Hope County’s greatest prize

Fortunately, the rock-solid gameplay is enough to get most players through New Dawn’s main campaign. New Dawn incorporates light-RPG elements. You must recruit skilled NPCs to join your town to upgrade your skill-tree. Rescue a cartographer and gain access to more detailed maps; upgrade the weapons area and you can level-up your paltry weapons. And upgrades are essential. Stumble across a level II enemy with your level I pistol, and you may as well attack with a pea-shooter.

Hope County’s greatest prize is ethanol and finding it is key to upgrading your base. The best way to score ethanol is by raiding Highwaymen outposts. But pillaging every outpost on the map won’t provide enough resources. You may give up control of an outpost, which lets Highwaymen return with stronger forces. Taking them out a second and third time isn’t so easy, but it returns higher amounts of ethanol. This gameplay loop feels like a lazy quick way to stretch out the game. As you level up your character and make it closer to the endgame, there is less incentive to keep raiding outposts.

As pretty as New Dawn looks, it’s still a re-skinned Far Cry 5 map. And players who sank countless hours into the previous title may not be thrilled about returning to their old stomping grounds so soon. As if to compensate for the recycled map, New Dawn throws players a bone.

The Captain may board a helicopter and embark on expeditions that take place outside of Hope County. They are extraction missions on smaller isolated maps that add a dash of variety to the game. Players sneak through a map, track down their loot, and get out of dodge while waves of pissed-off bad guys stand in their way. A swampy Louisiana theme park, crashed satellite, and a visit to Alcatraz prison make for some fun, though short distractions.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed New Dawn’s Guns/Fangs for Hire feature. In most games, I find that NPC companions get in the way more often than they lend a hand. But I never felt like that’s the case in New Dawn. I preferred having an NPC’s added firepower with me as I battled swarms of Highwaymen scumbags. There are six Guns for Hire and two Fangs for Hire available once The Captain unlocks them through their respective quests. And they’re all down to shed Highwaymen blood. Each NPC brings a unique skill set to the table; some show up in vehicles, some throw dynamite, and others keep Hope County’s pernicious wildlife from attacking unprovoked. Take them with you on enough missions, and they level up into lethal killing machines. I rarely left Prosperity without one.

As you make your way through the world, you’ll stumble across one of the game’s treasure hunts. Treasure hunts force players to solve a puzzle to unlock valuable loot. These aren’t as challenging as the gear and lever puzzles in Tomb Raider. But treasure hunts are welcome distractions that force you to flex mental muscles rather than your trigger finger. Other activities like photograph hunts, fishing, and supply drops each allow players to lose themselves down a deep New Dawn rabbit hole.

Pop culture loves returning to the apocalypse, and gaming offers some of the genre’s most fertile ground. Telltale’s Walking Dead series, Horizon Zero Dawn, and the Fallout games each mine the post-apocalypse to produce gritty examinations of what it means to reach the end of civilization. Every minute in these worlds conveys a sense of melancholy. After all, enduring the last gasps of a dying era is serious business.

This game’s narrative doesn’t wrestle with the genre’s weighty themes. And despite a coat of neon paint – and the addition of superpowers – New Dawn doesn’t go far enough in the other direction. It’s outlandish, but not all-out bonkers. Fun shooting mechanics, vibrant open-world exploration, and eyeball-melting visuals offer the same old Far Cry. But the new look and feel add just enough variety to keep the series fresh. Let’s call it Far Cry 5 cosplaying as its deeper, meaner, post-apocalyptic rivals.