The Latest Xbox Game Pass Title Is 12 Hours Of Joyous Mayhem

Time is relative. Einsteinian calculus aside, this is easily observable in our daily lives. Fun stuff goes by fast. A thrilling horror movie or sci-fi show feels a lot shorter than a dry documentary, and the same is true for video games. There’s no standard length a great game must be; it's ideally as long as it needs to be, but that’s easier said than done. Go too short, and you risk being labeled rushed or incomplete. Go too long, you're bloated and repetitive. To strike the right balance, a game must truly understand what it is and what it offers, and few franchises are better at this than Far Cry.

Far Cry New Dawn came to Xbox Game Pass on February 5, bringing with it a neatly portioned FPS sandbox adventure with everything you’d expect... but not too much of it. Set 17 years into the aftermath of an increasingly easy-to-visualize nuclear attack brought on by fascist separatists, players are faced with a world more forest than Fallout. Hope County shines with blue skies, colorful prairies, and the series’ trademark waypoint-driven mayhem. Clocking in at around 12 hours for the main campaign, New Dawn is perfect for anyone who wants to play an immersive game without committing to a second job.

Don’t let the length fool you, as there’s plenty of fun to be had here. The story follows the familiar franchise pattern of your protagonist being attacked by a charismatic psychopath who kidnaps one of your friends. In this version, it’s two psychopaths, as twin sisters Lou and Mickey lead their marauding Highwaymen across the map, pillaging, kidnapping, and murdering as they please. You’re going to do something about it, and because this is a Far Cry game, that means lots of crafting, collecting, and outpost attacking.

That’s not meant to be derisive. Far Cry has been reliably offering the same basic formula for decades now, and since 2016’s Far Cry 6 sold 10 million copies, we can be reasonably sure we’ll see Far Cry 7 in the not-too-distant future. A reliable franchise usually means reliable gameplay, and that’s certainly the case here. It’s perfect if you’re in the mood for an open-world shooting gallery.

Far Cry New Dawn welcomes new players with open arms. The game whisks you through the basics, and after you get a few story missions under your belt, you’ll have enough gear, perks, and vehicles to settle into your preferred play style. Like its predecessors, New Dawn does value stealth, with an emphasis on melee takedowns. You also unlock a handful of supernatural abilities later on, and most of these favor a sneaky strangler. But players who want to go loud still have plenty of options, so it’s a lot of fun no matter how you slice (or shoot) it.

When you’re not fighting, you’ll be looking for resources and upgrading your home base. The prevailing currency is ethanol, which is harvested from outposts and cargo convoys across the map. After defeating an outpost, you have the option to try it again on a harder difficulty, earning you more ethanol. This adds a little variety and replayability, although you’ll never be far from a fight no matter where you go.

Hope County’s technicolor pastoral vibes are often punctuated by the sounds of gunfire and the high-pitched drone of ATVs and SUVs tearing around. Wildlife is a factor too, and it’s more brazen than you’d expect. Bears, wolverines, skunks, and other critters spawn regularly and will attack your enemies as readily as you. Chaos reigns supreme, and your many tools allow you to be at the epicenter of it all.

Far Cry New Dawn delivers on the franchise’s promise of over-the-top action set in lush environments full of loot and guns. It’s a smaller production than the mainline entries, so you’ll need to adjust your expectations accordingly, but you’ll get plenty of what Far Cry does well, and less of what it doesn’t. Then, before you know it, time will have flown as fast as the bullets.

Far Cry New Dawn is available now on Xbox Game Pass. It’s also for sale for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.