Far Cry New Dawn – Review

*MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS OF FAR CRY 5 STORY*

Name: Far Cry New Dawn
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released:15.02.2019
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Reviewed on: PlayStation 4 Pro
Acquired: A copy of this game was provided by a publisher for review purpose*

I’ve been entertained by twins in the last few days, and not in a good way. Far Cry New Dawn brings us to post-apocalyptic Montana as the results of Far Cry 5 ending. Here are my review and a completely different twin experience than I thought I would experience.

Story

Far Cry New Dawn is a direct standalone sequel to Far Cry 5. As of the events of Joseph Seeds nuclear bomb in Far Cry 5, everything went to a complete wasteland. 17 years later, an all-new environment prospered and new minor settlements arrived in Hope County. And as in usual Far Cry style, a villain, this time sister twin, have to ruin the moments and seize the power and resources of what Hope County can provide, especially ethanol as this is a rare resource which is needed to run settlements. The twins, Mickey and Lou and their group of soldiers named the ‘Highwaymen’ terrorizes Hope County. You as the player will have to form new alliances with new and old characters to create an alliance and fight back the Highwaymen.

Cara Ricketts and Leslie Miller who voices Mickey and Lou do an excellent job with the voice acting, same goes with approximately everyone else as well. (I can’t seem to stop laughing and adore the character, Nana) However, I never felt like the voice acting has been an issue in the Far Cry series. Some of the titles might have been as low as decent writing, never bad. Far Cry New Dawn follows the same template as its predecessors, so it doesn’t bring anything new to the table storywise. That being said, even though the story is predictable (to a certain point), they still manage to make the story entertaining, fun and intriguing.
8/10

Graphics

I talked a lot about the 3D models, lighting, environmental graphics etc in my Far Cry 5 review last year. It’s pretty clear that they have reused a lot of the models and art direction in New Dawn. There are of course some new things as I will mention, but first I will mention the things that didn’t really impress me that much.

The score or music in New Dawn isn’t that impressing compared to last years entry. At some points, the music did provide me with a small sense of adrenaline, but not as much I wished for, like Far Cry 5 did. And the same issues with facial animations are still there, so some of the voice acting might seem off.

However, even though a lot of the characters and a few building are the same as Far Cry 5, a lot has changed. (duh – post-apocalypse world) The environment has really bloomed to beautiful scenery and bright, and colorful colors, even the animals have received a few changes to the textures. Besides the usual minor issues, Hope County Montana is a great place to experience yet again. (or maybe for the first time?)
9/10

Gameplay

Even though there wasn’t a lot of new things added storywise, a few things have been added gameplay wise. It’s incredibly fun to use the weapons in New Dawn, the gun play is great and the satisfaction of shooting saw blades from a homemade crossbow, shooting arrows from a slingshot, using a can as a silencer on my sniper rifle, the creativity of post-apocalyptic weapons is awesome!

A lot of the gameplay experience is similar to the Far Cry 5 experience, which was awesome. The exploration is vast and resourceful, the gun play is great and the irritation of wild animals always screws up your stealth plan is always welcome to give me an improvised challenge. Newcomers to the series will love this, but for us veterans, a few new modes have appeared and I loved it. Not only do we have to upgrade our home base named Prosperity, but we also have to defend it as Highwaymen keeps on attacking our walls, they even ram our wall with trucks so they can run over the wall. But the new addition to the series called ‘Expeditions’ is by far one of my favorite new thing to do in Far Cry.

A very special french pilot brings you to a specific location outside the world of Hope County, making us explore new areas. Why go on an expedition? If you manage to do the task of recovering and extract the package hidden and defended by the Highwaymen, you’ll get a lot of resources for upgrading your home base, crafting materials etc. Also new to the series is the light approach of the RPG genre, as always you gain perks by completing challenges, which can be used to upgrade your character’s skills. You’ll need to acquire a different type of resources to be able to craft new weapons and vehicles. All weapons, vehicles, wild animals and enemies are now set in different type of ranking. There are four different rankings, level 1 to Elite (level 4), as level 1 is marked in grey, level 2 is marked in blue, level 3 is marked in purple and the toughest enemies are marked in yellow.

Overall my gameplay experience in Far Cry New Dawn didn’t disappoint, and it’s a great entry for both newcomers and veterans of the series.
9/10

Controls

I’ve been playing Far Cry New Dawn on both the regular PlayStation 4 with a PC monitor and on the PlayStation 4 Pro with a 4K TV. Neither of them, did I encounter a delay of response time on my Dual-shock controller. The schematics of the controllers are still easy to learn and handle. The sensitivity of the controller is adjustable and suits the gameplay very well. The only issue is that I totally lost control when I noticed how my experience with twins went.
10/10

Replay Value

There is a lot to experience in Far Cry New Dawn, on your first run you will of course experience the main story and side missions. Besides the story-related mission, you can also liberate enemy outposts and even scavenge the outpost to retake it with higher difficulty and with a better reward as well. You can also be a post-apocalyptic Indiana Jones and go treasure hunting, solving each puzzle to get that awesome loot behind that saw blade that might cut me in half. You can also collect supply drops, fight of the Highwaymen to get the drop, you can go fishing or hunting, and you can collect photographs. This might sound like a lot, so when the low score?
The reason for this, even though I can play this game for tens of tens of hours is that all of this is achieved in one playthrough. When I’m done with the main story, I usually only have a few collectibles to collect left to get that 100% completion. After that, I might not pick up the title to play again before a DLC or if I just want to explore and experience the game once more.
6/10

You can check out our review policy right here if you wonder how we set our scores.

• Story 8
  8/10
• Graphics 9
  9/10
• Gameplay 9
  9/10
• Controls 10
  10/10
• Replay Value 6
  6/10

Verdict

Far Cry New Dawn is a direct standalone sequel to Far Cry 5 which manages to implement new features to keep the game fresh and different. New Dawn is also a great addition for newcomers as well as for veterans of the series. The story template hasn’t changed, but are still fun and intriguing, the gameplay experience and the lots of different activities you can do are worth you revisit to Hope County yet again or maybe for the first time.

Overall

8.4/10

8.4/10

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User Review

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Pros

• Great addition to newcomers and veterans of the series
• Worth your revisit to Hope County
• Gunplay & Gameplay adds new interesting elements
• Beautiful post-apocalyptic world

Cons

• Nothing new to Far Cry’s story template
• Same minor facial animation issues as Far Cry 5
• Replay-Value falls a bit short