Far Cry New Dawn

**This review contains spoilers for Far Cry 5.**

As most people probably know, Far Cry 5 ended with a blast - literally. As you were about to arrest the main villain, Joseph Seed, the nukes go off in the background. This ending was not very liked, and many thought it wasn't a proper way to end the game, myself included. Far Cry New Dawn takes place many years after the nukes went off, and places you in the shoes of a person coming to Hope County to help the inhabitans fight a group calling themselves the Minutemen. This group is lead by the two twins Lou and Mickey, the two main antagonists in the game. 

Sadly, the twins doesn't reach the level of quality of the other Far Cry villains, since both of them are so... bland. There really isn't much character to them. The story is also pretty bonkers, and very short at that. Expect to put around 6-8 hours into the game before the credits roll. This isn't really a fair length considering the heavy price of the game, and to make it even worse, these 6 hours of main story isn't very compelling. In fact, I got tired of the game even before finishing it. 

Now, let's talk about the open world. Like I said before, you'll be returning to Hope County. This is another point in which the game fails. The map is just a reskin of Far Cry 5, with the most obvious change being bright, pink colors which the game is very obsessed with, to say the least. Even a lot of the buildings are the same that they were in Far Cry 5! 

Gameplay-wise, the game is just like Far Cry 5 (surprising, right?). You would expect that since the game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, the game would have interesting new makeshift weapons to use, but no: except for the Saw Launcher, all of the guns are from Far Cry 5, or reskins of weapons from it. Come on Ubisoft. 

The biggest change Far Cry New Dawn brings to the table is the introduction of light RPG mechanics. That's right, Far Cry is a RPG now, hurray! Like seriously, Ubisoft, we know Assassin's Creed Origins sold a lot of copies, but does all of your franchises really need to be turned into RPGs? These RPG mechanics are pretty simple: There's four tiers of weapons, enemies etc. and the higher the tier, the more damage/health. The outposts all start at tier one, but you can then reset them and capture them again, this time in a higher tier, meaning that the enemies will be at a higher tier too. The problem with this is that when you unlock the ability to make weapons of a higher tier, all enemies will get to a higher tier too (except the ones in the outposts), and you therefore feel like you're not really progressing.

The game also introduces expeditions, in which you travel to 7 different locations. At these locations you'll have to locate a package and extract it, while hordes of enemies try to stop you. This is actually a nice feature, even though the expeditions are pretty short.

The game also has microtransactions. Who could be so greedy to not only put microtransactions in singleplayer games, but also in small spin-offs which already are overpriced?! These microtransactions are greedy, and allows players to bypass the progression system by unlocking the best weapons for real money. 

Also, the game looks worse than Far Cry 5, but somehow also runs worse. I had a weird bug where my game would run fine, but as soon as I tabbed out of the game and entered it again, it would go down to 5-10 FPS.

Overall score:
5/10: Mediocre

Pros:
• Expeditions are a nice feature
• More Far Cry for those who love the formula

Cons:
• Very short and overpriced
• A reskin of Far Cry 5
• Unnecessary RPG mechanics
• Greedy microtransactions
• Poor optimization

Don't play it right now

New Dawn is weird. I started playing this game not really knowing what to expect, but definitelly is not what I felt playing it. This game was released in less than a year since FC5 and I felt kinda saturated by it. Maybe it's because of the time lapse between the two releases, but I really feel that this game could have been more of a FC5 expansion than a whole separated game.

Many of the mechanics from the original game are present here, like taking outposts, gathering resources and collectables, rescue people, etc. I really enjoyed the wild life here. It felt in a way more vivid and savage, I got a lot of jumpscares from those bears and boars. The main campaing have around 12h hours and although it does not appear to have such duration, nothing sticks out as remarcable or surprisingly good.

There is a big range of weapons and upgrades and the way to upgrade your stuff and base it's reasonable, even though you can't change a particular piece of the weapon (Metro Exodus got me acommodate on this). But once again after sometime it really felt like a repetitive process. Those special powers added in late game were just stupid, they felt like a reason to insert elements from battle royale games and Dishonoured, which I huge dislike.

TL;DR: Play it at own risk. FC5 was so devilish good and rewarding and playing this felt like more of the same, but not as good as.

Before saying anything about Far Cry New Dawn, I think it’s appropriate to quickly pick apart things of Far Cry 5 which I found didn’t work, because after all; with New Dawn being not only a spin-off title but a direct sequel to the events of the last game, it has the opportunity to fix some things.

For me, that is Far Cry 5’s dullness. It felt like Far Cry 5 had a problem of not knowing how to move the series forward and rather went for the shock and awe of moving the series to America and facing off against a doomsday cult which during the first announcement of the game, made it look like it would be a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the things that the world sees wrong with the US. Instead, the game chose not to offend anyone and didn’t really offer any commentary, giving us shallow bad guys who hardly get fleshed out, an upgrade system that felt like you were not rewarded for unlocking abilities, and no real threat of the environment you were in.

Although, the setting was still super pretty and the Far Cry Arcade was one of the best Level Editor and content share tools created.

