Far Cry 5: Dead Living Zombies DLC Review

Far Cry 5: Dead Living Zombies DLC

DLC Mini Review

5/10

Mostly Just Dead

The Final DLC for Far Cry 5 has dropped and, much like the source material it is parodying, it is less substance and more action. The adventure is quick, buggy, and only fun half the time.

Dead Living Zombies takes you through seven different scenarios all revolving around killing zombies. These scenarios are set up as movies Guy Marvel, a wannabe movie director who appeared in the main Far Cry 5 game, wants to direct. He narrates the action, and will often change up the entire mission with just a word in order to add ridiculous enemies or obstacles. Most of the scenarios are as forgettable as the side mission you did for him in the main game. However, one or two stood out as decent. Overall the DLC takes two to three hours to complete and parodies many movie genres. Bridges of Madison County and Romeo and Juliet are two that get riffed. These gags are worthy of a couple chuckles but again did not stick with me. DLZ also brings up Blood Dragon, arguably Far Cry’s only good DLC, on multiple occasions. These instances made me exhale loudly, but mostly just bummed me out that I wasn’t playing that instead.

       You control a different character in each scenario with access to a set amount of supplies and guns. There is no open world like the other adventures, so if you manage to run out of ammo, which is weirdly possible despite the games declaration that killing enemies will reward you a few bullets back, you’re out of luck. Most zombies are easy to kill, with very little variation in what they can do outside of exploding zombies and big overpowered zombies. Zombie animals also make an appearance, but not as much as I would have liked. Scenarios like an endless killing spree on a rooftop, road raging through a tropical island, and playing a park ranger trying to escape a state park, were all fun. Otherwise, I’m hard-pressed to think of any noteworthy moments from any of the other levels. To make things more frustrating, every level has to be done in one go. No checkpoints exist whatsoever. This wasn’t a giant issue since each character you play is pretty overpowered, but I was killed by a bug causing my character to clip through the world more than once. This killed my drive to really get into the action and made some levels a chore.

        Any replayability lays in the Co-Op. Connecting up with a friend can make the less exciting scenarios more bearable, and could even make for a good party game. On top of that there are different play modes that change up the game, and unlock bonuses and wearable gear in the main game. These can easily add another hour or two of game time, but if you are primarily a solo gamer, you are out of luck due to Co-Op only being split screen.
        I am never all that impressed with Far Cry DLC. Lost On Mars has some charm, but it failed to bring me back. and Hours of Darkness was so bare bones, it barely counts as a game. Far Cry 5, and the other Far Cry games for that matter. are fantastic games. They (almost) always contain compelling stories, characters, and locations. The DLC after each game has always been a bit of a letdown, though and these entries are no different. However, this may be my own fault. I went into each story expecting Blood Dragon levels of awesomeness, and when it isn’t there it brought me down. Far Cry needs to step it up, I think expectations are too high. That said, save yourself some cash. Buy Lost On Mars, and move on. Far Cry 5 has a “New Game +” mode, that should make the game even more fun than it already is.