Far Cry New Dawn

Far Cry New Dawn could have included the digit 5 in its title. I have trouble understanding why exactly it is not there. Most often (if not always) the reason companies do anything is money though. Maybe there's no 5 because this way the game seems more like a new title instead of DLC which people generally aren't as keen on buying. Regardless, New Dawn is very much a sequel to Far Cry 5. I'd say it's also a better game, a more even experience even if somewhat smaller in scale. (Thus the lower price.)

Proper ending for Far Cry 5

Far Cry New Dawn is set 17 years after the bombs fell in Far Cry 5. Numerous preppers' bunkers made Hope County kind of an ideal place to survive a nuclear war. The fallout also seems to have mostly avoided the area and people have crawled out of their hidey holes into a world filled with magenta flowers. The color choice is a curious coincidence as Rage 2 -- another post-apocalyptic first person shooter that came out this year, 3 months after New Dawn -- also uses pink extensively.

You again control a silent protagonist without dialogue options but at least this time it doesn't matter as much because the story isn't so offensively bad. (Although I did find the end of part 2 really dumb -- I wouldn't play by terrorists' rules.) You're the captain of security for Thomas Rush, the leader of a group that's helping the rebuilding of communities across America. You, Rush, and the group arrive to Hope County but bandits called the Highwaymen intercept your train and put an end to the endeavor before it has even begun. You alone escape the ambush and join Hope County residents to start a fight against the Highwaymen and their twin sister leaders.

What I really liked about New Dawn's story is how it redeems that of Far Cry 5's by allowing you to get payback. You get to meet the previous game's antagonist, Joseph Seed, who is no longer so sure of himself. Just seeing him that insecure felt satisfying. Maybe he wasn't a prophet after all.

Of course I still shot him the first chance I got. He wasn't quite ready to die yet though, being essential to the story for the time being, and merely went into an unlimited revivable state. Voiced lines had still been recorded just in case someone would attack Joseph at that point as he whimpered something about past sins having come back to him.

Gameplay-wise New Dawn doesn't offer drastic changes to the series but there are a few differences compared to the previous game. Armor was ditched and instead of bandaging you take pills to heal, which unfortunately takes about as long animation-wise. There are no other drug consumables eithre.

Perk points come much quicker. I started to wonder if I was going to get every perk halfway through the game but then I learned that some perks can be bought multiple times for a stacking effect. You might want to hold on to some points until certain story mission though. There are some hidden perks that will then get unrevealed and you kind of want to unlock them right away as they are quite useful. One of them gives you double jump to complete the movement method set of a modern first person shooter. The double jump is funnily enough usable even when fast traveling via air drop. Just keep on falling without opening wingsuit or parachute and then hit the jump button close to the ground to land safely.

More ARPG mechanics

I feel New Dawn tries to sell its mictrotransactions to you harder than Far Cry 5. Weapons and enemies come in four color-coded tiers. Trying to kill an enemy with a weapon that's of lower tier than the enemy results in a real struggle. It's a gamey system but I didn't mind it. However, it would've been cool if the final tier weaponry had had as good of an SMG as the previous tier. The tier 3 Optimized Vector has a very high rate of fire, it's fast to reload, and doesn't have much of a recoil. I truly enjoyed using it. Now that I think of it, I suppose I could've actually kept using it without switching to the tier 4 BZ19 since tier 4 enemies aren't that common.

And evidently I completely missed that you can upgrade your weapons' damage at a tier 4 workbench. It definitely isn't required if you're playing on Normal though, that I can say. Enemies died just fine with non-upgraded matching or higher tier weapons. The only challenge really was not getting into the sights of multiple rocket launchers and sniper rifles at once.

I'm not sure if you can skip the game's tier progression system entirely by buying a legendary weapon off the store right away, but you definitely can buy crafting materials to hasten the progress. As usual though, there's no need for the "time savers" if you actually just play the game.

One of the many resources needed for crafting and upgrading your base is ethanol. You can gather it by capturing Highwaymen trucks or their air drops, but the most effective way is liberating outposts. I think Far Cry 3 already allowed you to reset enemy camps but that was mostly for fun whereas in New Dawn it has more of a purpose. Every time you salvage an outpost you get more ethanol and the outpost is recaptured by tougher enemies (up to tier three). Ethanol rewards go up and you also have a chance to unlock a piece of MTX clothing with each liberation.

I find character cosmetics and first person perspective to be a clumsy combination for monetization. There's not much a point to change your looks since you can't really see yourself during gameplay. I reckon only someone who desperately wants to show off to their co-op partner spends any actual money on the MTX.

You can also embark on expeditions to more remote locations outside Hope County. It's kind of an odd extra feature but does provide an alternative way to gather resources. I question the plausibility of some of the locations though. Isn't Alcatraz for instance kind of a far away from Montana even for a helicopter? Surely you would need refueling which probably isn't that easy in a post-apocalyptic world.

Far Cry New Dawn's end credits don't quite reach the runtime of Far Cry 5's but are similarly nearly an hour long. That's absurd. So many people involved in the making of one game. (They could've put some of the names in more than one column though.) But I guess Ubisoft know what they're doing in at least in quality assurance as their games appear to be low on bug and crashing issues.

Also one more little detail that I maybe found funnier than I should have. Like in Far Cry 5, there are NPC companions, guns-for-hire, and they usually say something at the end of combat. I thought I misheard the first time Carmina said one of her lines but no, she literally says "F". F as in press F to pay respects. I don't know why I found such Borderlands level meme humor so amusing.