Far Cry: New Dawn is the latest side-story/standalone expansion from Ubisoft. Like Primal and Blood Dragon, it resues its map, but it’s also more focused.
You shouldn’t play every Far Cry game. You can, of course. I’m sure people exist who do buy and play every single one. But if you’re uncertain about Ubisoft’s most checklisty of map games, you should only check in on them occasionally. And when you do, you should try the Far Cry side stories first.
Far Cry: New Dawn is one of those side stories. Like Primal and Blood Dragon before it, the open-world shooter features new characters and missions, but it reuses the map from its most immediate predecessor. It is also a smaller, more manageable experience. Ubisoft reflects that reduced scale in the price. It sells these games for $40 instead of $60… or instead of $20 depending on if you view New Dawn as a downscaled sequel or glorified expansion pack.
But New Dawn has a lot to like. It’s smaller, but it also feels scrappy, like, somehow, a tiny team made it and not one of the biggest video game publishers in the history of the world. If you haven’t touched a Far Cry game ever, or in a few years, I would jump in here as opposed to anywhere else in the series.
Ubisoft’s sales pitch for New Dawn is almost embarrassing. Every ad plays up that it’s the apocalypse but with a lot of pink and fuchsia coloring. And while that idea already feels worn out thanks to Bethesda’s Rage 2 using the same exact messaging, I think Far Cry: New Dawn looks great.
Far Cry: New Dawn takes place in a world where the bombs fell. But they fell in nearby metropolitan areas and not in the backwoods of Hope County that you explore.
