Mobility Game Review – Far Cry New Dawn

Can I Play That?11 minute read

Mobility Game Review - Far Cry New Dawn

Score

7.8 out of 10
Above score was automatically converted from 0-6 scale to a 0-10 scale.


Far Cry New Dawn is a first person view open world shooter by Ubisoft. It is a sequel to Far Cry 5, taking place in the same area a few years later. The core gameplay remains the same with story missions, side missions, resource gathering and weapons/vehicles crafting. You can also upgrade your main base to gain access to new weapons. AI companions are in the game again but this time you can only bring one with you. There is also the option to invite a friend and play co-op. This feature seems better now due to improved communication options. In this review I’ll comment the accessibility for people with reduced mobility and simply mention some unrelated features that might be of interest. I played for about 4 hours on PC using mouse and keyboard, both solo and in co-op mode.

Settings

The game options most related to mobility are Gamepad, Keyboard, and Mouse but some options in Gameplay and Audio help in some very specific cases.

Gamepad sensitivity options and button remapping with a scheme of the controls layout

In Gamepad we have four different tabs. In General you can turn on/off the controller’s vibration, adjust Look Sensitivity to tune the camera movement to your needs from the default 100% down to 0 or up to a maximum of 400% and enable/disable the Aim Assist for shooting. The next tabs Ground, Vehicles, and Helicopters are very similar in their functionality and allow to have different control configurations for each situation, ranging from sensitivity settings to button remapping.

In Ground, Weapon Zoom Sensitivity for aiming and Binoculars Zoom Sensitivity for using the binoculars to look at distant places and tag enemies. These also have a range of values from 0% to 400%. Invert Vertical Look and Invert Wingsuit Pitch are present too. Where most games just let you choose from a variety of premade button schemes (default, legacy, southpaw…) here you can remap all your buttons to your preference and needs. This should be the standard as it allows maximum flexibility and accessibility for everyone. This is great and it’s even better that buttons can be differently mapped for each tab!

The Vehicles tab has two more options. Driving & Shooting Aim Assist helps by targeting enemies automatically while driving and Driving Controls has two different modes, Classic and Shooter, that change the way your car controls work. Helicopters has Helicopter Controls with the same functionality as Driving Controls and an Invert Helicopter Pitch option. All in all the Gamepad settings are very good with individual full button remapping being the total star in terms of accessibility.

All key rebinds for movement, actions, combat and sensitivity settings

In Keyboard and Mouse, we find the same four tabs. General allows adjusting the Mouse Look Sensitivity to and can turn on/off Mouse Acceleration to make small mouse moves more responsive. If you turn it on the setting Acceleration Value controls the amount of acceleration applied. Personally, I didn’t need to use these as they made my mouse movements too abrupt but for lower sensitivity mouse or trackpads they are useful. Invert Vertical Look and Invert Wingsuit Pitch are present here too. You can rebind all your keys for all actions independently in each tab but we will see later there are some issues. There are no secondary binds available and you cannot remap multiple key combinations to one action either (Shift+M, Ctrl+Z…).  Also you can’t use the same key for multiple actions in the same tab and even between tabs some keys conflict with each other so it can be a bit tricky to find the right scheme.

In Ground you have the same Weapon and Binoculars Zoom Sensitivity settings and Mortar Zoom Sensitivity for when you use a mortar. This one isn’t available in Gamepad but it’s important to remember as I found aiming with that weapon was a bit difficult until you find the best value for you. An issue on this tab is when you assign Mouse Wheel Up to Next/Previous Weapon or Cycle Throwable Up/Down you can’t assign Mouse Wheel Down to other function. I’m not sure if it’s a bug but it might be worth fixing. This isn’t a game killer but if you could use one direction to cycle weapons and the other for throwables it saves you effort and keys. The total max number of keys you’ll have to remap is 41. Luckily many of them aren’t necessary thanks to the excellent Weapon Grid/Wheel system so we are really just talking about 27, which some of them being very rarely used.

The Vehicles tab includes Steering Wheel Sensitivity to adjust how fast the car turns when driving which I find quite useful for too sensitive keyboards or saving strength. Driving & Shooting Aim Assist is available here too. The Autodrive key here is a lifesaver if you find driving tedious or difficult. Pressing it will make your character drive on its own to the destination you choose in the map. I also like the inclusion of Show Controls cause it’s always useful to get an on-screen reminder of the keys you set for certain actions.

Finally, in Helicopters only Invert Helicopter Pitch is present and there is no Autopilot so bear that in mind.

Gameplay menu with toggles for aim, weapons and chat wheel toggles

As I mentioned earlier Gameplay is where you can find some features that contribute to the game’s accessibility for people with mobility or dexterity difficulties. Aim Type can be set to Toggle or Hold, always a very welcome option. HUD Interaction defines how you access the Weapons Grid/Wheel and has both Toggle and Hold options. Setting this to Toggle makes changing weapons, selecting throwables and crafting consumables so much easier and comfortable. This also saves you from using key shortcuts for switching to a specific weapon or item so fewer keys to use. Big thanks for implementing this.

