"Far Cry: New Dawn" Review - Hip-Hopcalypse

Available for: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Playstation 4

My first reaction to Ubisoft's reveal of Far Cry: New Dawn at the Game Awards was likely the same as most people's. That is to say, I saw that this new entry in the Far Cry saga was going to be a bright neon post-apocalyptic title and would be released less than a year after 2018's Far Cry 5, and I thought, "you've got to be kidding me!" Not only did Ubisoft seem to be clearly cashing in on the recent trend of the neon pink apocalypse popularized by the likes of Fortnite and the announcement materials for ID software's upcoming Rage 2, but it was being released with seemingly less development time than we usually get between Assassin's Creed titles. Everything about the reveal of this game spelled out disaster, but I'm a big fan of the Far Cry formula, so it isn't like I wasn't going to play New Dawn. Well, now I've spent about 12-15 hours in the Hip Hop Hope County Apocalypse, so what's the scoop?
Well...would you believe me if I said New Dawn is the closest Ubisoft has come to recapturing the magic of Far Cry 3 since that title? Don't get me wrong, New Dawn as a whole has some problems that need to be addressed, but when it comes to recapturing what made Far Cry 3 special, this game has done far better than the past three Far Cry games combined.
New Dawn is a fairly short title with not a lot to discuss, so let's get right into it. Due to the game's short nature, I won't be spoiling any plot details, but fair warning, it's impossible to discuss this game without spoiling the end of Far Cry 5.

Far Cry: New Dawn takes place 17 years after infamous cult leader Joseph Seed correctly predicted an approaching global nuclear devastation at the end of Far Cry 5. Since the bombs fell, the Earth has bloomed anew with altered plant and animal life, and human societies have gradually started to rebuild. The returning setting of Hope County is no exception, as characters from the previous game have banded together to bring the county back to its pre-Eden's Gate glory. However, a national group of ne'erdowells calling themselves "The Highwaymen," oppose the residents of Hope County at every turn, ensuring that every attempt they make to bring civility and order back to the county is thwarted. Out of desperation, Carmina Rye, daughter of Nick and Kim Rye from Far Cry 5, seeks the help of a renowned settlement builder named Thomas Rush. You play as Rush's captain of security, and you barely have time to settle into your silent protagonist shoes before your people are ambushed and scattered to the wind by the twin leaders of the Highwaymen: Mickey and Lou. Right off the bat I have to say that there's a skeleton of a good story here, but due to the game's inconceivably short length, it's mostly squandered. The game introduces a strong relationship between the twins but doesn't remotely build on it until the very end. The game introduces a truly excellent way to bring Joseph Seed and his followers into this new story, but he and his people are in the story for so little time that it doesn't really amount to much. The game really tries to tell a compelling story, but it doesn't take the necessary time to establish its core characters well enough, and in the absence of character development, the game doesn't even take the time to make us care about them by way of overexposure to them. Characters exclusive to New Dawn will get killed off and there will be giant funeral sequences where everybody is crying and people come up to you and say, "He was a good man" through clenched teeth. But none of it is earned. For me, Far Cry has never been about the story. In spite of this, I've always enjoyed the stories in these games strictly because of the villains. This is part of the reason why New Dawn's lack of a compelling story stands out. Next to Joseph Seed, any villain might look weak, but Mickey and Lou are surprisingly weak under those circumstances.
To explain this, I'd like to compare their introduction with the introduction of Joseph Seed in Far Cry 5. Far Cry 5 opens up with a helicopter ride to Seed's compound to arrest him. During this ride, the local sheriff and the local dispatch lady on the other end of the radio, Nancy, undergo some of your standard local sheriff/dispatch dialogue to ease the tension. You half expect Nancy to, in her yokel accent, promise that there'll be a cup of coffee waiting when this is over. It's a tad bit of humor in the middle of an incredibly tense opening in which all the major law enforcement characters are obviously terrified. You arrest Seed as he willingly surrenders, and all the while he tells his followers that God won't let you take him. As you, the law, and your new prisoner take off in the helicopter, Seed's followers start swarming the helicopter like a bunch of mindless zombies, which is already terrifying enough. The amount of people trying desperately to rescue their leader causes the helicopter to wobble too much and you end up crashing further on in the woods. By this point, Seed has been established as a cult leader with a frightening amount of power, and Ubisoft has already demonstrated this to us to some degree. But as the chopper crashes and the ethereal version of "Amazing Grace" starts to swell, we get the moment that truly solidifies Seed as a credible villain. As you come to consciousness in the crashed helicopter, you hear the sound of a sobbing Nancy through the radio as she begs for a response that everything is ok. You try to reach for the headset only to be intercepted by Seed, who holds your arm away and reaches for the headset himself. Amazing Grace grows even louder and more ethereal as the following plays out:
Seed: Dispatch?
Nancy: Oh, God!
Seed: Everything is just fine here, no need to call anyone.
Nancy: Yes, father! Praise be to you.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I got goosebumps and made a noise of surprise out loud at this point. Our introduction to Joseph Seed as a villain is a nonstop demonstration of his power that ends with proof of his ability to destroy and corrupt without so much as raising a finger.
In our introduction to the twins, they beat somebody up and say "the only currency in this world is power!"
Notice a difference there?

