Set just 17 years after the events and the bombs dropped in Far Cry 5 we come back to Hope County to see that in the absence of mankind, nature has flourished and continued to evolve and thrive. Remnants of the old Hope County are everywhere as evidenced by the broken down cars and even old buildings peppered throughout the land. It’s really quite beautiful. As a new protagonist, you’re part of a crew that has set forth with the mission of helping settlements with their rebuilding efforts. As one might expect, that train is quite literally derailed and you will find yourself helping the Hope Country inhabitants rebuild their new settlement “Prosperity” and protecting them from a gang calling themselves “The Highywaymen” and their twin sister leaders Mickey and Lou. Throughout the journey, expect to meet up with new settlers and even a few familiar faces along the way.

New to the series is an enemy ranking system. It makes the combat more perilous and forces the player to play the game a bit smarter. Ranked enemies are stronger, they use better weapons that can really bring the hurt and their armor is better. On the flip side to that though, you’ll also be able to upgrade your weapons and armor to combat them. You just might need to play it safer and come back to this stronghold at a later time. While we’re on the topic of weapons there’s a great new variety of fun post apocalyptic weapons to find and craft. My favorite without a doubt is the buzzsaw launcher. There’s something so satisfying about firing off a shot and watching it bounce off a wall and ricochet back into the bad guys ugly face.

While exploring the world of Far Cry New Dawn you’ll need to keep an eye out for precious resources to upgrade the facilities back at Prosperity. Ethanol fuel is the most valuable of all the resources and you’ll mainly get that sweet fuel by hijacking convoys and attacking and taking over Outposts. In previous games, once you’ve captured an outpost that’s it. One and done right? Not so fast. Now you can decide to inhabit the outpost or abandon it. If you abandon the location, that means that the Highwaymen can come back and re-inhabit it in what’s called an “Outpost Escalation” where the enemies back with more reinforcements, better equipment and greater risk.

Other events you can participate in include commandeering supply drops, treasure hunts, photo hunting and expeditions. Expeditions are a pretty cool new feature that allows you to leave the world of Hope County and instead explore another region of the US with the sole purpose of finding new loot and the precious resources. The content you’ll find is completely random and should continue to provide new challenges and risk/reward for players. Basically you’ll jump into a helicopter and be whisked away where you’re dropped off. You’ll seek out the reward which is marked. Once you’ve grabbed that sweet sweet loot you need to get your butt to an extraction point where you’ll call in your ride and fight off waves of enemies trying to stop you while a timer dwindles down. It’s fast and feverish. I’ve had my share of white-knuckled moments which resulted in sweaty palms and copious amounts of swearing. The Expeditions really shine when you play through them with friends.

While Far Cry New Dawn doesn’t exactly bring a plethora of newness to the series, it brings enough to keep it very interesting. I absolutely loved the lush vibrant world and getting back to the aftermath of what happened in Far Cry 5. Any opportunity for me to get back to the world of Far Cry is a great day.

Pros:
Great environments and variety of missions to embark on
Expeditions are a fantastic addition especially with friends
Continuation of the story from 5 was exactly what the doctor ordered for me

Cons:
Doesn’t really bring any major changes to the formula

Kaneda