Accessibility wheel showing short messages to use in cooperative gameplay

Accessibility Chat Wheel opens a wheel with different text messages that will appear on your co-op partner screen. They are a simple way to communicate using predetermined phrases Like “Wait here” or “Help me”.

Weapon wheel in grid form with guns and throwable items

The last option, Weapon Selection Type, lets you change the Weapon Wheel presentation between a regular wheel or a grid. Wheel is faster and simple but grid offers more info on weapons and items. Grid feels more convenient if you have mobility problems. It’s worth noting that both the Accessibility Chat and Weapon Wheel can be fully navigated using the mouse cursor. There are no Sprint or Crouch Toggle/Hold options. Crouch is a toggle by default which is perfect for me but in the name of diversity and accessibility it would be better to switch it to your preference. Sprint works like a half-toggle, let me explain. While walking if you press it once you will sprint until you stop moving or run out of stamina. Having a proper Hold/Toggle setting would be better.

Audio menu with subtitles options, voice chat and speech to text function

The Audio menu has an interesting option called Speech-To-Text. If you are playing with a Deaf/hoh partner or someone with any form of speech impairment you can enable this and your voice chat will appear as text on their screen. In my case my playing partner can’t use voice chat so it helped.

How to Play

The game mechanics are the most important aspect deciding whether a game is playable for you or not. This is a basic rundown that hopefully helps you decide if you can play the game.

The gameplay has you exploring the forest, mountains and roads of the world by foot, vehicle, helicopter or wingsuit in first person view. You gather resources, craft weapons, hunt for goods and do some fishing. Combat is mostly shooting different guns but you also can use melee weapons. You can play solo, take a NPC companion to help you or play online co-op with a friend. Missions range from finding people to assaulting outposts.

  • To move you use the usual WASD keys or whatever you change them to. You control turning, aiming and the camera using the mouse. To sprint you can hold down the direction you want to go and press the sprint key once.
  • In vehicles turning is done with the left/right defined keys you choose. If you don’t want or can’t drive, the Autodrive feature works well or you can sit in the passenger’s seat and let your companion do the driving.
  • To aim you can either hold down a mouse button/key or simply tap it and toggle between aiming or normal view. To switch weapons you can press a designated key for each one of them, cycle them using the mouse wheel/other keys or by opening the Weapon Grid/Wheel. Throwables, like explosives or bait, are thrown by pressing the throw key/button. You can block melee attacks by just pressing a key.
  • To interact with NPCs and the world (opening doors, gathering items, picking up weapons…) you press a key or hold it for short while. You also can unlock perks and skills as you complete certain objectives and reach certain goals. Lockpicking safes and securing dropped care packages requires holding down for quite a long time, and although there’s a perk that reduces the amount of time, it’s still a bit too much.
A first person view of a road going into a forest with lush vegetation
  • To reload your ammo or perform a melee takedown you just press the proper key. Replenishing your health requires you to hold down a key to use a medkit.
  • To order your companion to go to a place or attack someone you aim at the place/enemy and press a key. To have them follow you/return to you when they get too much in trouble you just press another key.

Conclusions and issues

In most terms the accessibility is very good, with most gameplay features being very accessible both on gamepad and keyboard. There are toggle and hold options for most common functions, although it’s a bit odd there are no sprint and crouch choices. The toggle choice for the weapon wheel system and accessibility chat truly shine here, making the game much more comfortable and enjoyable. Gamepad full button remapping is also a great feature that should become a standard. Aim assist is good too although you lose the ‘lock’ when you get hit.

Almost all menu actions can be performed via mouse clicks only or using the keys you choose except for a few exceptions and all these are related to hardcoded keys, which is the worst problem of the game. I was able to use a third party software utility to overcome the problem but this is something that developers should take into account as it hampers the otherwise excellent accessibility.

Roster menu where you can revive your companion

A frustrating case of this is in the Roster menu where you manage your companions. When one of them is KO and you want to have them available again you must select them and hold down the F key. In similar fashion when they give you instructions on a mission or location you have to press the TAB key in order to open the map and track its location.

Photo mode interface and a picture of the main character riding a pink bike

Photo Mode has the same problems. In order to move the camera you are forced to use WASD even if you changed your movement keys and the rest of controls are also mapped to predetermined keys. It makes no sense to provide key remapping and then forcing you to use specific keys for any functions, possibly making them impossible to use. They should have a way to use the mouse cursor in all the UIs or allow to use the keys the player wants. On the brightside there is a great graphic interface for many of the Photo Mode functions (Field of View, Depth of Field, Contrast…). Last but not least the game could use an option to unlock the mouse cursor, like in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, for players who need to use an on-screen keyboard to play.

Anthony Martins is 42 and has been a gamer his whole life. He has SMA Type 2 and can be found on Twitter at @Black1976


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