New Dawn follows directlyon from Far Cry 5, delivering “a transformed, vibrant, post-apocalyptic Hope County, Montana, 17 years after a global nuclear catastrophe”. If you played the previous game you’ll know exactly what’s meant by this description – New Dawn is a rare direct sequel in Ubisoft’s open-world FPS series. If you played and enjoyed FC5 then trying this on Game Pass is a no-brainer, really!
Another reason we think this is a great candidate for XGP is that, in our opinion, New Dawn got a bit of a bad rap at launch – and its mixed reception wasn’t entirely deserved. Ubisoft tried to sell this as a full-on sequel and charged almost full-whack for the privilege, even though the game shares some a lot of DNA with Far Cry 5. If you look at this experience more as chunky DLC for FC5 you get a much better perspective on things, and will likely enjoy its crazy, colourful open world quite a bit more.
That colourful open world delivers some of the best visuals you’ll find for this sort of game, the series’ solid-as-ever shooting mechanics, an interesting overall premise for a Far Cry title, and some unique mechanics like a proper ‘home base’ to expand, and more in-depth crafting options. Far Cry New Dawn isn’t perfect, but taken as an interesting spin on FC5 DLC, it’s absolutely worth a shot on Xbox Game Pass.
Having said all of this – New Dawn still feels like a ‘standalone’ expansion of sorts, and it can be enjoyed without playing its predecessor. Sure, you’ll get extra context from the ending of Far Cry 5, but the series is all about fun-as-heck open-world shooting and base capturing at the end of the day, so we wouldn’t hesitate getting stuck in either way!
If this has convinced you that Far Cry New Dawn could be worth a shot, Ubisoft’s 2019 shooter heads to Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Game Pass Standard on February 4th.
