Far Cry 5 Lost on Mars Fails to Impress Despite Wildly Different Setting and Story
Far Cry 5’s latest expansion, the Lost on Mars DLC, is now available on all platforms. The DLC promised players a very different setting from what they are used to; on closer to the Blood Dragon DLC for Far Cry 3 than anything released lately. However, despite the popularity of Blood Dragon, it seems that Lost on Mars has thus far failed to impress reviewers.
The Far Cry 5: Lost on Mars DLC
Lost on Mars is certainly a highly divergent take on Far Cry 5. Players are cast as Nick Rye, the Gun-For-Hire pilot companion from the base game, teleported to Mars by Hurk and an alien AI. Now on the red planet, Nick must restore power to the AI so that it can stop an alien invasion of Earth. Like the previous DLC, Hours of Darkness, Lost on Mars leans heavily on B-movie tropes for a humorous, over-the-top experience. However, much like Hours of Darkness, it has so far received mixed reviews.
Reviewers’ Response to the Lost on Mars DLC
Lost on Mars currently has a rating of 62 on Metacritic, and although more reviews will no doubt emerge over the next few days, most of the scores have so far been fairly consistent. 62 is higher than Hours of Darkness, which only scored a 55, but it’s certainly not a great score. Although the DLC delivers a whole arsenal of absurd new weaponry, new enemies, and an amusing new story and companion, reviewers have criticized the gameplay as repetitive. Returning to a series staple which was removed for Far Cry 5; players must travel around Mars, climbing and activating towers. Although the new Gravity Belt makes this a bit more interesting and different, it’s still a gameplay mechanic which is perhaps over-familiar to fans of the series.
Fortunately, Lost on Mars does appear to be longer than Hours of Darkness; fans criticized that DLC for its relatively short length. Most reviewers put the total time at around five hours. However, it seems to have delivered a mostly repetitive open-world. It remains to be seen if fans will enjoy the DLC more than reviewers. (Opinions seemed to match for the most part on Hours of Darkness.) If fans agree with reviewers again here, Ubisoft may need to redeem itself with the final DLC: Living Dead Zombies.