A YouTuber called The Easter Egg Hunter has lived up to his name with a dive into the secrets hidden in Far Cry New Dawn. Ubisoft's post-apocalyptic follow-up to Far Cry 5 has a pretty goofy tone—this is the game that lets you have a wild pig as a companion, after all—and it's no surprise that extends to the easter eggs. They include Sam Fisher's outfit from Splinter Cell, a bobblehead version of Vaas from Far Cry 3, a bunch of photo mode poses that reference other Ubisoft games (the Assassin's Creed leap of faith is my favorite), and a poster for the rabbids that have become Ubisoft's weird mascots over multiple games. 

If you're up for more, The Easter Egg Hunter has a video about Hitman 2 that highlights a lot of hidden stuff in that game. There's way more going on with the flamingo costume than I realized.

The one thing I've noticed playing Far Cry New Dawn is that Hope County doesn't seem all that terribly worse off for having gone through a nuclear war. The roads are crappier but there are still plenty of vehicles lying around to ride around in, and the Highwaymen are jerks but there seem to be far fewer people gutted and nailed to things than there were in Far Cry 5.   

The world itself doesn't look all that awful, either. While games like Fallout and Metro present players with classic "blasted wasteland" environments, Far Cry New Dawn's world is lush and pretty. Associate narrative director James Nadiger told GamesIndustry that the more colorful, upbeat setting helps set New Dawn apart from other end-of-the-world games, and it's not entirely fantastical. 

"The cool thing about apocalypse fiction—not just in games, but across all media—is everyone gets to put their own spin on it," Nadiger said. "Some of them go very far into sci-fi, fantasy land, while some keep it more realistic. For New Dawn, what sets us apart almost immediately is what we've done with our environment." 

The game world is based, loosely at least, on projections about how Earth could bounce back from nuclear Armageddon. Ubisoft consulted with meteorologists who develop different survivability scenarios based on the severity of the cataclysm, and then set out to hit the sweet spot of a nuclear apocalypse that wasn't quite so apocalyptic that the planet ended up hosed for centuries. 

"So we've leveraged a bunch of real world things to create an apocalypse that's clearly an after the end of the world scenario but with an environment that's lush and inviting. When plants come back, animals come back, predators come back, and that sets up a classic Far Cry open world," Nadiger explained. 

"I don't remember the exact number [of bombs we based on] but if there's too many bombs, there's no chance for anyone to survive or for plants and animals to recover. You can recover from radiation or nuclear disasters fairly quickly—if you look at things Chernobyl, or at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, where bombs went off, radiation came out, but life continued to soldier on." 

The net result is that "the world didn't end," it just had a rough stretch for awhile and now it's starting over. "Where Nick and Kim have an idea of the world they've lost forever, Carmina has only ever known the world to be like this—this is the life she's fighting for," he said. "It's kinda fun to explore a younger generation stepping up and taking control of their world from arguably the generation that screwed it up." 

I'm not the only one who thinks atomic weaponry didn't muss Hope County's hair too much, but that's not necessary a bad thing, as Chris said in his 70/100 review. He also has some ideas on how to go about reclaiming Hope County, and why the giant pig deserves your love. 

As I said in my review, Far Cry New Dawn is basically Far Cry 5 again, only on a smaller scale. There are a few changes to how things work, however, such as enemies, weapons, and outposts, plus new features like a home base you can upgrade and expeditions that take you outside of Montana's Hope County.

Here's a guide to help you handle everything the game throws your way.

Enemies and weapons now have ranks

Not all enemies in New Dawn are created equal, and neither are all weapons. There are different ranks of both now. Don't worry, you won't run into a level 30 baddie in Hope County like you might in Assassin's Creed: the ranks are limited to 1, 2, 3, and Elite. The higher the level of the enemy, the harder it is to hurt them, especially if your weapon has a lower rank than they do.

You can tell an enemy's rank at a distance simply by looking at them: the cooler their armor looks, the higher their rank. Plus, if you have all the UI options enabled, you'll see their segmented health bars and a little gold crown icon if they're Elite.

Your weapons have ranks, too, which determine how effective they are against the rank of your enemies. To unlock higher ranks of weapons, you'll need to upgrade your workbench in Prosperity and craft higher-tied weapons with the materials you've scavenged. More on upgrading Prosperity a bit further down.

