Thoughts on Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn
First off, I loved Far Cry 5. I thought it was a fantastic game and I loved the open world environment and how beautiful the world looked. It really felt like you were in Montana. The plot was captivating and the battles were fun. I rated it five stars for a reason. This post will contain spoilers to the game, so be warned.
This may contain spoilers. Reader beware. Far Cry 5 was the second Far Cry game I played. I played the original way back in the day, but haven't played any of the others. Far Cry 5's premise is that a religious cult has formed in (a fictional) Hope County, Montana. You go in as a U.S. Marshall to arrest the cult's leader. As one can guess, the arrest goes horribly wrong and you're left to take out the cult's leadership (consisting of the cult leader's two brothers and one sister), and rescue your fellow U.S. Marshall and the other law enforcement officers who accompanied you. You start the game, following the failed arrest in the center of the map. You can take out the siblings in any order, though the character, Dutch, who helped you in the beginning gives you a recommendation on which one to start with. Hope County is absolutely gorgeous. The mountains, the farms, it really feels like you're in the middle of Montana (or at least compared to the pictures I've seen of the actual Montana). The game has fast travel to travel between the different outposts, but more often than not, it was fun to just travel and explore the map. I love a good villain. Games, TV shows and movies are all better when the villain is interesting and not just someone who wants to foil you and/or kill you. Joseph Seed and the Seed family have a religious furor where they honestly believe that "the Collapse" is coming. They take over the county in hopes of converting everyone over to their doomsday cult. The thing with forcing people to join a cult, is that many won't want to join. In that case, they're captured, tortured, killed, enslaved, and a whole lot of not-so-nice outcomes. The whole game you're going against them trying to save the residents. What makes Joseph Seed so interesting is that the whole time, he, and his siblings are trying to convert you to join their cause. He's charismatic and feels eerily in a way that's hard to explain. His dedication to his beliefs make him dangerous with you not sure how things will go as you progress through the main story. Far Cry New Dawn takes place 17 years after the ending of Far Cry 5. You play as a completely different character which I had to remind myself of that several times as I met some of the characters from Far Cry 5 (and wondering why they didn't recognize me). The game takes place after the collapse and the weapons feel like they're from a society trying to scrap for whatever resources you can find. After the opening scene, your first weapon is a launcher for saw blades. The guns feel like something you'd see in Fallout with spigot handles in some cases being the knob on the scope of your sniper rifle. I think it's a cool aesthetic. The one gameplay mechanic they added to New Dawn that I really liked is the ability for you to "scavenge" an outpost. In Far Cry 5, you took an outpost and that was it. It became a place for you to pick up missions and restock. In New Dawn, they gave you the ability to let the Highwaymen re-take the outpost. You get moved to a point nearby to re-capture it. The catch is that each time you scavenge it, the enemies come back stronger and harder to kill. One of my favorite activities was trying to capture the outposts as stealthily as possible. It was fun to be challenged again and again to see how quietly I could go in. As for the main antagonist, the twins, Mickey and Lou, they didn't particularly stand out to me. They just felt like charismatic jerks who were able to get people to follow them to do evil shit. There didn't seem to be any more to them. It worked for the game, but they didn't stand out to me the same way the Seeds did in Far Cry 5. The other thing that I think hurt New Dawn was its length. It wasn't that long of a game. I stretched it out because I enjoyed exploring the world, but I could've moved through the story quicker if I had chosen to. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you're looking at a $20 expansion or game, but at $40, it feels a little expensive. I managed to get it on sale on the Xbox store for $10. I would highly recommend it at that price. It's a fun game still set in a beautiful world. The one thing that sort of hit me was how much it stunk to live in Hope County. They have to deal with Eden's Gate, see your character just about to take down John Seed and save them from the cult, only to have the collapse happen. Then, when they are able to emerge, the Highwaymen come. It felt like one of those when it rains it pours shit shows. It obviously has to happen for the game to work, but my mind still thought, "damn, sucks to be them." One thing I guess Far Cry games are known for are having some whimsical characters. They sort of play on some stereotypes and super-charge them. From a pyromanic, to a CIA spy who tries to get you to get a VHS tape that apparently has compromising video of the president (pee tapes anyone?), to a crazy scientist who believes aliens exist. They're all in Far Cry 5 for you to find and enjoy. You can also pet dogs! I'd recommend both games as I enjoyed them both. New Dawn was a slight letdown considering what came before it, but still worth playing for the right price.
Warning
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The Game's Environment
The Villain
Far Cry New Dawn
Still Whimsical
Dogs
I'd Recommend