A great action-RPG that you ignored in 2019: Far Cry New Dawn

I know i will get hatred for saying that, but it is the truth. For me, only 2 RPGs were fun in 2019

a) The Outer Worlds

b) Far Cry New Dawn

Since the Outer Worlds is a known quantity here, i would like to start a conversation about New Dawn, which, like what Ubisoft did with the Assassin's Creed series lately, introduced some light-RPG elements into it, bluring the lines between your typical Far Cry game and Bethesda's Fallout.

First of all, why i consider New Dawn to be an RPG? Obviously i am not trying to troll or trigger you, although most will claim that. New Dawn indeed includes many RPG elements. It features stats for your character and opponents, character progression, equipment progression, NPCs, a large open world map with NPC towns, bases, and other places of interest, a homebase for you to upgrade with NPCs to assist you, factions you can join, a nice post apocalyptic revenge story. It has companion NPCs that are upgradeable. It has a skill tree for you. It has plenty of vehicles to upgrade to and use. The wildlife is level-based and you need to farm it for materials to upgrade your staff. Literally, if New Dawn had more fleshed out NPCs, choice and consequence (it has not sadly), and a dialogue system (you can't pick your responses), it wouldn't be any different from New Vegas or Fallout 4. So i am not saying it is a hardcore RPG or a clear example of the genre, but if you fags can nominate a visual novel/point & click adventure like Disco Elysium for RPG GOTY here, or consider third person metroidvanias like Dark Souls an RPG, i don't understand why New Dawn is getting ignored....

Now that i established that New Dawn could clearly be considered a half-RPG or action-RPG hybrid, is that game any good?

Well yes, it is awesome, although it is short and it is apparent that it is just a standalone expansion/sequel of Far Cry 5 (which was also great but didn't have the RPG additions). Still, it had some of my most memorable set pieces in gaming. The emergent gameplay it features is awesome, maurauders and wildlife keep patroling the roads and when they spot you mayhem ensues. I often loved just waiting at a crossroads to ambush people, reinforcements arriving, and chaotic situations everywhere, destroyed vehicles, lots of corpses, chaos, FUN! The game features bases you have to liberate in order to control an area, filling it with your pals instead of the enemy soldiers, like the rest of the Far Cries. It has awesome shooting and driving/flying/boat mechanics. Companions are fun and full of cheesy personality. The whole game is tongue in cheek, the "Christian" cult leader lunatic from Far Cry 5 blew the whole world up with Nukes and you get to deal with the aftermath.

As an RPG, obviously it is light. You don't get to ponder on what can change the nature of man and similar pretentious bullshit or take 3 hours savescumming to win a single turn based battle. There is a town of refugees needing your help from post apocalyptic female lesbian niggers. After the nukes fell the antifa rule the world and kill white people. The white people found refuge in a town called Prosperity, and you need to protect it, upgrade it, bring more people to work on it, and gather strength to destroy the antifa. On the road you are going to meet another faction of barbarians who are at war with the antifa, and you will bring them to an alliance with you, granting you a barbarian rage skilltree also. They will also spawn on the map to help you and attack your enemies, so it is cool. All in all you can feel the progression as you upgrade your skill tree, equipment, and vehicles. At first you are going to be a weak POS but late game you are going to become a one-man army liberating the wasteland from scum, like in every Fallout.

Should you buy it? Depends on you. It is not expensive and if you have a machine that can run it decently and would like a light RPG/First person shooter hybrid to have some fun and a change of pace from the tedious "hardcore" savescumming marathons, go for it. It is also a beautiful game, the engine is awesome and the openworld is great. If you don't know if you will like it or you don't want to pay for it, pirate it, i don't care, i am not a shill or own Ubisoft stock so i don't give a fuck. I personally enjoyed it very much and had much fun. I am definitely looking forward to more RPG elements introduced to Far Cry in the future.

 

It's not an RPG, there's already a thread for it in general gaming.

No, it does not. There is no tree about it. You simply unlock the entire thing by playing the game, much like unlocking abilities by playing an action game.

 

Do I need to read more or can I stop here?

 

I see you are going all out to reclaim your title in 2020.

 

The only reason i didn't get it in 2019 was because i didn't participate.

 

To be absolutely fair to you, I must confess I did enjoy Far Cry 5 more than I thought I would. At least for the first half before I got bored. So I can see how a shorter, more refined version would be enjoyable. I might well pick it up when I'm on the mood for some open world shooty-shooty boom-boom.