Outposts can be immediately repopulated for tougher challenges and greater rewards

You don't have to wait to clear all the outposts to restaff them with enemies. The moment you liberate an outpost, you can head to the Scavenge table for a quick reward of additional ethanol (see below). Scavenging immediately turns the outpost back over to the Highwaymen, but each time you do it, it gets more challenging: higher ranked enemies, more alarms, and deadlier reinforcements. The rewards increase, too, especially the amount of ethanol. Just be prepared for a challenge.

Ethanol improves your base, and here's where to find it

To upgrade the various zones of your base, you'll need ethanol. A lot of ethanol. Most of this will come to you when you liberate outposts, especially when you then repopulate them with tougher bad guys.

But you can also find ethanol being driven around in big tanker trucks by the enemy. If you can take out the driver and any support vehicles without blowing up the truck itself, you can commandeer it and drive it to Prosperity or any other outpost you've liberated, where the supply will be added to your stockpile. In theory, at least. Remember the roads are packed with trigger-happy raiders and you're driving an enormous flammable gas tank. Unlock the repair perk so if the tanker does catch fire you can fix it before it blows.

You'll also encounter regular airdrops in New Dawn. This isn't battle royale, so the drops will always land near you. If you hear a plane overhead, just stop and wait for a minute. Highwaymen will show up to claim it (or act like they're trying to claim it, anyway), and once they're dealt with you can loot the drop for materials and extra ethanol.

Expeditions are like huge outposts with infinite enemies

Expeditions are new in Far Cry, and they'll take you out of Montana to other parts of the country like an aircraft carrier on the coast, Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay, and an amusement park in Louisiana. You access expeditions via the chopper pilot at Prosperity or from your menu, and they serve as huge outposts you can raid for extra supplies. You're looking for a specific haul of loot somewhere in the outpost (though you can take whatever else you find, too). The catch is, the package you're after has a GPS attached to it, so once you've grabbed it, even if you've been completely undetected thus far, the bad guys will not only know you're there, but they'll be able to pinpoint your exact location.

The chopper will extract you a few minutes after you've collected the package, but an endless supply of enemies will follow the GPS to hunt you down, meaning you'll need to stay alive against waves of Highwaymen until the helicopter arrives. There's also a bit of randomization, so the package, enemies, and extraction zone won't always be in the same place on subsequent visits.

Where to find circuit boards

When I'm crafting stuff in New Dawn, the material I'm usually hard up for is circuit boards. Everything else (springs, gears, duct tape, and components) is extremely plentiful, and locations you find on the map will even display the type of components you'll find there, and how many there are. Circuit boards, though, are a bit harder to come by.

The best place to find circuit boards are on Expeditions, from airdrops, and by trading elite (and undamaged) animal skins either at your crafting bench or with any of the wandering traders. Titanium can also be a bit hard to find at times, but enemy supply trucks and locked safes are the best places to look.

The UI is super duper customizable

This is a Ubisoft game so there's tons of information on the screen, but there's also an amazing amount of UI options you can mess with in the menu. You can toggle just about everything on and off. Your reticle, enemy detection meters, health indicators, explosive warnings, the compass, object glow, damage numbers, icons for friends and enemies, objective markers, tutorial hints... pretty much any part of the UI can be tweaked either to give you less clutter or more of a challenge. And if you don't know what a particular interface option is, it shows you an example right in the menu. It's fantastic.

This woman knows everything

As you play you'll see the same woman popping up here and there all over the map. If you spot her (often at liberated outposts), drop what you're doing and talk to her. She's always got a tip on a treasure or bunker or a place of interest that's got loot and perk-point magazines and other valuable stuff. Seriously, I don't care if you're on fire at the time—if you see this woman with the cap and sunglasses, run up and chat with her and put out the flames later. She'll never steer you wrong.

Spend your first perk points on weapon slots

As soon as you begin playing you'll start receiving perk points from combat, challenges, bunker discoveries, rescuing prisoners, and other activities. I know it's tempting to immediately unlock the wingsuit or improved takedown skills, but you should start by unlocking weapon slots. You only have two to begin with, and that's simply not enough for a game like Far Cry. You'll want room for the sawblade-slinging crossbow, a good shotgun, a sniper rifle, and a pistol so you're ready for anything.