This brings us to Far Cry New Dawn, as mentioned; a spin-off and a direct sequel to Far Cry 5 set 17 years after “The Collapse” which saw nuclear bombs falling on America. Moving away from the gloom and doom of the Apocalypse, we’re instead given a Super-Bloom, where new plants and wildlife can grow and live in harsh environments. Still, it brings the question of if Ubisoft Montreal’s team was able to fix the problems of Far Cry 5 or did the apocalypse add more issues.

In Far Cry New Dawn, you take control of the Captain of Security for a group of people who are experts in building settlements. Guided to Hope County by Carmina Rye, the daughter of Far Cry 5’s Gun for Hire Nick Rye, the train is ambushed by a new faction called The Highwaymen, lead by the twins – Mickey and Lou. The Highwaymen kill everyone and loot the train, leaving you to fend for yourself as you join the settlement of Prosperity, now tasked to help the settlement in a similar fashion to the Deputy in Far Cry 5.

New Dawn brings back several characters from Far Cry 5 who survived “the Collapse” but it’s likely you’ll see them in a different role. For example, Pastor Jerome – who serve as a mission giver is now a Gun for Hire, the Olympic sniper Grace Armstrong and Nick Rye are now Specialists who manage upgrades for Prosperity. Missions to retrieve these people are treated like side missions that will later unlock further story quests as you upgrade your home base. This brings us to some of the major changes to Far Cry formula which I have a love/hate relationship with. While most of the game remains the same as you travel the new slimmed down Hope County, gunfights are now driven by a light RPG system. Everything from enemies, guns, outposts, allies and wildlife has a level system to judge how difficult they’ll be to take down. The system is simple as everything starts at rank 1, moving up via upgrades to rank 2, three and eventually Elite.

This system allows The Highwaymen to become bullet-sponges, nothing is more frustrating than attempting to clear an outpost from afar with a sniper rifle only to have the bullets feel like they’re made of rubber and bounce off your target. This also makes the stealth action of the game completely useless, as to do take downs on higher ranked opponents requires you to unlock the ability via the Perk System, which brought back the lacklustre system introduced in Far Cry 5.

However with stealth out of the picture, it does make the gun-play shine despite the bullet-sponge issue. Heavier weapons like shot-guns and non-stealth associated guns really get their chance to shine here and are almost a necessary piece of equipment thanks to the new RPG rules. In a way, you almost have to think of playing Borderlands instead of everything that Far Cry has lived up to be since its 3rd iteration.

One of the better aspects of Far Cry, taking outposts, does get an upgrade in New Dawn as you can take down an outpost and abandon it so that the Highwaymen can take it back, but with bigger and stronger numbers. Attempting to take these areas back gives you more Ethanol which can be used to upgrade Prosperity, making it a necessary process in the game. Upgrades will allow you to move up with better health, weapons, new crafting materials and more.

We’re also introduced to Expeditions, which will have you travelling via helicopter to various locations across America to fight the Highwaymen and steal their supplies. This works similar to outposts but offers a change of pace and scenery almost in a similar fashion to Far Cry 5’s Arcade mode, giving a much-needed injection of fun to the game.

That’s not to say that the apocalyptic Hope County isn’t pretty. Montana after the Super-Bloom still looks great, with plenty of new wildflowers and wildlife to impress, then again, this is Far Cry we’re talking about; a game that prides itself on its environmental work since the first game back in the early 2000’s so it’s not unusual to say that everything is nice to look at.

If there was one damning thing to say about Far Cry New Dawn, it is with its customization, or rather, the lack of customization. Far Cry New Dawn offers the ability to make your own character for use in co-op multiplayer, but does give you the opportunity to see your character after capturing outposts. That being said, there is only a limited amount of clothes which range from ripped flannel shirt, to dirty wife-beater, to a pink unicorn onesie. There isn’t much of an option here to really make your character your own.

Worst yet, guns are not customizable. This was the most disappointing as it could have been the saving grace of the game given the RPG elements. Rather than having the ability to customize your guns the way you would like to – by giving different handles, stocks, barrel and so forth; instead we’re given a dedicated set of guns that are only unlocked based on the level of the home base. This forces you to craft the higher weapons despite not liking the specific scope, or not having the silencer or extended mag that would help you fight off the Highwaymen and doing a dedicated amount of damage for each weapon. It’s a very anti-RPG system in a game that suddenly decided that it needed RPG elements.

With forgettable villains, a forgettable story, and a system that makes the game feel more like a chore than crazy fun, I wholeheartedly cannot recommend Far Cry New Dawn even at the out of the gate discounted price. New Dawn had the opportunity to be a great spin-off like Blood Dragon or Primal, as the apocalyptic background lends itself for plenty of craziness to be involved and the over-serious tone of Far Cry 5 left us wanting that craziness back, but the game took away the feeling of evolving to become the badass we want to be by adding an unnecessary levelling system and RPG elements.

Hopefully, Ubisoft will take a step back and take what works in this spin-off and bring us back to a proper Far Cry title for the next entry, even if it is another over the top spin-off.

This review was originally posted at https://gameitall.com/far-cry-new-dawn-review/