The following article is submitted by one of our readers. Spiel Times and its members are not responsible for the content in any way. It’s a guest post, treat it like one. Cheers!

We all love Far Cry for its open world diversity, hunting, building your resistance crew and much more. That has been its gameplay formula from the beginning, but has something changed with the new Far Cry New Dawn? Well, basically, it is much more of a sequel to Far Cry 5, just like Far Cry Primal was to Far Cry 4. The finale from the previous game was amazing, we finally took charge and the good guys win (spoilers from Far Cry 5 ahead). So is the sequel going to follow this path?

From the start, it doesn’t feel like a new one, feels more like a re-worked Far Cry 5 with bonus visuals. It takes place 17 years after the bombs drop, nature slowly returns to life, bringing a lot of interesting pink flowers. Some of the characters return to this sequel, you are going to explore and find familiar locations that have been damaged in the previous one. The map you explore again is the same, the outfit you wear is the same and yes, Hope County feels mostly the same.

The graphics show struggle too; there are a few graphical bags which is why New Dawn feels more like “budget” version of Far Cry – Maybe that’s why Ubisoft’s charging you with $40 instead of $60?

What is the change?

The customization extends a little bit. When it comes to character upgrades, now you can spend perks on bigger inventory, bigger lung capacity, and a double jump. Yes, you can control human abilities in the not-too-distant future in America. Jumping and then hopping in the air makes it much easier to travel and explore new locations through the world but it is not that realistic. To be honest, the mechanics of this game feel exactly the same from Far Cry 3, but that is not why we love it. As mentioned, the open world gives you so many options on what you will do to entertain yourself that is why you feel amused and can’t stop playing it.

The Story

As in any Far Cry game we need a bad-ass villain. That is where the twin sisters Mikey and Lou come up. The twins are a constant threat to you through their power and desires. The good thing about the story is that it feels deeper than the previous ones. They somehow created a strong family bond in the cinematics, basically blaming the father of the twins for their action. He is an unseen individual who only knew one thing: violence.

Playing it, you start to wonder how after the huge disaster and post-apocalyptic time, you still get some twins who act like that. Maybe they should change their concept of the psycho villain and come up with something new, not some weird human guided by his or her beliefs.

Gameplay

Luckily, New Dawn’s gameplay does not disappoint. It has been in the air for some time but still remains interesting. Far Cry fans would want more than clearing outposts and, smartly, New Dawn already changed that. Now you come back to the already-cleared outpost for resources and planning how to defend it even better. You can double the soldiers and put more advanced ones that will bring much more ethanol which is needed for upgrading your base.

The arsenal of choice is basically the same with few new ones and tweaks here and there. Although there is one new and very fun weapon – Saw Launcher, a crossbow modified to fire saw blades that eliminates your enemies with one shot.

The Verdict

Personally, someone who is very interested in Far Cry for what it represents and it’s fun gameplay, would not be sold entirely on the new game. It brings joy to all of us running around the open world, clearing outposts and causing chaos as much as possible in single or co-op mode and you can literally lose track of time wandering around the jungle, but is worth the money? Unfortunately not really. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink it. We fail to see the point of a new sequel with slightly re-worked open world and the same mechanics. If it is up to that, we can still have fun playing Far Cry 5, causing chaos and waiting for the new big thing from Ubisoft.