There's a great photo mode

Similar to the latest Assassin's Creed games, there's a photomode in New Dawn that lets you pause the game, fly the camera around in 3D space, add filters, change the time of day, and pose your character. This is the Ezio pose, if you couldn't tell. I added the Far Cry logo because I think this would make an excellent box cover or poster. Have fun!

Far Cry New Dawn is out today, and it takes place in a familiar setting: Hope County, Montana, the same location as Far Cry 5. New Dawn is set almost twenty years after the end of Far Cry 5, as the survivors of the nuclear war are attempting to rebuild their lives and society. As you explore the world of New Dawn, you'll run into a few familiar characters, the people you met and helped in Far Cry 5. They're older and grayer now, but still alive.

The biggest question is, what about your own character from Far Cry 5? What happened to the rookie deputy whose attempted arrest of creepy murder-cult leader Joseph Seed kicked off the chaos in Hope County? Last we saw, the nukes were going off and your rookie was dragged into a bunker with Seed. What happened next?

Some of the answers can be found in New Dawn. Obviously, there will be big spoilers for Far Cry New Dawn below, so stop reading if you don't want to know.

In an effort to combat the Highwaymen in New Dawn, a character in the friendly settlement of Prosperity will suggest enlisting the help of Eden's Gate, the remnants of Far Cry 5's cult. They're living off the land in seclusion far to the north, having essentially sworn off technology. They wear animal skins and hunt with bows and arrows. Basically, they've gone prehistoric. On your first attempt to talk with them, you're silently greeted by a masked figure who won't let you in.

Only later, after undertaking a quest to recover a book of Joseph Seed's writings will you be allowed in, again by the masked figure. Joseph Seed's son is running things in Eden's Gate, and later the masked figure, known as The Judge, will become one of your companions.

The Judge never speaks. Attempts to talk to them result in just vague hisses, as if they no longer have a tongue. And when you investigate the bunker on what's left of Dutch's Island, you'll find notes here and there, presumably written during the time your Far Cry 5 character spent with Joseph, trapped underground.

"God tells you," one note reads. "If I listen to you, it's good, and right, and I can help, and I can save people, and make it right, and everything will be okay. If I judge as your judge, the judgment is right and just, the judgment is God's Word. I see now. I am so sorry."

"Please give me a mask I am afraid."

"Thank you Joseph thank you Father."

Well, that's a huge bummer. I mean, sure, Joseph was right about the world ending, but he was still a complete creep and scumbag and murderer. But stuck in the bunker with him for perhaps years, it seems your character from Far Cry 5 eventually began to see things Joseph's way. The Judge is who your character became.

You'll find more evidence to support this. Bring The Judge with you to Roughneck's Crag, in the northwest corner of the map. Like the 8-Bit Pizza Bar from Far Cry 5, Roughneck's Crag is the spot your companions hang out together when they're not following you around. Spend a while there, and Pastor Jerome and Hurk will chat with The Judge (a one-sided conversation since The Judge doesn't talk). They'll talk about old times, and what's become of The Judge since then. Carmina Rye, Nick Rye's kid (who was born during Far Cry 5) will thank The Judge for helping her parents, and back in Prosperity Nick seems to know The Judge too.

So, that's what became of your character, the rookie, from Far Cry 5. Brainwashed by the endless droning of Joseph Seed, always wearing a mask, never speaking (I guess you never spoke in the game anyway, but I am convinced The Judge no longer has a tongue), and so opposed to technology they won't even get in a car anymore. We knew Far Cry 5 had a dark ending, but this just makes it bleaker still.

Your companions in Far Cry New Dawn can grow stronger just like you can. This happens in two ways: by upgrading the training grounds in your home base, and by keeping a companion with you for a long enough period of time, because they'll slowly gain new abilities while fighting by your side. This means you should have one of the eight companions with you everywhere you go, and without question that one companion is Horatio, the giant boar.

Leave everyone else behind. Yes, even the dog. I love dogs, but now I love a boar even more.

Why is Horatio so worthy of your constant company? Well.

