Far Cry New Dawn is a great game. I reviewed it which you can read here but overall, it delivers the staple Far Cry experience while trying a few new things that just didn’t work as well as Ubisoft hoped.
During my time with Far Cry New Dawn, something triggered me. For some reason, Ubisoft thought it was cool to include suicide dogs in the game. Yes, dogs that run around with C4 strapped to them and explode when you are near them.
Related: Far Cry New Dawn Review
Now I know video games are just video games and we have all seen and experienced crazy things in them but these dogs took things to a whole new level. During the higher-level outposts when you scavenge them to level the bases up, these dogs appear and walk around the base. When they smell you, or you go near them, they start running at you. The C4 then beeps faster and louder as they gear up for their suicide bombing explosion.
They also hit like a truck, one-shotting you if they run right up to you before the explosives detonate. It goes from one extreme to another. Luckily, the game does not show any gore, rather the dog’s corpse vanishes and all that is left is a cloud of smoke and some damaged terrain.
Take a look at the dogs in action in a video clip below:
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/ebGnM9t8dj0″]
There was something about it all that made me really uncomfortable. I only realized it was a dog exploding when I failed the outpost and then scouted ahead on my second try with my binoculars. I saw the poor pups walking about, ready to just pop like a bag of flour when I got nearby.
Ubisoft’s implementation of these dogs could have been a little less extreme. Animals in gaming and killing animals in video games has been a staple for decades now. Far Cry New Dawn features a hunting system where you kill them for meat and pelts, as do many games. This sort of thing makes players uncomfortable to a certain degree, but I guess the whole “hunting” aspect makes it feel less damaging.
However, these dogs blow themselves up. They BLOW THEMSELVES UP! It is really over the top and while I get the game is all about the end of the world and stuff, if it was a human doing it, it would have been a case of free will. A dog with C4 strapped to him it clearly not free willed at all.
I know, “video game things” but when is it just too much? There was just something a little off about it all and maybe a bit extreme. It could have been a person like the cultists used in Far Cry 5. They were crazy and brainwashed. They did it at free will. Dogs, not so much. Pretty sure they don’t know they were about to explode into the next life when they were running at you. Yes, I know, it is just a game.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think suicide dogs are a bit extreme? Let us know in the comments below.
