them off quietly one at a time. You really haven't lived until you've taken down an entire stronghold without a single enemy seeing you. There are plenty of times when stealth goes sideways and I have to start blowing things up, but my weapon of choice is usually something sharp and silent.
I got to play a few hours of Far Cry 6 recently, most of it on a small landmass off the coast of the much bigger country of Yara. It might as well have been called Tutorial Island. Within a few minutes I was sneaking up behind enemy soldiers, tapping a key, and watching my character Dani slam her machete into their necks, backs, and stomachs—those types of silent kills that seem like in reality would probably make a whole lot of noise.
That approach didn't last too long, though. As I skulked around dispatching soldiers with stealth, I also picked up their weapons along with scrap metal and other resources, and soon I was tinkering at a workbench to mod my new guns. A pistol silencer made from a plastic bottle (I like silencers). A sniper scope with the crosshairs drawn on in ink (I especially like silenced sniper rifles).
The rebels of Yara are poor, and have to use low-tech improvised weapons and crudely crafted modifications. Well, sort of. As peniless as the guerilla resistance claims to be, they have access to some ridiculously effective weaponry. One of the first missions on Tutorial Island was to recruit a veteran guerilla named Juan, who then asks me to heist some depleted uranium so he can build me a Supremo. It's the least stealthy weapon you could imagine, and it kind of eliminates the need for stealth at all.
The Supremo is a backpack that can launch a sortie of rockets that will home in on my enemies and they can outright destroy heavy military equipment. It's so ridiculously deadly that barely an hour into Far Cry 6 I felt like I already had a cheat code for winning fights and completing missions.
One mission required me to take out a powerful enemy commander, Rosario, who was inspecting a heavily guarded fortification filled with soldiers. I snuck to a cliff overlooking the facility, then used my phone's camera to zoom in and tag Rosario and examine her strengths and weakness. That information turned out to be pointless because I put my phone away and launched all of my Supremo rockets right into Rosario's face.
She ran, but my rockets chased her. Boom. Mission complete. Several of her soldiers got blown up by some of my Supremo's spare missiles, too. And I didn't even have to set foot in the fort. Awesome.
My Supremo rockets trumped my stealthy leanings at another point during my preview. I was told by a Ubisoft employee that my time was nearly up but I had yet to complete the final story mission on Tutorial Island. (I had been sort of taking my time exploring, doing some fishing, hunting for treasure in caves, feeding the various friendly animals I came across, instead of checking missions off my list.) The mission said I had to take out an anti-aircraft cannon so a friendly helicopter could approach the island. Without much time for stealth I jumped on a horse (you can ride horses in Far Cry 6, by the way), raced to the mission location, got within range of the cannon and let my Supremo barf up a bunch of missiles. No more anti-aircraft cannon. As a side-note, just to reinforce the fact that the Supremo is anti-stealth, Dani screams at the top of her lungs every time she uses it.
The rocket launcher backpack (called the Exterminador) isn't the only version of the Supremo, by the way. The game has several. One called the Médico lets you self-revive (good for solo play) and acts as a mobile hospital: instead of launching rockets it spews a cloud of healing vapor, which I imagine it could be quite useful for playing medic in Far Cry 6's 2-player co-op mode, which is available for the entire campaign beyond Tutorial Island.
Another version of the Supremo, the Furioso, lifts you off the ground as it emits a massive ring of exploding fire in all directions around you. I didn't get to try the Furioso, but it sounds like it'd be handy if you were boxed in on all sides or accidentally parachuted into a crowd of baddies. The Volta Supremo produces an EMP blast that disables vehicles and electronic security devices, and knocks nearby soldiers off their feet. The Supremo may look homemade but it's clearly some pretty high-tech, sci-fi stuff.
The Supremo isn't the only instance of wacky weaponry in Far Cry 6. There are poison bullets that can turn enemies against each other, just like poison does in real life. There's a minigun made from a motorcycle engine you've probably seen in a few trailers. There's a modification for the shotgun that will make its shells vampiric so you'll be healed as you shred your enemies. If the revolution doesn't go well, I'd say the guerillas could make a killing patenting and selling some of their wild weapons.
Saving the Supremo from being completely game-breaking is that it requires quite a long time to recharge. That cool-down period shrinks the more soldiers you defeat (I'm not sure why the backpack is influenced by corpses, but it is) so at least you're encouraged to do something productive rather than hiding and waiting for it to reload itself. And there may be enemies deeper into the game who can shrug-off a faceful of missiles. But in the first few hours of Far Cry 6, the Supremo made me forget all about being sneaky in a Far Cry game.