He's a damn tank

Not one for stealth, Horatio will charge right in and begin knocking enemies down. Once down, he can stomp them for a kill. The third skill he learns is a sort of berserker rage where he'll blast right through a whole bunch of enemies, scattering them like sticks. And, as you see above, he can knock an entire damn truck onto its side. If you like hanging back and sniping, don't travel without Horatio the tank.

He loves rolling around in flowers

And yet Horatio is a gentle creature, too. When we get a breather from the action, he'll sometimes roll around in the flowers. I've seen him do it in the grass, too, and on dirt, but it's more blissful to see him flop to the ground and snort happily as he rolls in pink meadows. I bet he smells wonderful afterwards.

He takes out shielded enemies

My least favorite enemy type (not just in New Dawn but in general) is some dude with a big-ass shield. They deflect all your damage and block all your hits and then somehow they can still run right up and whomp on you! Unfair, if you ask me. Horatio isn't impressed with shields. If he goes after a shielded enemy, even from the front, that dude is losing his shield for good. Then you can pick up the shield and become a shield dude yourself.

It's fun to let him get the final kill in an outpost

When I'm down to one last baddie at an outpost, I'll usually just watch Horatio go ham on them. Sure, I could have finished off that biker with a saw blade, but Horatio is doing almost half the work, so it's fun to let him deliver the killing blow and unlock the outpost in slow-motion glory. He's humble, though. That little shake of the head. No bigs.

Sometimes he'll take a nap and snore a little

You'll have to turn the sound up on the gif above pretty high to hear it, but Horatio snores a bit. Sometimes during the rare quiet moments of New Dawn, he'll flop down on the ground for a bit of shuteye and have little piggie dreams, probably about eating earthworms or stomping Highwaymen to death. It's just adorable.

He'll revive you when you make a minor tactical error

Sure, all of the companions will revive you if they can reach you in time, but there's something about Horatio doing it, especially when you've made a minor error in judgement such as stepping directly in front of a speeding car to snipe the driver. It just feels better when you're saved from stupid death by a good-natured hog. I like how he doesn't seem to be in any particular rush, too. "Oh, look what this idiot human did. Again."

He makes dull conversations more fun

My reaction to most people talking in New Dawn is, "Yeah yeah yeah. Just put an icon on my map and I'll go brutally murder everyone standing near it." But I at least try to pay attention, and the nice thing about traveling with an enormous boar is they snort and snuffle and walk around in the background giving you something to look at. I'm not ignoring you, really, Pastor. I'm just enjoying the scenery.

He can self-revive and put out his own fires

Say you're a little bored so you're shooting at a tree with incendiary shotgun shells like a dumbass. And your favorite boar happens to be standing under the tree, and catches on fire. Unlike myself, Horatio is smart! If there's water nearby, he'll make a beeline (or a boarline) right to it and roll around to douse his poor burning body. You don't need to do anything but feel incredibly guilty.

Spend enough time with Horatio and he'll also learn to self-revive himself in battle, meaning you don't need to keep a close watch on him. If he goes down, he'll get back up without assistance, which is more than I can say for you.

He'll worry about you if you're out of his sight

Turn on the sound for this one. As I enter the house, Horatio loses sight of me and starts complaining. Freaking out, really. Kinda like if you leave your dog in the car and you go into a store for a minute, and your dog just stares at the door of the store until you come back? That's what Horatio does when you move out of his line of sight. It's touching! And noisy.

He'll follow you anywhere, no matter how stupid

Horatio can't ride in cars like the dog companion, but he'll follow alongside. In a chopper? He'll run along the ground. Jump off a cliff with the wingsuit and plow headfirst into the rocks because you forgot that you turn with the keyboard and not the mouse? He'll follow you then too. Loyal and non-judgmental.

He likes to swim around while you're fishing

Fishing remains an enjoyable pastime in the the Far Cry universe, when you can manage to do it without someone attacking you with a flamethrower. And it's even nicer with a hairy boar paddling around serenely in the beautiful water. I'm pretty sure Cheeseburger the bear did this in Far Cry 5, too, but boar beats bear, in my opinion.

Horatio can be found at Elsinore Farm, which is to the North East of Prosperity, right along the northern edge of the map. You might meet someone who tells you about him and marks his location, or you can just look for the farm yourself. 

