The winner of the overall GiN Game of the Year, Far Cry 4, continues to improve and expand. Whereas the first DLC, Escape From Durgesh Prison, brought us a perma-death 30 minute thrill ride which could be extended by activities during the brief adventure, Valley of the Yetis offers more of a traditional Far Cry 4 experience but with a heavy emphasis on building up and defending a fortress against wave attacks. And of course it introduces the Yeti, which is easily the scariest creature to hit Far Cry yet, and that is saying something for those who played the original game.
The DLC starts out with our hero Ajay crashing a helicopter high up in the mountains. All of your skills are reset to zero, though this being a complete standalone, it has no effect on your main character. Skills within the Yeti DLC are earned much more quickly than in the full game, though some are disabled if they won’t be needed. So there is no elephant riding for example because there are no elephants living in the secluded valley where you find yourself trapped.
You are also reset in terms of money, though almost the full array of weapons is available if you can scrape together the cash. Weapons can be unlocked for free by simply finding one out in the mini-world of the DLC. So getting access to an AK-47 or a hunter bow is pretty easy by just killing the first crazy Yeti cultists you come across. Many weapons are actually denoted on the map so that you can go out and find them, though most are guarded or at least set in a challenging location high up on a mountain or something. The more powerful weapons also seem to be sitting places that make them more challenging to find, though their general location is noted on the map. You don’t know what weapon is waiting for you, but know that something is there.
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Thankfully, the Yetis are not immediately introduced. This makes seeing your first one quite the experience. The first people you will find are these Yeti cultists. Most of them are made up of the fast charging enemies or regular soldiers from the main game, though there is a large contingent of hunter types who use bows. The plot of the DLC is that Pagan sent an expedition into the mountains, a full regiment of soldiers, to find this artifact that was supposed to grant great power. But the leader of the group went a little nuts and now is the head of the cult. The cult members are all slowly turning into beasts too, though you will have to figure out why over the DLCs many missions.
But the first thing you will do once you actually get into the new world is to capture a broken down radio tower that has a compound around it comprised of broken walls and general debris. This will become your home and fortress for the duration. You can go out and perform side missions to improve the fortress or take on the main quest for that day, but every night you will be attacked by waves and waves of cultists and will need to defend your makeshift fortress. The day won’t actually end until you want it too by sleeping on the bed inside the radio shack. So you can take all the time you want to prepare beforehand. And you can’t advance to the nighttime defense mission until you have completed the main mission for that day.
Before hitting the cot the first night, I would highly recommend that you go around and do the side missions that will improve your fortress. Doing them will add things like walls and oil slick traps around the four sides of your domain. Some of the harder quests will add things like a mounted machine gun and grenade launchers, or put an active mine field in place (which thankfully knows who you are and will only explode if an enemy walks through it). You can buy most of the defenses from the shop inside the shack, but given that you are starting out with no money, doing the quests is your best bet. You probably want to journey out to the orange weapon icons to see about improving your personal weapon choices as well. There are also random quests that pop us as well, such as hijacking a truck for money or hunting a rare animal in the area.
When the base is attacked, the attackers conveniently yell over the radio which side they are attacking. So you will know if company is coming from the north or west for example. While some of the traps like the mine field will work without help, many of them like the caged bears or the explosive barrels strapped to trees will require the player to activate them first, so you will be running around a lot taking out enemies. I really wish that there was a way to recruit some help in defending the fortress, but in this DLC you are an army of one – with a lot of things you can build to even the odds. If the cultists plant a bomb (and you don’t defuse it in time) on your makeshift home or kill you, then you have to try the defense that night again.
The actual Yetis are huge, probably twice the size of a human and then a little bit more. You will start to see them at first in the extreme northern part of the valley if you venture up that way to complete side quests. However, by the end of the third or fourth day in the valley, they can be literally anywhere. And unlike most wildlife, a vehicle is no protection from them. They will one shot kill you if they catch you inside a jeep or riding a snowmobile, though any vehicle can outrun them.
Killing a Yeti is no easy thing. You have to do massive damage to them which puts them in a stunned state. Then you have to run around behind them and perform a takedown where you run up their back and start whaling away on whatever key comes up to do damage. Even then, they might not quite die, though another shot or two will take them out. It’s best if you use a hugely damaging weapon on them, so it’s nice that the signatures are available in the valley. The Bull shotgun works okay if you can fire it fast enough. My weapon of choice was the Buzzsaw signature version of the MG-42. Explosives work well too. I eventually killed one when it stepped on a mine.
The funny thing is that the Yetis are nobody’s ally. While Yetis will sometimes be a part of the assault against your fortress at night, they are just as likely to turn on the cultists. I let one rampage and take out an entire wave for me before it finally decided to try and take me out.
The missions are all very well done, though the nightly fights are the highlight of the DLC. Being a highly defensive player, I absolutely loved being able to craft my defenses and then carefully decide when to spring the traps by releasing the bears or lighting the oil slicks on fire. A couple of the fights were almost down to the wire too, so it was exciting and challenging, but felt really good once you made it through to morning.
The Far Cry 4 Valley of the Yetis DLC is one of the best DLCs that I’ve come across in a long time. If you do all the side quests then it could stretch into about eight to 12 hours of gameplay. It’s similar enough to the main game that everything will seem familiar, yet also has its own distinct flavor, a defensive twist and a terrifying new creature to stalk and kill. Get ready for the Yeti. It’s worth it.
Developers: Ubisoft Montreal
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One