Remember Durgesh Prison from the main Far Cry 4 game? Remember waking up in a cosy house after making your escape, with no idea of how you got there?

Well, in Escape from Durgesh Prison, Far Cry 4‘s first DLC pack, you get to play through a scenario that has you fighting your way to the helicopter that got you out of there. The title is misleading, though: Ubisoft really should have called it “Reach the Extraction Point to Complete Your Escape from Durgesh Prison” for accuracy, but that title clearly didn’t have the same ring to it.

This pack is essentially a big challenge map that can be played solo or with a friend, something that may annoy anyone looking for something with a bit more substance in their paid-for DLC.

Basically, you wake up unarmed and with none of the skills you unlocked in the main game, and you must fight your way to the extraction point, liberating outposts, gathering crafting materials and completing side-quests along the way that unlock bonuses and upgrades, all while having bad guy Pagan Min yapping in your ear.

But there’s a catch. Two, actually. The first is that you’re on a timer; you’ve got 30 minutes to get to the helicopter before it leaves. The second is that if you die, you must start again.

Fortunately, the game’s mechanics aren’t quite as cruel as that sounds. Every time you finish a quest, liberate an outpost or destroy propaganda posters, time is added onto the countdown clock and when you die, you respawn back at the start with all skills you’ve unlocked, as well as the crafting materials and weapons you were carrying when you died (but no ammo).

It’s possible, then, to game the system, a process that ends up undermining the sense of urgency brought on by the timer, and the sense of helplessness of waking up unarmed and unskilled.

I specifically targeted outposts whose liberation granted me skill points before even thinking of going for the escape helicopter, dying time and again in my efforts. But I didn’t mind: by doing that I slowly built up Ajay’s abilities to the point where he wasn’t completely useless in combat which made my later runs a little easier. 

And believe me, you’re going to need all the help you can get to defend that helicopter from the waves of enemies the game throws at you. Escape from Durgesh Prison is hard.

When you finally reach the helicopter the timer resets to ten minutes, which is how long you’ll need to dig in for. There’s a lot of ground to cover and enemies come at you on foot, by car and even by helicopter, and it’s quite a challenge to stop them from taking out your ride.

But that’s where a bit if clever planning comes in. Escape from Durgesh Prison’s map is full of outposts and quests that reward you with things like more ammo, better weapons, gun emplacements and explosives at the helicopter defense point, and if you’re smart about how you approach it you can be properly prepared by the time the final showdown rolls around. It also really helps to play with a friend as you can cover more ground together.

I found that playing the game with a friend was a lot more fun than doing it on my own as not only did he add another gun, we could revive one another when downed. That saved me a lot of frustration.

With the timer breathing down your neck and a need to plan how you’re going to approach the final escape, there’s not a lot of room for traditional Far Cry 4 play. You’re not encouraged to sneak around, a favourite Far Cry tactic of mine; instead, you must run and gun as much as possible. If you like that sort of thing and are good at it, you’ll love Escape. If not… perhaps avoid it altogether.

So is Escape from Durgesh a good buy? As part of the Season Pass, which you’ve probably paid R400 or so for, it’s just “okay”, mainly because you get another 2 DLCs in the pass that release at a later date.

At R120 or so on its own, it’s a bit expensive since it’s more of a rehash of Far Cry 4’s rules than a full add-on pack, and while it can be fun at times, it’s ultimately also a bit disappointing as it comes across as little more than a separate “game mode” that could have easily been included in the base game.

Escape from Durgesh Prison is available on its own for $9.99 on all platforms, as well as part of the FC4 Season Pass that goes for $29.99.