Far Cry New Dawn

While Far Cry New Dawn is visually similar to Far Cry 5, its gameplay has been somewhat boiled down. Nonetheless, its open world is still packed with interesting ideas, resulting in a game that gives you just the right amount of thrill. The story centered around family is not what one might expect from a Far Cry game, and the sarcastic banter of previous entries is not present here. A Far Cry game that supports rather than scolds the player feels new indeed, and its courage to be different should be praised.

For the most part, Far Cry New Dawn is fun, and that’s the only thing that matters. There is more than enough content to never feel that you’re grinding (although you are), and it fulfills one of the weirdest human fascinations, and that’s the life after a world-encompassing cataclysm. And best of all, the entirety of the game can be played in co-op mode.

Far Cry New Dawn is a ridiculously well-polished and fun to play action game (AI issues aside), with an enjoyable if largely mundane story and villains. It's so hard to negatively criticise too much. It would be unfair to judge this individual game against the wider approach of Ubisoft that some could argue needs to evolve more going into the future. The freedom that this sandbox gives to just shoot things and have fun is clear to see, and on PC the world looks incredible, filled with vivid colours, rich explosions, lush grassland and shimmering blue rivers. The real question following this conclusion to the Hope County arc and all its DLC is where Ubisoft will go next with this franchise. Ultimately it is impossible to separate New Dawn from feeling like an expensive DLC for its predecessor.

The amount of crafting and exploring so that you can craft, as well as a couple of minor issues, put a damper on an otherwise fantastic world, and fun game experience.

Far Cry sets off on a journey towards sandbox RPG experience with New Dawn. This spin- off boasts a truly living open-world capable of reacting to your every move. But at the same time, it’s never truly able to surprise you.

Far Cry New Dawn is a solid FPS, even if it’s nothing but a more of the same.

Far Cry: New Dawn cuts away some of the bloat of its predecessor Far Cry 5, to deliver a cleaner, more focused experience. The visual style breathes a good degree of life into a setting we've seen before, and Expeditions add more variety on top of that. The systems push you towards repeating content, but the boring rewards don't back that up. And hunting, once one of the core parts of Far Cry, is mostly an afterthought here. Despite those problems, New Dawn's short running time is a boon and the story provides closure to those who played the previous game. If you played and loved Far Cry 5, pick up New Dawn. If you didn't, know that it's still fun, but you'll lose some of the context.

It's fair to say that Far Cry New Dawn is 'more of the same', by and large. But when it's more of the same of the good kind, it's hard to find any serious complaint. The game is a ton of fun to play, looks great and runs even better than that. Just don't expect to find much of a post-apocalypse in this version of Hope County.

Far Cry New Dawn may be a shorter Far Cry experience, but it’s one of the most fun games in the series since Blood Dragon. The bizarrely colourful post-apocalyptic world is far more enjoyable to explore than the drab pre-bombing Hope County of Far Cry 5, and the Mad Max-style enemies are a lot more fun to take on than the Peggies. While the story’s mostly nonsense, with a few infuriating moments, and it’s undoubtedly all a cut-down experience - it never feels like a sub-par one, or even “just” an expansion. Far Cry New Dawn is the most enjoyment I’ve had with the series for a long time. Now, if only we had a full game like this…

Overall, it remains - also because of the lack of innovation - somewhat behind the predecessor. But if you're like me, you could still have a lot of fun with it.

Open world in New Dawn exists for one single purpose: to let player engage next group of enemies on his own terms. Hopefully, in next game Ubisoft will finally get rid of RPG elements (mainly, bizarre multi-tiered guns) and go back to the formula of first Far Cry. [Issue#236, p.54]