You'd think a nuke being dropped on Montana would have changed it somewhat, but Far Cry New Dawn's post-apocalyptic version of Hope County is essentially the same one we know from Far Cry 5. Once again the locals are being terrorized by armed gangs speeding around in infinite trucks while furious bears and homicidal turkeys leap from the bushes to claw at anything that moves. New Dawn adds a couple new twists to the series' formula—at times you can leave Montana to visit other states—but nothing to make it feel like a wholly different game. This is Far Cry 5 again, just on a smaller scale and with more pink flowers.

It's years after the nukes fell at the end of Far Cry 5, and your nameless character has been traveling the country by rail, helping survivors rebuild the post-apocalyptic United States. A group of highwaymen (not that cleverly called the 'Highwaymen') derail your train and leave you stranded. After making your way to a small community called Prosperity, you venture out into the overgrown remains of Hope County, fighting the Highwaymen, conquering outposts, gathering resources for crafting, and enlisting a small cadre of colorful companions like an elderly sniper and an enormous, rampaging boar. This goes without saying, but never bring the sniper with you. Always bring the boar.

Cry, cry again

As you help out the locals you gain perk points that can be used to unlock skills in any order you wish, a nice and loose ability system that lets you focus on whatever is most important to your playstyle, be it melee damage, stealth kills, or traversal tools like the wingsuit (fun for sightseeing and bailing out of burning choppers) and grappling hook (mostly just for treasure-hunting in bunkers and caves) . A few perks, like how much ammo you can carry and how hard you punch, can be upgraded endlessly, giving you even more flexibility in your build. A set of five new skills introduced near the end of the game indulge a bit more ridiculousness, giving you fun powers like a double jump and limited-time berserker strength. 

Now when I swing my spiked baseball bat at a rampaging bear it sails comically through the air. The Far Cry games have always cast you as an army of one, but New Dawn turns you into a legit superhero. These powers are novel for a bit, but feel a little unnecessary when I'm already able to insta-kill with stealth takedowns and spawn an endless supply of helicopters.

Combat is the same frantic and fun gunplay as in the past few Far Cry games. Vehicles and barrels explode, fire spreads across grass and trees, enemies recklessly charge and scream and bombard you with mortars or light you up with flamethrowers, with the occasional wild animal or friendly citizen getting caught up in the chaos. Speaking of wild animals, my loyal boar Horatio compliments my ranged attacks as a tank, scattering screaming Highwaymen like bowling pins so I can more easily pick them off with my sniper rifle before running in to clean up with my shotgun or knife.

The longer a companion is with you, the more skills they develop, and midway through New Dawn my big pig (really the only companion I used) was even able to self-revive himself, meaning I could turn him loose without having to keep an eye him. Plus, Horatio has lots of personality, paddling around in the water while I'm fishing and sometimes falling asleep and snoring softly while I'm hanging out in Prosperity. You can co-op New Dawn with a friend, but seeing an enraged boar headbutt a truck onto its side is pretty priceless.

Your arsenal is meant to look like improvised, ramshackle weapons—silencers look like bottles, your sniper scope has a plumbing valve on it—but the post-apocalyptic vibe is only skin deep. Ammo and crafting resources are so plentiful you never feel like you're scavenging, just shopping. Cars may be rusty and covered with warpaint, but I never felt like Mad Max. You have a seriously OP crossbow that shoots rebounding circular saw blades that can take down several enemies at once, though I'm disappointed it doesn't shear off limbs or cut dudes in half. What's the point of flying saw blades if you're not detaching heads from bodies?

County lines

There are plenty of familiar landmarks on this smaller version of the map (radiation has closed off a portion of it) and several familiar (yet older) characters from the last game are still around. I think we're meant to feel a bit wistful about Hope County—a quest has you collecting old photographs to help you remember what the landscape looked like before the bombs—but it's hard to feel like there's much difference between the world's chaotic past and present, and Far Cry 5 was only just last year so it's not exactly a nostalgia trip. You can make a few expeditions out of Montana, raiding larger and more imaginative enemy outposts off the main map, like an aircraft carrier on the coast, a ruined amusement park in Louisiana, and even Alcatraz. 

