Far Cry New Dawn is a fairly average, overpriced, mindless, grindy action FPS. I did enjoy a lot of it - the core gunplay itself is actually pretty good & it's streamlined. Although there is a good sense of progression, it's artificially gated behind grinding things to upgrade your base and collecting enough materials to make better guns. By adding a rank (level) system to enemies and weapons, Ubisoft continue to 'encourage' players to spend extra money on microtransactions, in a game that is already 3x more expensive than it deserves. The whole game is scaled down - it's much shorter, upgrading the base & weapons is simplistic, the writing is weak, but it's still €45.
Ok, so you know what you're getting with Far Cry games by now. It's mindless, it's stupid and doesn't make any sense, but it's still fun to blow stuff up. For about 15 hours of New Dawn, I enjoyed just unlocking weapons, taking over strongholds and exploring the countryside. It is a cash grab though - it takes place (completely unfeasibly) 17 years after nuclear armageddon in the same map as Far Cry 5, but with a few more pink flowers. Apparently having all the humans living underground "allowed the world to flourish"... ignoring the fact that everything was bombed to bits in a nuclear apocalypse. It's short, the writing is basic & the gameplay is tuned towards encouraging microtransactions again. The campaign is 8 hours long, activities add another 12-15, so I'd say worth it at 70% off.
Pros
+ Guns feel really good
+ There are some really interesting takes on home-made weapons now that people have to scavenge for parts
+ Gameplay is generally good, although there's a lot of artificial grinding
+ There are expeditions which take you to locations outside of the main map which are really cool
+ Very pretty and well optimised. I assume it's the same game and graphics as FC5
Cons
- The 'story' is practically non-existant. The twins have no personality or backstory other than just acting like hooligans for the sake of it. They also never do anything other than vaguely threatening you when you make progress
- It's well packaged, but super simplified. There are even tiny infographics on how to play plastered around prosperity, which is pretty immersion breaking
- Your character is silent which is just as weird as always
- The game asks you to choose a 'build' rather than a gender
- There are no cover mechanics for shootouts
- There's all this cool wildlife around, but no hunting mechanics. It doesn't matter what you kill or which gun, just blast stuff, then turn it all in for generic crafting materials
- No Steam achievements
- Part of the optimisation, things disappear as soon as they're more than 150m away. Sometimes you see an ethanol truck drive past, and by the time you've turned your vehicle around it's despawned
- They always insist on putting stupid hallucination scenes in the game. I guess it's part of the series now, but it's always annoying
- You can't shoot out lights in camps to be stealthier
- Can't change time of day for stronghold assaults
Bugs
- Stole a fuel truck, drove it to an outpost and wasn't allowed to hand it in
- Several supply trucks wouldn't open, only the ramp came down but the doors didn't open