Far Cry 6 footage shows off Breaking Bad star Giancarlo Esposito as villain

Giancarlo Esposito, star of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and the upcoming second season of The Boys, has officially been unveiled as the villain of Far Cry 6, the newly announced entry in the popular Ubisoft gaming franchise following last year's New Dawn.

The first teaser footage from the official sequel dropped during the publisher's virtual preview presentation on Sunday. Sadly for Ubisoft, the big surprise was spoiled by leaks earlier in the week that it became difficult to play dumb. The game's official Twitter account then revealed a few seconds of Esposito as his CGI character on Friday.

Far Cry 5 took place in the fictional American town of Hope County, which had been taken over by a cult, the Project at Eden's Gate, led by Joseph Seed. Far Cry: New Dawn, a smaller direct sequel to the events of that game, picked up years after Joseph's vision of a nuclear apocalypse became real and turned the landscape of the U.S. into hostile terrain. Far Cry 6 now takes us to the fictional Caribbean nation of Yara, where Esposito's Anton Castillo is the dictatorial president.

"We honestly couldn't think of anyone better to play this complex, nuanced character," Ubisoft Toronto's product director Christophe Malarmey said. "Despite the brutality of his methods, [Anton] fundamentally believes that everything he does is for the greater good of his country.

Anthony Gonzalez, who voiced the lead in Pixar's Coco, will voice Anton's 13-year-old son, Diego, who is being groomed to one day take over his father's rule but may not necessarily be fully on board with the regime.

The story of Far Cry 6 centers on Dani Rojas — either a male or female resistance fighter, depending on the preferred gender of the player. Yara is an impoverished island trapped in time after years of economic sanctions. Anton "believes that 50 years ago, before that first revolution, things were perfect," Malarmey explains. "When he was elected president, he vowed to restore the country to its former glory by any means necessary." Instead, he created a slave state "built on the backs of those who would dare speak out." Dani gets swept up in the revolution alongside guerilla units who are fighting their way through Anton's advanced militia all the way to "the Lion's Den," the capital city of Yara and the hub of Anton's power.

According to Malarmey, Ubisoft Toronto wanted to "elevate" the narrative. Beyond the casting of Esposito and Gonzalez, Antibody Film Lab, which worked on the opening title sequence for HBO's Westworld, developed the game's CGI title sequence (shown above). Brazilian composer Pedro Bromfman, who worked on Netflix's Narcos, also wrote the score for Far Cry 6.

In true Far Cry style, players will use any and every resource at their disposal to craft weapons and traverse the diverse landscape of Yara, from beaches to jungles to rural towns.

The game is currently set for release on Feb. 18.

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