Although the title and cover art was leaked prior to the event, Ubisoft formally announced the next entry in the Far Cry series last night at the Game Awards. Far Cry New Dawn will be a new game releasing in early 2019, and it follows on from the events of Far Cry 5. New Dawn takes place seventeen years after the bombs fell on Hope County, and the world has changed a lot in that time…
Far Cry New Dawn Brings Players to a Post-Apocalyptic Hope County
Like Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon and Far Cry Primal before it; Far Cry New Dawn will be launching as a standalone game rather than DLC. In the years since the devastation wreaked upon Hope County by nuclear war, a new world has risen from the ashes. Unlike other post-apocalyptic settings, like that of Fallout or the Mad Max movies; New Dawn’s post-apocalyptic setting is verdant and vibrant, not a bleak wasteland. The announcement gameplay trailer gives players a good look at the new world which has arisen since the bombs fell. It also reveals the game’s villains; the Twins. These two young women lead the Highwaymen, a band of raiders and bandits who seek to dominate Hope County.
The trailer also gives players a brief glimpse of the Father, Joseph Seed. The villain of Far Cry 5 is one of several characters who survived the destruction seventeen years ago, but the intervening time appears to have changed him; “I led us into the new world,” he says; “I thought that it would be glorious. I was wrong.”
It’s unclear at present exactly what role Joseph Seed will play in Far Cry New Dawn. If him admitting that he was wrong is indicative of a new redemptive arc for the character, that could be very interesting indeed. It’s also currently unknown whether Rook, the protagonist of Far Cry 5, will appear in the game. Ubisoft has said that protagonist of New Dawn is a new character arriving in Hope County for the first time. Far Cry 5’s ending left off with Joseph Seed and Rook in a bunker together. As a result, it’s possible that Rook is still alive. If they are, one has to wonder how spending almost two decades with the Father may have changed them…