There’s a not-so-small, cynical part of me that just wants to copy-and-paste my Far Cry 5 review right here and be done with it.
Far Cry: New Dawn boasts many of the same faces and places you’ll remember from Far Cry 5, but they’re spun through a different story. It’s the same map – albeit a little truncated – but much of Hope County’s still-recognisable landmarks lie in ruins and are now daubed a gaudy, neon pink. It plays in an almost identical way, offering an almost identical menu of story and side missions, along with an almost identical selection of prepper stashes, outposts, and… well, you get the idea. Even recurring character Hurk Drubman Jr. can’t help but comment that it feels as though we’ve somehow been here before.
I don’t even know who New Dawn is for, either. If you like Far Cry games – and I resoundingly put myself in that very camp – the pleasing rinse-and-repeat of combat and craftin’ and collectin’ means you’ve likely as not already picked up Far Cry 5, in which case it’s hard to recommend what is essentially a carbon copy of it (albeit a smaller, neater one). And if you don’t like Far Cry? Well, if you weren’t tempted by Far Cry 5, there’s nothing new for you here, either. Which circles me back around to the original predicament: just who is Far Cry: New Dawn for exactly?
