Far Cry 5: Lost On Mars
DLC Mini Review
Overall Score: 7/10 -
Far Cry: Andromeda
Far Cry 5 dropped another DLC pack and I went into it a bit skeptical since the previous DLC was pretty lame. That said, Lost On Mars has far more content and fun than Hours Of Darkness. That isn’t to say it isn’t without its issues, though.
Lost On Mars follows ace hillbilly pilot Nick Rye, who appeared as a Gun For Hire character in the base Far Cry 5 game. Set seemingly sometime after the main campaign of the base game, which is odd considering the endings of said base game, Nick is abducted by an alien computer at the behest of fan-favorite side-character Hurk. Nick is forced to team up with Hurk, who is just a floating head piloting a robot now, in order to stop an alien invasion of Earth.
When coming up with an idea for DLC, Ubisoft must have sat down and thought, “Hey, what if this DLC was that tower climbing mechanic from Far Cry 3 and 4, but in space?” That pretty much sums up all of Lost On Mars. Nick and Hurk (who is a permanent, immortal, Gun For Hire) go to a tower, climb it using a jet-pack, uncover the map, do the objectives, rinse, repeat. This is essentially what Far Cry 3 and 4 was. This isn’t a bad mechanic, mind you, but after Far Cry 5 moved away from this formula, it seems weird to bring it back so blatantly. The game even drops a joke trying to justify the change, which only makes the change that much more in your face through the entire 5 to 6 hour play time.
Lost On Mars has plenty of fun packed into it, though. Overall, this DLC looks and feels like a first-person Mass Effect: Andromeda. It also feels the same as Andromeda in terms of fun and repetitiveness. This is coming from someone who didn’t completely outright hate Andromeda, mind you. Combat is a blast using futuristic, sexual innuendo named guns, and low gravity. The main enemy featured are the crab-like Arachnids. Arachnids are terrifying to encounter at first, but the novelty wears off after a few encounters. Fighting Arachnid Queens was easily one of my favorite things to do, though. These fights were always a challenge and done to the soundtrack of hillbilly rock bands Hurk was a roadie for back in the day but ended up ditching him. On the subject of Hurk, he is written to shine this time around. Over the course of essentially 4 games, Hurk has evolved into a nonstop “hillbilly with daddy issues” quip machine, and I love it.
I also experienced a fair share of bugs. Audio would sometimes play over and over and often times I was not able to loot corpses of Queens until I restarted the game. These never hindered my overall progress through the game, since the queens are largely optional, but it was still annoying. Finally, upgrading weapons are locked behind a fair amount of grinding in the early game. Health packs and other items are so expensive I almost never had enough currency to buy anything until the final mission where the game almost literally hands you all the money you would need to upgrade for just the final encounter. The adventure ends on a predictable note, but the final boss fight, if it can be called that, is still fun. There is more or less no replay value for Lost On Mars unless you want to do it again in co-op, which is recommended for any Far Cry experience these days.
Lost On Mars takes a step backward, but still has some fun moments and makes changes to the Far Cry story that I’m wondering will be canon for future games. The DLC was only $10 so I can’t complain all that much about the issues that arose. At the very least, I recommend this adventure over Hours OF Darkness. Next up is a Zombie adventure that will hopefully bring the DLC back around to proper the proper mechanics established in Far Cry 5. Here’s hoping the stream of content for this stellar game ends on a high note.
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