DIEGO SHOULD’VE BEEN THE CHARACTER WE PLAY IN FAR CRY 6 IT WOULD’VE FIT BETTER THEMATICALLY AND WENT BACK TO THE ORIGINAL FORMULA OF UNLIKELY HEROES THAT ARE STUCK SOMEWHERE AND WHO DOESN’T HAVE A CHOICE EXCEPT TO BRING ABOUT A LARGE CHANGE OF POWERS TO SURVIVE.
*large gasp in*
ARGUMENT 1 - THE FAR CRY FORMULA
I love Dani but they just continue the Deputy in 5’s formula which is WEAKSAUCE. the reason 3-4 worked so well was partly because of the heroes and their circumstances.
Jason is still iconic a whole decade later because he subverted expectations. he’s a socal douchebag party fuckboy. he’s even the WORST choice out of the brody brothers to be the hero. grant was an ex-navy who would’ve handled rook island better, and riley just graduated pilot school and was the typical younger, physically fit but dorky nice guy protag with his whole life ahead of him storyline. jason’s a shit boyfriend & a loser with no job and no ambition. but jason had no choice but to be the hero because his brothers are out of the equation, and that’s how we got the legend we did cus he skydived straight into the deep end.
Ajay was Jason’s opposite because in his story, he’s the only reasonable choice to be the hero. of COURSE the son of mohan and ishwari would return and finish the job in overthrowing Pagan out of Kyrat. nobody else could do the job, whether ajay wants to or not is irrelevant.
the Deputy tho? they were just in hope county cus it was their job. you could have the same exact story in fc5 if you changed the deputy’s role with hudson or pratt. and dani continues that same setting! dani could’ve been replaced by any other nobody from Yara and that would’ve still worked.
what’s even worse: dani in fc6 DOESN’T have a reason to stay in Yara. they could’ve left, heck they WANTED to leave, so the whole ‘ohh you’re trapped in a place riddled with political and violent conflict’ formula was already rocky from the start. they weren’t patriotic and they didn’t have any meaningful ties to anyone in the country being an orphan.
and while yes there's a story to be told with the fact dani stayed anyway that the game touched upon: "you were the lucky one." and the whole spiel about dani's fate to have always been to stay and fight because they were addicted to the war like Juan was, it didn't hit as well because there was ALWAYS an option to leave at the beginning.
now compare that to Diego, who couldn’t have left because he was son of El Presidente. he HAS tried to escape before and failed. he’s stuck in Yara. Diego’s only choice to survive is to either continue his father’s plans or to thwart them completely. cue the far cry 6 opening sequence.
when the first trailer for fc6 dropped, we see diego & anton for the first time and see a glimpse into what the story would be.
the first thing Anton says to Diego was "It's beautiful, Diego. Perfect. But useless." this could've hit so much harder if it was a double meaning, to have meant about Diego's hobby for miniature car crafting and Diego himself. Diego's the perfect poster boy for Anton, and yet, he's still useless as of now.
not for lack of trying, we see anton try to drill diego with a bunch of his ideals, in trailer and in-game too.
by the end of the trailer, we see Diego presumably dropping the grenade on a bunch of Libertad protesters
this would’ve been diego’s ‘RUN FORREST RUN!’ moment / crab rangoon moment. this was the moment he realized oh SHIT my dad’s completely mental and my choice are either to kill him or these rebels or i’m dying. in the trailer’s setting, he has no choice but to drop that grenade down on them. what could’ve he realistically do? chuck it to the air? NOT do what anton said? lmao.
this was diego’s fuel to decide. in fact i was SO sure that we’d have played an older diego who joined the rebels secretly. ofc that wasn’t what we got, but could you imagine if that was the route ubisoft chose to take? especially because...
ARGUMENT 3 - WHAT THE FANS WANTED
after 3-4, there’s A LOT of fanboys who lost the plot and wanted an option for us to join the far cry villains. ‘vaas was actually trying to help jason’ ‘pagan was right all along’ ‘we should’ve been able to side with pagan’. regardless of your view on the matter, objectively there’s a demand to ‘join the baddies’ by this point. i thought ubisoft was finally giving the fans what they wanted via Diego.
we know diego isn’t too keen on following anton’s footsteps, but also that he DOES love his dad, and that he was groomed to be the next president since his birth. he’s in that perfect, UNIQUE position where you can understand if he chooses either to ruin his father’s work or to continue it.
we could’ve had a fc4 sabal-amita faction recipe continuation and pick which side you were trying to support. diego would start the game trying to dismantle anton’s regime from the inside out, working with the rebels but also occasionally having to sacrifice his own friends or rebel safehouses and locations to throw anton’s suspicions off of him.
this would’ve been super dramatic as the game progresses and the stake gets higher. and it would've fit so well with Giancarlo Esposito’s acting chops where you never quite know what he thinks and whether he believes you or not.
in the end we could’ve had to choose for diego to continue as president, perhaps doomed to repeat his father’s mistakes… or for him to relinquish the title and give Libertad their victory, a change for Yara but also throwing the country to certain disarray for who knows how long. both a chance for a better future.. but At What Cost.
Argument 4 - Character Design
a bit of a stretch but Diego's outfit could've been a hint that he's both villain & hero. i've talked about it at length here that far cry generally uses the typical color scheme of red for villains/enemies (easier to spot during gameplay) and blue for the good guys (general opposite of red).
we see this in 6, with the FND and Anton wearing white & red; and Libertad colors being blue. and guess the color that Diego wears in the trailer?
a red t-shirt, covered with a blue jacket.
in-game, we never see this outfit. diego always wears the same uniform anton does, out of duty. and in his civilian outfit, he wears a black t-shirt instead.
since diego's role in-game still stays of that fragile hope of Yara's future, flitting in between accepting his father's teaching and desire to be good, (and spoiler alert: how it's dead in the waters either way) it doesn't really matter what he ultimately wears.
had he been the main character tho, it would've been cool to see him blatantly be both villain AND good guy right down to what he wears.
cherry on top?
it would’ve made diego’s presence on the cover of the game to make sense. traditionally since 3 onwards, it was always the villain being the poster boy. diego on the poster would’ve shown his constant potential as the villain with the choices he has and could make— emphasizing the like father, like son pose that the cover shows.
The scene in the prison that Diego saw deeply stuck in his head. He didn't know why his father visited that woman, why he was talking to her, and he felt as if his father knew her well. Diego knew that papa wouldn't answer if he asked him about her directly, but he tried casually. However, Anton was not going to spread either about Esmeralda or Rita, even to his son. Why would he? The past definitely won't come up again.
The storyboard of what happened to Rita's mom will be later. Now, one thing is worth knowing - this is exactly how Rita found her when she returned home after escaping from prison.
It's also worth noting that this scene takes place before Anton finds out that Rita has run away, so here he is calm and confident as always. It won't last long, however.