These expeditions are much more challenging than outposts in that they spawn unlimited enemies until you escape via a timed chopper rescue, so they can't be taken down by stealth alone—the bad guys will find you. Plus, you can't just glide to safety in your wingsuit when things don't go your way: these are self-contained excursions that you either pass or fail. You can escape with loot or die and do the whole thing over, which gives expeditions a bit of tension.

The big bads of New Dawn, twin sisters Mickey and Lou, are so inconsequential I almost forgot to mention them. Unlike the Seed family in Far Cry 5, they aren't constantly subjecting you to long, drawn out speeches (thank you). The twins only appear a few times, and mostly just issue brief threats over the radio to remind you they exist. It's considerate of them to basically leave you alone while you completely dismantle their entire army, but it makes your final showdown with them just another bullet-sponge bossfight.

I completed the main story quest of Far Cry New Dawn in about a dozen hours, and spent a few more mopping up side-quests and exploring. It's brief compared to Far Cry 5, and completable without fully upgrading Prosperity to access the highest levels of gear and vehicles (though you'll definitely want to unlock the best weapons). While it's good fun at times, New Dawn is really just a quick trip back to Far Cry 5's Montana that hasn't changed much beyond a post-apocalyptic paint job.

You probably already know that the basic setup of Far Cry New Dawn is The Road Warrior with a side order of deep fried bull testicles. If you'd like a more detailed breakdown of what's in store, today's new 12-minute gameplay video, covering the full intro sequence, is here to help. It is also obviously spoiler-ish, so approach with whatever level of caution you feel is appropriate. 

With that out of the way, let's get to it. You are not a member of the Project at Eden's Gate in Far Cry New Dawn, nor are you Joseph Seed's roomie from Far Cry 5. Instead, you are "the Captain," part of a team led by a man named Thomas Rush that travels the west coast of the US by train, helping people rebuild.  

Things go sideways for the group after its train is attacked by a gang known as the Highwaymen as it rolls through Hope County. The train is derailed, the team is scattered or killed, and just when you and a pair of named NPCs are on the cusp of escape, you're caught! Cue some bad guy exposition, a spot of violence to demonstrate that they're Not Screwing Around, and then a surprise escape! Not for Thomas, though. He remains held firmly in the clutches of evil. 

You might be thinking that it sounds awfully familiar, and you're not wrong: Swap the train for a helicopter and cut back on your companions a bit, and you're basically playing Far Cry 5. Which is fine by me, I actually like the way it reflects the connection between the two, especially since direct sequels are something that hasn't previously been done in the Far Cry series. But I also thought the ending to Far Cry 5 was amazing, so take that for what it's worth.

Far Cry New Dawn comes out on February 15. If you want to check out even more gameplay, set aside a half-hour for this. 

The return of Far Cry 5 jerkface Joseph Seed to Far Cry: New Dawn was revealed when the game was confirmed in early December at The Game Awards. I said at the time that it would be quite a twist if we ended up playing as ol' Joe, emerging from our bunker and restoring order to the new world that he predicted with such unexpected accuracy.   

That will not be the case, but the story trailer released today reveals that you will, maybe, be working with him. And not just him, but the entire Project at Eden's Gate, the religious cult you worked so hard to shut down in Far Cry 5. It looks like the Peggies have done a far better job surviving and adapting to the apocalypse than Team You Guys, and now it's crunch time—and you need their help. 

This could be cool. Ubisoft's claim of taking a "light RPG approach" to Far Cry: New Dawn was met with a certain amount of skepticism, but making the genocidal Peggies a force for "good" in the game—and actually committing to it, rather than whipping out a silly twist where you blow up both sides and live happily ever after as a brahmin rancher in New Fall's End—would be quite a bounce-back from the limp story of Far Cry 5: It came out looking like a bold commentary on the rise of religious extremism and the hard-right in America, but ultimately settled into a generic round of shooting people because that's what you do in videogames.   

I'll be honest, I wouldn't bet the ranch on it, but I dare to dream, and if nothing else I'm looking forward to learning how—or, I suppose, if—17 years in the Cursed Earth has changed Joseph's perspective. Far Cry: New Dawn comes out on February 15, and before that you can get a closer look at what it's all about in Wes' recent hands-on preview, which includes a charming tale about an entirely unremarkable encounter with a totally normal mountain lion that sounds like it went perfectly smoothly.

