Vaas Montenegro

Concept and design

The lead writer of Far Cry 3, Jeffrey Yohalem, is credited as Vaas Montenegro's creator. For Far Cry 3, Yohalem took inspiration from public discourse about whether video games are good for the player's mental health, and about the concept of "gamification" in society as a whole. Yohalem wanted Vaas to represent a cautionary tale about what could potentially happen to player characters who found themselves caught up in their most indulgent, violent impulses; when interviewed by IGN about his thought process behind Vaas, Yohalem explained that video game developers always talk about 30-second loops, a line of thought within the video game industry which states that players should be put into a situation where what they are doing every 30 seconds is so satisfying that they never want to stop. Yohalem wanted to examine "what made games tick", and then examined the player's involvement in them and whether these experiences are enjoyable for the player, or whether they find themselves confronted by an "uncomfortable development", with this archetype represented by Vaas, a pirate who seems to be "on the knife edge between sanity and mental collapse". Yohalem opined that Vaas' monologue about the definition of insanity is in accord with the philosophies behind Far Cry 3's design, as it "perfectly encapsulates" the dark side of the concept of a gameplay loop which the writing team attempted to deconstruct.

Vaas was not part of the developers' original vision for Far Cry 3's major villains. He was meant to be a bald and muscular man named Bull, who looked similar to "a 300-pound, six-foot-tall bullmastiff dog". A second iteration of the character was named Pyro and had a heavily mutilated body. Michael Mando's audition and subsequent hiring prompted Ubisoft staff to alter their original plans for the character to accommodate Mando's likeness and mannerisms. Bull's physical fierceness transformed into Vaas' emotive and volatile personality, though such features were later downplayed as Mando's portrayal of Vaas enabled his personality to be expressed through subtle mannerisms to achieve the effect of a charming but menacing villain. Initially the character was called Lupo, but the name Vaas was picked once the graphic design was altered to incorporate Mando's appearance. This was done primarily because the developers faced difficulties matching Mando's facial musculature to the model.

Producer Dan Hay compared Vaas to Darth Vader, in that his presence is often short and brief, yet when he appears, he catches attention and galvanizes players' memories. Hay described Vaas as a character that was "very much in your face", which helped cement Jason's early status as a "victim". Yohalem added that Vaas' implied death at the game's midpoint was inspired by the novel To the Lighthouse, in which the protagonist dies midway through the story and the rest of the plot explores her absence.

Portrayal

To achieve their goal of creating nuanced characters, Ubisoft's development team made extensive use of performance and motion capture, so that actors could convey more complicated emotions on-screen. According to Anne Gibeault, associate producer for cinematics in the Montreal studio, a character's face and hands convey the most essential part of the animation process. Yohalem emphasized that the eyes are the most essential facial feature as they get noticed first, and that they make a character more emotionally resonant, and so players connect with the characters through eye contact. To perform his role as Vaas, Mando's gestures and facial expressions were translated into animation through carbon-fiber helmets, with cameras mounted about two feet from his face to record every squint, frown, or smile. Yohalem noted that actors have to “create a style between the exaggerated movements of the theatrical and the minimalism of film” for a motion capture performance.

Mando became involved with the Far Cry series in July 2010 when he auditioned for a role then known as "Mr. X". Although he was provided with a script, he decided to improvise in pursuit of creative freedom. During his audition, Mando thought it would be interesting if he were to have his back face the camera, and pretended that he was eating. When Mando started turning around to face the camera, he began licking his fingers until he reached his middle finger, where he then made a crude gesture and continued licking his middle finger. Mando was aware that he was taking a creative risk, and that his improvisation might not be met with approval from the Ubisoft staff who were responsible for assessing his performance; instead, the animation director of Far Cry 3 was intrigued by Mando's creative decision for his audition and asked the casting director to instruct Mando to do it again and take it even further.

Although Mando was hired following the audition, the creative team had insisted on the villain of Far Cry 3 being presented as a physically imposing figure. The concept did not match Mando's more slender frame. Mando had already undergone rehearsals and some footage of his performances were filmed by the time Ubisoft made the short-lived decision to discard the character he had come up with, as it was incompatible with the visual design that the creative team had in mind. Mando recalled that Ubisoft later retracted their decision largely due to the impression he had made during the audition, and brought him back into the project at the last minute. Ubisoft decided to accommodate Mando by altering the character they had planned for to match his actual appearance instead.