[I have to be honest, dear reader. I had a full review written out beyond this point. I wrote approximately 90% of the review while waiting in the airport for my recent trip to California. However, when I started back up again a couple days after returning, I found that none of it saved. So this review is going to be extra short, extra cliffnotes.]

The biggest story problem with New Dawn is the difference I alluded to before my disclaimer: It tells, but it doesn't show. We're told an interesting backstory about Mickey and Lou, but we're not shown it. We're told that Thomas Rush is this incredible settlement-builder, but we're never shown him in action (and we do all the work, anyway!). As a result (and as I said before) none of the moments in this game's story are earned. It's just a shame, because there's an instance where the game shows at a level just short of telling (if that sentence made any sense), and it's easily the most affecting moment in the game. How to say this without spoiling...there's a character you're briefly introduced to without much fanfare, but for whom there's this air of mystery. Eventually, the character's identity is heavily hinted at, and this revelation and the context surrounding it makes the ending of Far Cry 5 far darker and far more twisted than it already was. But alas, it's one moment, and it's the only moment with any kind of impact.
Gameplay is what you expect, but for the first time since Far Cry 3, Far Cry has recaptured the sense of truly earning what you get. In Far Cry 3, you hunted animals and used the pelts to improve your holsters and inventory. In New Dawn, you scavenge for bits of metal and duct tape in order to craft gradually higher quality weapons. There are 4 tiers of weaponry ranging from 1 to Elite. Enemies also have these tiers. If your weapons are in a lower tier than an enemy, they'll do less damage. Having these tiers means that even if you settle on the kinds of weapons you want, you'll have to craft improved version of them, ensuring that gameplay doesn't get stale even if you get the weapon types you want right at the beginning (like you do in every Far Cry game). There are microtransactions for crafting materials, but the materials are available in such staggering quantities that the microtransactions basically feel like an afterthought.
One thing I will say about gameplay is that not a lot of thought seems to have gone into the way missions are put together. There's a ton of bad design that needs to be brought up. For instance, every mission involving the derby arena is awful. There's essentially one side quest and one main quest that take place in this area, and both of them took me multiple attempts because I kept trying to play the way the game wanted me to. But really, the only way to survive those missions is to play the exact opposite way, and the exact opposite way is pretty dull. There was a late-game mission involving a prison that practically felt like an old school adventure game due to the amount of guesswork needed on the part of the player. In addition, many missions just end up devolving into "drive away really fast." It sucks, because there's one mission that sees the player slowly boating their way through a portion of the map that has been completely coated in the hallucinogen that the cult produced in Far Cry 5, and that mission is fantastic. So there are hints of great ideas here, but most of the game is just...uninspired.
Technically, the game is solid. Altogether it's about the same level as Far Cry 5, and the neon color palette is actually quite beautiful at times. I never had any crashes (hard or soft), loading times were decent, and I never experienced any texture pop-in (though, I never actually used aircrafts, so perhaps I would've gotten some pop-in if I'd hopped in a helicopter). There are some to-be-expected animation glitches, some issues with enemy AI, and at one point a takedown didn't trigger and I ended up dying as a result, but all-in-all, a decent package. The soundtrack is a mostly series of obnoxious techno and rap songs, but it also features a wide selection of golden oldies. So it's a fair soundtrack, but it does lack the personality of the cult's hymnal from Far Cry 5. "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees is a good listen, but it doesn't do much to flesh out the world, in other words.

Folks, I haven't been as descriptive with Far Cry: New Dawn as I usually am, but sometimes you just have to take a step back when you lose a bunch of your work. I think I've touched everything that needs touching on and listed out the issues that needed listing. Anywho, let's get this wrapped up so that I can get started adding another lackluster review to Anthem's bucket.

Let us review:
Poor storytelling/villains - 0.5
Uninspired missions - 1.0
Technical problems - 0.3

The final score for Far Cry: New Dawn is..

8.2/10 - Good
Decent work, Ubisoft, decent work