I played four hours of Far Cry New Dawn at a recent Ubisoft event, and you can read my impressions of the new RPG systems, post-apocalyptic setting, and more right here. But if you want an extended look at the game in action, here's your video. No talking over it, no edits—just half an hour of roaming Montana, capturing an outpost, taking on missions and exploring.

Note that this gameplay was captured on the PS4 Pro, not on PC. Expect the PC version to be nearly identical to last year's Far Cry 5. You can catch up on the graphics options and more in our Far Cry 5 performance analysis.

Here is an accurate, unexaggerated list of things I did while fighting one particular mountain lion in Far Cry New Dawn: 

• I shot the mountain lion in the face with a rifle
• I shot the mountain lion in the butt with a rifle
• I ran away from the mountain lion while frantically healing myself with a medkit
• I shot the mountain lion in the face with a sawblade
• I kicked the mountain lion in the face (this turned out to be significantly less effective than the sawblade)
• I hid from the mountain lion in a car
• I ran over the mountain lion with my car while it mauled a random woman who walked by
• I watched the mountain lion get up after being run over with a car, like it was the god damn Terminator

Nuclear armageddon may have wiped out a good chunk of humankind and left society in shambles, but it sure hasn't disrupted Far Cry's chaotic stew of bad guys, random NPCs, and animals that will eat you alive. The two big changes in New Dawn are some light RPG systems, which make damage stats more significant in combat, and the post-nuke evolution of Far Cry 5's Montana, which is now bursting with colorful foliage. Pink is the dominant color in New Dawn, and I love it—it's a great contrast to the usual muddy wasteland, and it fits perfectly with Far Cry's new baddies: Mad Max-style psycho marauders called the Highwaymen, out to destroy your peaceful settlement of Prosperity.

When I ran into that mountain lion, I was fighting my way through a group of highwaymen who had captured a guy named Thomas Rush, who my friends back in Prosperity are counting on to turn them into a solid fighting force. It was my first real look at how Far Cry would work with layers of RPG mechanics added on. When you shoot bad guys, numbers now pop out of them. There are tiers of enemies (1-4) to make it clear how strong they are, and they'll be appropriately crazier looking and better-armored as they go up in rank. 

I was worried that this system would feel artificially limiting, that even if I landed a headshot my gun would be too puny to do real damage. Most of the guys I fought in my four hours with Far Cry New Dawn were just level 1 or 2, and shooting them felt the same as in other Far Cry games. A headshot pops up a satisfying "200," enough to instantly kill most enemies. With a pistol or rifle it takes a few body shots to take someone down. These guys aren't bullet sponges. Unless they have shields—those enemies require you to get creative, shooting them in the feet or waiting for them to drop the shield to attack and timing a perfect blast to the face. Or you can just blow through the shield with a shotgun.

This level 3 enemy wasn't too hard to take down with a basic shotgun (though the RPG did help).

That mountain lion, though, was different. It was level 3 and comically powerful. As I understand the hierarchy, this was hardly the biggest, baddest cat in the forest, but it still tore into the highwaymen compound, killed a few guys before I even spotted it, and then chased me around, ripping out 40 percent of my health bar with a single swipe of its paw. It felt ridiculously unbalanced, but was funny and scary enough that I didn't really mind.

Other than that one chance encounter, New Dawn's attempt to RPG-ify its combat felt fair and straightforward. The stronger enemies will have body armor and helmets, so while they'll be tough to kill with starter weapons, I don't think it'll drastically change the experience of playing Far Cry. Good aim and reflexes still matter, and New Dawn is still very much a combat sandbox. Getting the drop on enemies for sneaky melee takedowns, disabling alarms so they can't call for backup, or finding the perfect sniper perch are all still tactics that will help you take down tough bases.

This isn't an RPG like Mass Effect or The Witcher 3 where you're making big, far-reaching decisions that affect characters and quests. You're not going to be doing much roleplaying here. Really, what it seems to mean is that Ubisoft is leaning harder into features that make Far Cry a bit more like some of its other games, such as Assassin's Creed—and, for that matter, a lot of other big budget open world games, in general. Far Cry has long had collectibles and crafting, but that goes deeper here, with a number of facilities you need to upgrade, using resources you collect from around the open world. 