Appearances

Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 opens with montage footage of player character Jason Brody holidaying in the Rook Islands region with his brothers and associates. The footage is captured on a video camera seized by Vaas, who has kidnapped the group and intends to sell them into slavery. After intercepting Jason's escape attempt and murdering his brother Grant, he allows Jason the opportunity to flee from his compound. Jason aligns himself with the local resistance forces known as the Rakyat, who oppose Vaas' pirate group in an armed struggle. Vaas' backstory is gradually revealed with the progression of Far Cry 3's narrative: prior to the game's events, he became addicted to drugs introduced to Rook Island by the South African crime boss Hoyt Volker, who made Vaas his right-hand man and leader of the pirate faction terrorizing the Rook Islands. Vaas and his men assist Volker with his criminal activities such as cannabis cultivation and human trafficking, while inflicting death and destruction on the Rakyat, Vaas' former compatriots who are led by his estranged sister Citra Talugmai.

During one incident, Jason attempts to rescue his girlfriend Liza Snow from a pirate compound and is caught in a trap set up by Vaas, but manages to escape with her through a combination of luck and sheer grit. In a later skirmish, Jason is caught in another trap set up by Vaas, who ties him to a rock and delivers a monologue about the definition of insanity before sending him plunging into a pool of water. Jason survives the ordeal, and later arrives at Vaas' island base to exact revenge. Vaas meets his apparent death by Jason's hand while the latter experiences a hallucination following their confrontation.

Far Cry 6

The post-credits scene of Far Cry 6 features one of the main characters, Juan, talking to an unnamed smuggler voiced by Michael Mando. The character is strongly implied to be Vaas, who somehow survived the events of Far Cry 3.

Vaas makes his first appearance as a playable character in a post-launch expansion titled Vaas: Insanity, released on November 16, 2021. Insanity begins at the climax of Jason Brody's final confrontation with Vaas, in which the latter is seemingly stabbed to death. Vaas wakes up in a hallucination, and is guided by the voice of his sister, Citra Talugmai, to reconstruct her Silver Dragon Blade to win her approval as she claims that it is the only way he can escape his mind. Vaas journeys through his mind, revisiting past memories of his life while gathering the pieces of the blade as well as fighting apparitions of Citra, Jason, and the Rakyat warriors. When Vaas succeeds in rebuilding the blade and hands it to Citra, she breaks it again and demands that he keep fighting for her as she sends waves of enemies after him. After a brief struggle and realizing Citra's negative influence throughout his life, Vaas finally rejects her pleas to stay with her and escapes the hallucination. An older Vaas is then shown sitting on a beach on a deserted island as he talks to himself using a tennis ball that resembles Jason. Vaas makes a brief cameo in the crossover expansion pack titled The Vanishing, where he is seen unconscious in the bar where Dani Rojas returns to in the expansion's conclusion.

Other appearances

A four-part live action webseries named The Far Cry Experience, which stars Mando as Vaas, was released to promote Far Cry 3. Set a few days before the events of Far Cry 3, Vaas captures and tortures to death fictionalized versions of Christopher Mintz-Plasse and his cameraman, who were engaged by Ubisoft as a part of a survival challenge in the "real" Rook Islands that inspired Far Cry 3. Upon his realization that Mintz-Plasse has died from the torture, Vaas learns about the arrival of Jason and his friends in the region from one of his men, and leaves to "welcome" them.

Vaas appears in Far Cry VR, a 2020 virtual reality game where up to eight players can play cooperatively. The premise of the game is that the player characters find themselves marooned by Vaas and have to escape the Rook Islands by shooting their way out.

Vaas is featured in a 2021 tie-in comic series called Far Cry: Rite of Passage published by Dark Horse Comics, which sees Far Cry 6 villain Antón Castillo recounting cautionary tales to his son Diego, one of which involves an account of Vaas' childhood years and the retelling of his eventual "downfall". Vaas' childhood is also explored in the 2021 manga one-shot Happy Vaas Day published by Jump.

Cultural impact

Promotion and merchandise

Guinness Book of Records described Vaas Montenegro as the poster character of Far Cry 3. The character's initial public introduction was by way of a promotional trailer for E3 2011 in which he makes his monologue about the definition of insanity before tossing the player character over a cliff. To promote Far Cry 3 at 2012's PAX Prime, attendees were given the opportunity to get a haircut to style their hair like Vaas' mohawk. Ubisoft released a limited edition run of lithographic print art of Vaas by artist Ben Oliver for customers who preordered either Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3 from the GAME concessions stand at the Eurogamer Expo. European players could also purchase the Insane Edition of the game, which included all pre-order bonuses and all other forms of launch downloadable content (DLC), along with a Vaas bobblehead and a survival skill manual for usage in real situations of danger. A six-inch PVC figurine of Vaas by Syco Collectibles was released in October 2012. In August 2020, Ubisoft released a line of Chibi figurines called "Ubisoft Heroes", with Vaas available as one of the selections.

