Less than a year after the release of the last game in the franchise, “Far Cry: New Dawn,” a direct sequel to 2018’s “Far Cry 5,” was announced and released. With such an unusually quick turnaround, would the game hold up to the quality of the past games or just be a rushed cash grab?

Seventeen years after the nuclear fallout which occurred at the end of the “Far Cry 5,” the citizens of Hope County, Montana have begun to rebuild. When a group known as the Highwaymen threatens to destroy what little civilization is left, the survivors are forced to team up with the religious cult Eden’s Gate, even though they very well could be more dangerous than the Highwaymen.

The “Far Cry” series of games are usually more focused on gameplay rather than plot, but I found that the story of Eden’s Gate in “Far Cry 5” was incredibly interesting. When I heard a direct sequel to the game would be released showing how the story of Eden’s Gate continued after the apocalypse, I was immediately intrigued.

This story is where “Far Cry: New Dawn” is most at its best. While it could be picked up and understood by those who have not played “Far Cry 5,” returning players will get the most out of the story. Seeing many characters and places return from the last game was a delight.

While returning to Hope County will be fun for fans of “Far Cry 5,” it also poses one of the games biggest issues. The game’s map is almost exactly the same as the last games, with most differences being purely cosmetic.

The setting also doesn’t make much sense to me. The game only takes place 17 years after nuclear bombs destroyed civilization, yet the world seems perfectly fine. All the vegetation has regrown back to a normal state and there are loads of animals alive that, despite being oddly colored, are just normal animals. This would have made sense if the game took place a century or so after the last game but, after only 17 years, it just doesn’t feel right.

It’s almost as if the developers wanted to make this game but didn’t want to commit to a totally new world, so they just slightly reskinned Hope County and tried to pass it off as “post-apocalyptic” when it just so obviously isn’t.

Not only is the map generally the same, it feels dramatically smaller than any of the recent “Far Cry” games. This holds true for the entire game, as the story only takes around 10-15 hours to complete while past games have taken anywhere from 25-40 hours. At only $40, however, at least Ubisoft isn’t charging full price for a much smaller experience.

The gameplay in “Far Cry: New Dawn” is simple fun. The game is mostly fighting wave after wave of gunning down enemies, with a few missions forcing you to use stealth or other unique weapons. As most enemy encounters feel mostly the same, however, the game gets boring after playing it for a while, making long gameplay sessions almost impossible for me.

The game won’t blow you away with its graphics, but it certainly doesn’t look bad. It also runs relatively well, though I did run into the occasional drop in frames per second and a few other annoying technical glitches.

“Far Cry: New Dawn” gives fans of the series more of what they want without swaying too far from what the series is known for. While it is mostly just a reskin of “Far Cry 5,” it introduces enough new story and gameplay elements that make it worth playing for any fan of the first-person shooter genre.

Review copy provided by Ubisoft and reviewed on a PlayStation 4 Pro.

7/10