If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
That’s an approach we see all too often in the gaming world – with yearly titles released with minimal changes and hefty price tags.
But there’s a New Dawn (see what we’ve done there) – with some AAA publishers starting to buck the trend and move away from churning out like-for-like products year on year.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 may not be a perfect game, but it was a brave – and necessary – move to ditch its entire single-player mode, instead focusing on battle royale.
While the latest Far Cry isn’t as radical-a-step, there are signs developer Ubisoft acknowledges that playing it safe just doesn’t cut it any more.
To survive, you must adapt – and, fittingly, that’s exactly what you’ll need to do in New Dawn – a post-apocalyptic take on Far Cry 5’s Hope County and beyond.
Set 17 years after the events of the last game, the planet is slowly recovering from a nuclear apocalypse.
But rather from the drab, lifeless world we typically associated with the subject matter, Ubisoft has bucked the trend – focusing instead on how life, without humans, has thrived.
Flora and fauna are abundant – the colour palate is bright. As creative director Jean-Sebastien Decant explains, ‘it feels like the place from your childhood summer’.
Just without the machine guns and dead people lying in fields.
“The big challenge for a post-apocalyptic setting is there has been a lot of movies and TV shows – it’s a very crowded genre,” he continued.
“How do we approach it in a fresh way?
“To me, that was the challenge, it was about getting our space where we can exist on our own.
“To me it was research, we researched how the world would evolve and what the new struggle would be.
By doing so we found this approach that was very colourful – where nature has taken over and where we can live our own life and satisfy our people.”
Joseph Seed is long gone – replaced with arguably a more terrifying enemy – The Highwaymen.
Led by two vicious twin sisters, the group of heavily-armed bandits are slowly taking over the US state-by-state.
Your job, if you haven’t already guessed, is to stop them.
“This is a sequel to Far Cry 5 and a stand-alone post-apocalyptic game, ” Decant explained.
“In the sequel part we are bringing back some characters and some have had kids so it sheds new light on their potential story.
“There’s this world that has been transformed by the apocalypse and it was the occasion to see how far we could push the transformation.
“The sand, the flowers – we are not doing things the same way {as anyone else}.
“For me, it feels like the place from your childhood summer. It’s been years since you have been there but when you do go, it has been totally transformed but you notice some of the same stuff from before! It’s about emotional connection.”
That transformation extends to the gameplay as well – especially when it comes to the new expeditions.
These see you venture out of Hope County and explore more of the US – from San Francisco’s Alcatraz to the bayou in New Orleans.
“We wanted to create a mode that was more co-op centric, and more focused than something in the open world. Where we could create maps that are designed for a more intense, close quarters experience. It’s not something we do much in Far Cry so it’s good to be able to try it.”
Ubisoft work on a number of games – from Watch Dogs to Assassin’s Creed, so to ensure the likes of Alcatraz were accurately modelled, they asked the Watch Dogs 2 team to share their plans.
“The rest of the expeditions were built by our team in Shanghai,” said Decant.
“We worked closely with them and very quickly they came up with some great ideas. The core was like we need to be in a space that feels very different to Hope County.
“We need to feel like we really travelled to an exotic place, and there’s space for an iconic element in it. They proposed a lot of different things to us and we kept the ones that felt like the best.”
Those who have played Far Cry 5 would notice that the main character does not speak.
For some, they felt this pulled the gamer away from the narrative but Decant argues it does the opposite.
“That is something we started with Far Cry 5, and it’s something we are very keen on with the creative direction,” said Decant.
“It’s a first-person game, so we don’t have a character in front of us who expresses his personality through movements and expressions. Your hands are killing things usually.
“I don’t want to create a character with a voice that could go against your feelings, you know? Like the character could go WOOOOOO when you are not enjoying that situation. That, I wanted us to avoid.”
Instead, Decant argues, it’s the characters you interact with throughout the game that drives the narrative forward and help establish a connection with the player.
“We wanted to try something different. But also the idea is that we bring the emotional connection and the personalities through the characters.
“Sure, we make sure you can create the character you want – gender, race and dress them how you want, but then around you, there are characters with voices, points of view and emotional acts. “That’s how the story is going to move forward – through the characters with whom you are going to connect.”
New Dawn is going toe-to-toe with another post-apocalyptic shooter Metro: Exodus – with both games landing on February 15.
Has it done enough to convince people it’s not just a re-skinned version of Far Cry 5?
Time will tell – but we’re quietly confident.
Far Cry New Dawn is out on Xbox One, PS4 and PC on February 15.