Reception

Vaas Montenegro was met with critical acclaim following the game's release. Vaas was awarded Best New Character by Giant Bomb for their 2012 Game of the Year Awards, and by the 4th Canadian Videogame Awards held in April 2013. His "definition of insanity" monologue was named Best Gaming Moment at the 2013 Golden Joystick Awards. Vaas was a nominee for Best Character Design at the 4th Inside Gaming Awards in 2012.

For his portrayal of Vaas, Michael Mando received nominations for Best Overall Acting from the 2013 New York Videogame Critics Circle Awards; Lead Performance in a Drama from the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards; and Outstanding Character Performance at the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. Mando's reprisal of his role as Vaas for Far Cry 6: Vaas: Insanity earned him a nomination for the Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game at the New York Game Awards 2022.

Vaas became a viral sensation the moment he was first featured in the E3 2011 trailer for Far Cry 3. Vaas' popularity has led to the character becoming the subject of multiple fan works. A noteworthy Grand Theft Auto IV fan mod reskins player character Niko Bellic with a high-quality, bump-mapped texture that recreates Vaas' character model from Far Cry 3. Ron Whitaker from The Escapist observed that Vaas, "a loud, vivid character that people enjoyed", had caught on with video game fandom as a popular choice for cosplay activities by the mid-2010s. Mando wrote in a 2020 Reddit post that he still receives recognition by appreciative fans in public.

In retrospect, Dale Driver from IGN noted that his "elaborate, violent monologue about the definition of insanity" was an unforgettable debut and became an instant fan favorite. Fascinated by the fact that Vaas was almost cut from Far Cry 3 entirely, Driver argued that Vaas' serendipitous creation changed the course of the Far Cry series, as it provided the series with "an iron-forged identity that influences everything from design to marketing". Tim Edwards from PCGamesN called Vaas one of the video games industry's "most interesting collaborations", and lauded Mando's portrayal of the character as the most believable virtual performance since the debut of Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2, which he highly enjoyed. Shaun Prescott from PC Gamer considered Vaas to be the Far Cry series' best and most fondly remembered villain, in spite of his scary nature. Imogen Donovan from Videogamer.com called Vaas an iconic video game villain, and his “flamboyant, intelligent and completely insane” legacy haunts the Far Cry video game series "like an unfriendly ghost".

Analysis

Although Vaas and Citra are presented as members of the Rakyat (a word that means "the people" in Indonesian and Malay) tribe on the fictional Rook Islands, there has been some confusion over the depiction of his intended cultural identity. Christopher B. Patterson, professor at the University of British Columbia, perceived an inexplicable discrepancy in Mando's portrayal of Vaas. Patterson observed that while Vaas is presumably native to the Asia-Pacific region, most likely Malay in his view, the accent that Mando uses is Hispanic. The usage of slang terms such as "white boy" and "hermano" is something the character is alone in among the Rakyat population. Charlie Stewart of Game Rant also remarked on the character's accent and noted that while the Rook Islands are based largely on Indonesia, Vaas' way of talking implies that he grew up speaking Latin American Spanish, unlike his sister, who sounds the same as the rest of the native population. He states that this has been regarded as a bit of a mystery among players and that it is the reason for the many fan theories speculating that Vaas must have spent time outside of the islands in his youth, including theories assuming that Vaas was actually Diego from Far Cry 6, as these theories are attempts to reconcile his irregular manner of speaking with his background. Karina Tapia of Digital Trends named Vaas as an example of a Latino character in video games sporting an exaggerated accent and speaking Spanglish.

Johnny Galvatron interpreted the character as a foreign invader and not as a member of the Rakyat tribe, while Edward Ross took Vaas to be Indonesian in his book Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming. Angga Prawadika Aji, a lecturer at the Airlangga University in Indonesia, opined that the skin color of the pirate group led by Vaas implied their identity to be native Rooks Islanders. Leo Stevenson of Power Up! described Vaas as "decidedly not white" and cited Far Cry 3 as an example of a piece of media where the hero is white and people of color are relegated to supporting roles or villains.

When defending the game against allegations of promoting a white savior narrative, Yohalem stated that the foreign player character Jason Brody was not originally intended by Citra to be the one to be part of the tribe's ritual. Instead, Vaas was, but he simply refused to participate. Kevin Fox, Jr. of Paste characterized Far Cry 3 as a game with a thrill-seeking white savior protagonist and sociopathic "vaguely ethnic" villain. Fox points out that Vaas became a "villain icon" that is – in his opinion – "weirdly beloved" by the gaming community, despite how problematic the depiction of his and the other natives is. Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton argued that the game would have been better and its white savior narrative from its first half would have become ironic if Vaas had turned out to be the one who underwent the ritual. Ryan Parreno of Gameranx expressed that it was "uncomfortable" that Ubisoft wished to in part recreate Vaas's "unintentionally seductive qualities" for the villain Pagan Min in the sequel game while still trying to avoid a white savior narrative by having the new main character be Asian.