If you’re a fan of bullet sponges, obnoxiously bright reskins, and repetition ad nauseam, you’re in for a treat this week. Ubisoft’s reskin of Far Cry 5, Far Cry New Dawn is available on the Steam platform for 50% off as Steam’s weekly deal. Thankfully, the microtransactions are also 50% off, so you can really rev up the almost-Borderlands like gameplay that somehow missed the few notes that Far Cry 5 was able to hit.
First, the map available is roughly 33% of Far Cry 5, and everything is obnoxiously colored in neon pinks and blues. How else would players know that this is a post-apocalyptic scenario? The parts that have remained are less than thrilling, with many cities and various points of interest being cut. Outposts now litter the landscape, which players can clear as often as they want for increasing rewards at the cost of an increase of difficulty. While this is a welcomed change to the decades-old franchise, it still seems unable to shake the inevitably stale taste of recent Far Cry titles.
When your best friend is by your side – the whole world is at your feet! #FarCryNewDawn 📸 @frog_silver pic.twitter.com/dkADuLqDjK
— Far Cry (@FarCrygame) November 18, 2019
Weapons are no longer customizable either; how you find it is how it stays. You cannot change barrels, scopes, or anything that is found on a weapon.
This seems like yet another bizarre step backward that offers little reasoning; the game is clearly created with the same engine and assets as Far Cry 5, so removing the option for players to customize their arsenal has left fans scratching their heads.
Also worth noting is that Far Cry’s audience has been vocal in their frustration that most enemies take multiple clips to the head in order to topple. With the already limited arsenal, fans of the franchise have littered the Far Cry New Dawn Steam page with complaints that some battles take far too long to whittle down an enemy health bar, and players just stand there and hold the trigger until they’ve taken enough damage.
Ultimately, Far Cry New Dawn has been labeled as fans as Far Cry 5 with a Borderlands flavor, and it manages to somehow fail in both categories simultaneously.
With the disappointing DLC that Far Cry 5 had in its season pass, it’s further perplexing that this reskin of the game was launched at $50 as a stand-alone title instead of being included in the season pass of Far Cry 5. It doesn’t fix any of the problems with Far Cry 5 and manages to add new issues into the mix. The cooperative model is still painfully tethered, making you hold hands with anyone you want to play with; if they move too far from the host, they are unceremoniously teleported back to the hosts’ side.
Nonetheless, if you find yourself hungry for more Far Cry 5 content, at least you can pick this up at half price until next Monday.
