FAR CRY NEW DAWN
Standalone sequel presents a flowerpower post-apocalyptic future
Back to Hope County to see what Seeds have flourished after the bomb.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a Bliss-induced hallucination after all. The bombs really did drop. But they didn’t just drop in Montana. The end was the beginning of a global nuclear apocalypse, we discover when Ubisoft shows its homework to us in an underground bunker somewhere in London… The rain only returns after ten years of nuclear winter. Through it all we see the husk of the cult’s church, ravaged by snow and then harsh winds. But with the rain, a new world blossoms. The flowers resulting from a superbloom aren’t the only survivors: holdouts across Hope County are seizing what they can from this recovering land.
Pitched as a “New West with AR-15s and pick-up trucks,” there are two key factions in this makeshift world. As part of the Survivors, your new character comes from the west coast to Hope County looking to rebuild America, working with others to farm food and fuel. The vegetables you grow don’t just feed the hungry but can also become ethanol. (Did you know that gasoline goes stale? Or that its shelf life is only three years? News to us too.) Seventeen years after the bombs fell, ethanol is the new black gold.
TWICE THE WOMAN
Here to cause problems for communal farmers are the Highwaymen. Led by twin sisters Mickey and
“HOLDOUTS ARE SEIZING WHAT THEY CAN FROM THIS RECOVERING LAND.”
“GUNS AND FANGS FOR HIRE RETURN – GUNSLINGING GRANNY NANA’S SPECIALITY IS SNIPING.”
Lou, these armour-clad enemies tag-team with scarcity as the key threats that your home base – dubbed Prosperity – faces. Creative Director Jean-Sébastien Decant reflects on how Far Cry’s villains grace each game’s box and says they are characters that “you’re going to love to hate.” After the likes of Joseph Seed, Pagan Min, and Vaas Montenegro, the twins have big boots to fill.
“It’s super-interesting to try and find new, fresh takes each time,” Decant says, “and it’s been a while that we were toying with the idea of having a female villain. And at the same time, on my end, after [working on a number of Far Cry games] I was really looking for a way to change the dynamic of the moments you spend with the villain,” he tells us. “We had a lot of [one-on-one encounters] so could we have something where there are two characters that are straight in your face? And the idea of two siblings, you know? They have their own world and you get into that world […] That was the initial starting point.”
OUT & ABOUT
The twins aren’t the only figures you’ll need to keep an eye out for, as we spot the all-too-familiar silhouette of a particular cult leader, suggesting Joseph Seed returns, and has his own designs on Prosperity. It was too much to hope he’d be blasted by his own bombs, we suppose. Still, the Survivors aren’t at the mercy of the sinister preacher, nor that of Mickey and Lou’s Highwaymen. Your Guns and Fangs For Hire return – among the latter are furry allies Timber the akita and Horatio the boar. A friendly human face shows up in the form of Carmina, the young running-and-gunning daughter of Nick and Kim Rye from Far Cry 5. All she’s known is the world after the bombs fell, giving her something of a unique outlook. Someone with a view of the bigger picture is Nana, the gunslinging granny whose speciality is sniping.
Ubisoft brings Nana along when we’re shown one of New Dawn’s Expeditions, which show the situation beyond Hope County. Ubisoft teases missions taking place in a verdant bayou, an abandoned theme park, and a rocky canyon. Expeditions are aimed at being played co-op, though you can definitely play them alone, especially if you’ve got Nana tagging along and taking potshots at any threats that hove into view. We wreak havoc on the local Highwaymen chapter, then need to leg it to a waiting helicopter. Waiting for Nana, we witness the surprisingly sprightly sniper sneak up and deck someone from behind on her way out like they swiped the last Werther’s Original in postapocalyptic Montana. From the cockpit, we continue to pelt lead at any enemies unlucky enough to still be on the ground.
Expeditions boast three different levels of difficulty, making them worth revisiting. Liberating outposts is a similar story. If you leave an outpost alone for too long as you hunt down nuggets of story via treasure hunts, the Highwaymen may well retake it. Every time you return, the difficulty escalates with switched-up security. But as you can see, this standalone sequel switches up far more than that, and we know we’ll discover more surprises when New Dawn drops in mid-February.