Will pkg(8) *ever* play nice?

Greetings,
I was in the process of updating one of my development boxes
that runs -CURRENT. It's lagging a bit behind. So it required
a fresh, new "world". World built as expected. But the kernel
failed due to pkg(8). This box has an Nvidia video card. So
src.conf(5) has [among other ports entries]

PORTS_MODULES=x11/nvidia-driver-304

the [kernel] build failed due to pkg(8)

===> Ports module x11/nvidia-driver-304 (all)
cd ${PORTSDIR:-/usr/ports}/x11/nvidia-driver-304;
PATH=/usr/obj/usr/src/tmp/lega
cy/usr/sbin:/usr/obj/usr/src/tmp/legacy/usr/bin:/usr/obj/usr/src/tmp/legacy/bin:
/usr/obj/usr/src/tmp/usr/sbin:/usr/obj/usr/src/tmp/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:
/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin  SRC_BASE=/usr/src  OSVERSION=1100062 
W
RKDIRPREFIX=/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/DEVBOX make -B clean all
===>  Cleaning for nvidia-driver-304-304.128
===>  nvidia-driver-304-304.128 pkg(8) must be version 1.6.0 or greater, but
you have 1.4.12. You must upgrade the ports-mgmt/pkg port first.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make[3]: stopped in /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver-304
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make[2]: stopped in /usr/obj/usr/src/sys/DEVBOX
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make[1]: stopped in /usr/src
*** Error code 1

..

Do I need to have FreeBSD-12 && ports/head from 12 installed *prior*
to building (upgrading)?!?
This feels like a chicken-v-egg thing. Is it possible to *remove*
pkg(8) && any dependency on it. Is this a bug in pkg(8) or just
a bug in my head?

Please help. As most of you already know; building/installing
world/kernel is a fairly time consuming process.

Thanks!

--Chris

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