Now Playing: Blood Dragon

Far Cry: Blood Dragon is a standalone expansion to Far Cry 3. With a silly, 80s sci-fi / action themed story and characters, it’s a complete overhaul of FC3 – at least in terms of visuals, audio and narrative. You play as cyber-commando Rex Colt, on a mission to stop the evil Colonel Sloan from destroying the world. The story and characters of Blood Dragon are its real highlights, and Michael Biehn does a fantastic job voicing Colt. It’s ridiculous, over the top and frequently very funny.

Visually, Blood Dragon looks pretty good with bright, neon lighting and effects. It also sounds pretty good too with an 80s inspired synth soundtrack. But aside from visuals, audio and narrative, Blood Dragon, unfortunately, doesn’t really overhaul the gameplay of FC3.

Like FC3, you have a fairly large open map with multiple outposts to capture and secure. Each of these unlock side missions directly ripped from FC3 such as animal hunting and hostage rescues. If you’ve read my previous posts regarding FC3 and FC4, you’ll know I’m rather weary of the Far Cry ‘template’, and it’s a shame Blood Dragon adheres to it so closely.

Fortunately, you can ignore the outposts and side content entirely and focus purely on the main story missions. There’s only about 7 of these, with maybe 2-3 hours of play, but honestly, any longer and the joke would have likely worn rather thin.

The main missions are decent enough but once again, Blood Dragon is held back by its core FC3 gameplay, where using stealth and taking cover is the best way to go. I can’t help but feel that a more fast paced, linear style shooter would have been far more fitting for the style and narrative.

As a result, as fun as Blood Dragon may be in terms of story and visuals, it’s rather bland and by the numbers in terms of gameplay, with a disappointing selection of weapons and rather lacklustre combat. The main missions do their job, but there’s nothing particularly spectacular. The side content is dull, repetitive and best avoided entirely.

I wish I could be more positive about Blood Dragon. I do like the style and story, but it’s not that fun to actually play. Maybe if I wasn’t so tired of the Far Cry formula I would have enjoyed it more. I don’t really have anything else to say about it.

A fun plot, cool visuals, good audio and great VA aren’t enough to prop up what is essentially only 2-3 hours of mediocre gameplay. I got it for free and I’m still disappointed.

5/10