Upgrade the cartography center, for example, and you'll get more maps that pinpoint resource locations. Upgrade the garden to improve your medkits. Upgrade the training camp to rank up your Guns for Hire buddies. Upgrading your armory and garage let you craft better weapons and vehicles, and the story is tied to how far along you've brought Prosperity as a whole.

New Dawn shamelessly comes from the school of design where every action and mission comes with an extrinsic reward: There will always be something to upgrade, a new milestone to achieve, an item given to you to scratch that 'you're progressing' itch. It's a lot of stuff, and upgrading a building with one type of parts so I can build a gun with another type of parts, so I can then upgrade that gun with yet more parts isn't really what drives me to play a game like Far Cry. I'm in it to explore a colorful world and approach open-ended combat as cleverly or sloppily as I see fit.

The highlight of my time with New Dawn was using the new sawblade launcher, which can kill multiple enemies with a lucky ricochet and works as a quiet weapon for infiltrating highwaymen bases. I started using it like a sniper rifle, picking off baddies at max range just so I could watch the blade whirl through the air. A subtle trail follows the blade as it bounces so you can watch it slice through a few enemies at once. It's a chunky alternative to the popular bow, not as gleefully violent as Dead Space's Ripper sawblade gun, but satisfying becasue it travels just slowly enough for you to anticipate the moment of impact.

The next best thing was the moment I rescued Timber, a Gun For Hire who is in fact a dog, and he hopped in the sidecar of my motorcycle. Later, he murdered several highwaymen for me. He is a very good boy.

My point is that all the stuff that makes Far Cry really fun was—and still is—detached from the RPG-style progression systems that give New Dawn its structure. If a mission is funny or creative, I'll enjoy it without a pile of scrap metal as a reward. I rolled my eyes a bit when I found out that it would take a couple hours of play to accrue the resources necessary to upgrade my garage and collect the parts needed to build a single vehicle, so I wouldn't have to hoof it from my home base. But those systems will give New Dawn that sense of look how far I've come 20 hours in, when you're flush with parts and building a level 4 "Unicorn Flamethrower" or "Radiation-Pink" AK far better than your measly starter rifle.

Co-op is a good time. On this mission, we spent more time solving puzzles than in combat.

I had enough fun shooting bad guys and running into New Dawn's cast of quirky survivors that the RPG systems never seemed to get in the way, at least. And I really like Ubisoft's tweaked approach to outposts in Far Cry 5. In New Dawn, capturing an outpost grants you fuel, the staple supply used to upgrade Prosperity's facilities. The outpost becomes a fast travel point on the map and is inhabited by NPCs—unless you loot it, which rewards you with extra fuel but then turns the facility back over to the highwaymen.

Once abandoned and repopulated, the outpost will be level 2, full of stronger bad guys and other changes, like the location of the alarm. Do the whole thing again and you can make an even harder level 3 outpost. This is a system that's now integral to the game, rather than a menu option to simply reset them. It's a great way to let players create their own challenges, and I like the trade-off it's asking you to make. What do you want more right now: a convenient safe haven and fast travel point in one part of the map, or the little extra bit of fuel you need to make that one upgrade?

New Dawn made another clever addition with expedition missions that helicopter you outside Montana's Hope County to steal a valuable supply of something or other from a pile of highwaymen. Nothing groundbreaking here, but they give Ubisoft the chance to set up combat arenas in creative locations. I did one of these missions and found myself ziplining onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, hiding behind rusted out fighter jets with my sawblade gun, working my way belowdecks to secure the package, and then hauling ass to the beach for evac. It gave me a little bit of a Metal Gear Solid 5 vibe. New Dawn's toolset isn't nearly as intricate, but the mission was satisfying in the same way: I scouted enemies, came up with an infiltration plan, botched it and improvised on the fly, then ran away.

As a kinda-sorta-RPG, Far Cry New Dawn has plenty of elements that will feel overly familiar if you've played another open world game this generation. But they're a good thematic fit for the idea of rebuilding after the bomb, and more importantly, they don't really get in the way of what Far Cry has always done well. The sandbox is still fun to play in, only this time around, it's full of pretty pink irradiated flowers.