Ubisoft’s newly released Far Cry: New Dawn was as slightly above mediocre as one of their previous games, Far Cry: Primal. As a direct sequel of Far Cry 5, it takes place in the fictional town of Hope County, Montana 17 years after a nuclear holocaust. The setting is very similar to the previous game except the environment is mostly destroyed and many floral areas take its place. I won’t be getting into the story for spoiler reasons and because it takes too long to explain.
The game introduces new mechanics such as scavenging for materials (duct tape, components, scrap metal, etc) in order to create new weapons, a homebase for upgrades that affect your character, and a knife for more gruesome and satisfying takedowns. Due to the crafting system and the apocalyptic setting, normal cash doesn’t exist and weapons can’t be bought. The game also features RPG (role-playing game) elements such as upgrading weapons to different ranks, different ranked enemies, etc.
If a Far Cry game doesn’t have a number in its title, it is guaranteed to be short and slightly above mediocre. New Dawn left out some crucial gameplay elements that can’t go unnoticed. Takedowns now use a knife rather than your bare hands or a melee weapon so they are bound to be gruesome and obviously better, right? In some aspects yes, but in the past Far Cry games, takedowns were known to be quick because you were mostly on the run or hiding in a bush trying to stay undetected, but in New Dawn the takedowns are entertaining but way too long. You sneak up behind someone, you turn your victim around, put them in a frontal headlock, pull your knife out and stab them in the eye. While this is happening, someone spots you, rings the alarm and you’ll be shot dead before the takedown animation ends. In 5 however, you sneak up behind someone and you swiftly snap their neck or hit them over the head with whatever melee weapon you have in your hands. I personally like the neck snapping because of the satisfying sound and I find hitting someone in the head with a shovel quite humorous and overall: they were quick. They could have implemented all three takedowns in New Dawn but I guess Ubisoft doesn’t want to reuse any assets into their games anymore.
Ubisoft finally decided to bring back unique healing animations (such as swallowing some pills or using a dog collar to keep your hand in place so you can pop the joint back in) in New Dawn but they also decided to remove the animation where you put fires out on yourself. In the previous games, if you were caught in flames you could press a button/key to put the fire out but now since they removed it, you can’t put the fire out and you need to wait for it to die out (ironic when they increased flame damage in game). Ubisoft even decided to taunt players by leaving in the animation of swatting attacking bees from yourself which shares the same animation as putting out fires.
There are no usable planes in the game but they still had helicopters. They had planes in 5, why couldn’t they implement it in New Dawn? The map was small but we still could’ve had fun with planes.
The game is exactly what it was worth when it released. A “mighty” $40 and you got yourself at least 3 days worth of enjoyment from a game that could have been an expansion for 5. Throw in $10 more and you’ll get DLC (downloadable content) access to 2 vehicles (a red and orange military truck with a mounted gun and a gray motorcycle with sidecar), 4 weapons (a red and orange LMG, a white and black makeshift sniper rifle, a glowing short barrel shotgun and a red and green guided missile launcher) and 1 outfit that is colored red, orange and purple. But in all honesty, the gameplay was fun and the narrative continued from 5 so it revealed many unleft answers. There still may be hope for New Dawn as Ubisoft will most likely hold special events and possibly some more DLCs in the near future.
