The permanent traits themselves are what you’d expect from a standard Far Cry skill tree. Weapons in the armoury can similarly be upgraded with cash. Thankfully, any trials you complete adds those weapons to the armoury, which can be bought with cash without completing the trials again. Weapons can be earned in trials scattered throughout the map (as you only start with a pistol on each escape attempt), but dying loses your guns too. You can use gathered cash to purchase permanent abilities for Vaas to make him more resilient and dangerous in combat.
As a player, it’s technically possible to go to each of these areas and finish up everything quickly, but without completing side missions and building up Vaas and his abilities, it’s going to be incredibly difficult. He must travel to the three ends of the island to assemble the pieces of the dragon blade and escape his mind. The experience is a smaller, more contained map that sees Vaas start in the middle. That seems befitting for how Vaas: Insanity plays as a game. We’ve all heard that age-old adage that Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a change in result. Still, it felt slightly unnecessary in the big scheme of things. The extra backstory and context provided here will appeal to some people, no less. But it always felt like we knew just enough about Vaas to understand him as a villain as the credits of Far Cry 3 rolled. So much of Insanity is designed around the premise of better fleshing out the characters of Far Cry 3, with a focus on Citra and Vaas. That being said, I’m not entirely sure that we even needed to see this much more of Vass Montenegro. It’s a very introspective set-up for one of Far Cry’s most notoriously unstable villains and perhaps the smartest way to bring Vaas back in a big way without it being too tacky or unnecessary. From the get-go, it’s made clear to Vaas that he won’t just grab them, and that he must confront some of his past enemies and relive his most traumatic memories to be strong enough to retrieve them. He’s woken up inside of his mind, however, and must follow a mysterious voice to reassemble the three pieces of the silver dragon blade to escape. Insanity opens with Vaas waking up following his lethal altercation with Jason Brody in Far Cry 3. Thankfully, while I’ve only played the first experience – Vaas: Insanity – I’m excited to say that it’s more interesting than anything offered up by Far Cry 5, and it’s also an interesting take on the tried-and-true rogue-like formula. Whilst I enjoyed Far Cry 5, the season pass was just so unremarkable that I was worried the same might happen with Far Cry 6. Far Cry 6 was great fun, and I was even more excited to give its upcoming season pass content a try as it revisits the thing we love most about the Far Cry games – the villains.