- The first big change to know from prior Fars Cry is that the ability to fast travel at all is progressively unlocked by upgrades, rather than just by discovering locations. Remember you can always fast travel back to Prosperity from anywhere, from the get-go.
- The second major change to know is the tier system that goes hand in hand with damage being explicitly numbered. Weapons and vehicles are tiered based on workbench upgrades which are in turn tiered by the overall Prosperity upgrade level. Enemies and the gear they carry are similarly tiered. Unlocking tiers takes a resource (ethanol) that requires some outpost raiding or supply crate/truck hijacking to grind. Pick your first few upgrades carefully, where weapons, garage, and expeditions are highly recommended to prioritize.
- Following that, Outposts are not only the prime way to get ethanol. Unlocking them allows you to return ethanol trucks to them instead of all the way to Prosperity, plus they are the first additional fast travel points unlocked by Expeditions.
- Having said that, if you have uPlay points from playing other Ubisoft titles, you can early-unlock some decent Tier 2 weapons at the workbench by spending those. You have to go into the second tier via the weapons workbench and deliberately find them in the listing and equip them.
- One for recent-FC series fans: you can encounter weapons in the field and use them, but unless you unlock them in the workbench somehow, you will lose access to them when you drop them.
- There is a premium currency that you can slowly accrue via "Treasure Hunts" i.e. bunkers from FC5. It can obviously be used to buy crafting material packs. It can also be used to individually early-unlock higher-tier weapons commonly tagged "prestige", and are best used for that.
- You start with a full-fledged Gun for Hire and upon assigning her she will show up in a (crappy, tier 1) vehicle. Unassigning and reassigning her is pretty helpful in the opening hours to avoid wasting money to unlock crappy, tier 1 vehicles, and can be done "on demand" in the field rather than by workbench.
- Perks are pretty straightforward, but "More [X]" Perks can be bought multiple times. Also, Perk points are easier to come by than you think. Any hostage in the field being liberated gives a Perk point, and weapon challenges per tier are fairly easy to do too- so pick up any new gun for each tier and kill 5-10 Highwaymen with it for Perk points galore.
- Without spoilers, there is another group of Perks that are unlocked via later story missions. You can safely unlock any non-More [X] Perk first, rather than hoarding points for these new Perks.
- Between the wingsuit Perk and the tier 1 helicopter that unlocks for purchase with the first Garage upgrade, traversal isn't as difficult/tedious as it seems at first. The cost to unlock a vehicle is one-time, and subsequent uses are free "spawns" of the vehicle.
- Again without spoilers, there is an island in the middle upper-half of the map (where you started in FC5 I believe) that sequence-breaks and advance-triggers a story mission. It's worth doing ASAP, as the next story quest after it unlocks the Tier 2 bow at the workbench as a reward that will be a good early boost. It doesn't really pose any narrative problems to do so, especially if you played FC5. Besides, you're going to have to go there eventually.
- Safe-cracking can be done a few other ways besides lockpicking. The repair torch Perk works very well as a cheap, always-available method early on, and stealth isn't important when safecracking at least early on.
- Throwing knives can one-shot scavengers and are the hardest hitting stealth attack you have early on, besides a takedown.
- Buy the photo map, it tells you exactly where to stand so you won't have to wander around trying to figure it out.