Just days from launch, Ubisoft are struggling to convince some people that Far Cry New Dawn is a standalone sequel and not a DLC.

Surprisingly, there’s still plenty of confusion and false information being spread around the internet. Videos made with the point of playing the Far Cry 5 DLC before New Dawn to prepare themselves ‘for the story’ – the events are completely unrelated.

Then you’ve got gamers and articles confusing the point even further, comparing it to other DLC or suggesting New Dawn should have been a DLC, or that they’re going to wait for Far Cry 5 to go on sale before picking up New Dawn. You don’t need Far Cry 5 to play New Dawn.

There’s even people asking the Ubisoft and Far Cry Twitter accounts outright – is this DLC? because, honestly, they’re not completely sure.

Despite best efforts being put out there by journalists, influencers, and Ubisoft’s own marketing team, something just isn’t clicking and that could seriously hurt the game’s overall saleability, especially when it’s going up against juggernauts like Metro Exodus and Crackdown 3 in the same week.

I know most of you reading this are probably well aware of what Far Cry New Dawn is and how it fits into the timeline – heck, you probably know better than I do – but clearly not everyone feels the same way and that may not just be a problem for Ubisoft but for the Far Cry franchise as a whole.

It probably doesn’t help that Far Cry New Dawn is set in the same universe, 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5. It also doesn’t help that you’ll get to see some familiar faces and places throughout the course of the content.

See, following the events of Far Cry 5, there was a massive nuclear hellfire storm which engulfed the entire planet. It became known as ‘The Collapse’, and the fallout was so severe that it fractured societal living and irreparably changed the face of the world forever.

This eventually brings about ‘The Superbloom’ which is the vibrant, bright pink and purple aesthetic you’ve been seeing in trailers and gameplay since its announcement at The Game Awards. This artistic, futuristic post-apocalyptic world sets the scene for the game you’ll be playing from Friday.

In some ways, it’s weird that people aren’t recognizing New Dawn as a sequel as opposed to a DLC, but I think a lot of it stems from the file size being shorter than a numbered installment and the fact that Far Cry games are almost always self-contained and have never had a direct follow-up until now.

Probably the best way to describe what we’re seeing here is a sequel spin-off. New Dawn has new big bads running the show as part of a frightening new faction, you’re in the guise of another mute protagonist and this is a post-apocalyptic world that seems more akin to a Borderlands or RAGE 2.

It looks and sounds new, but the core remains mostly the same. The map is structured in a similar way but the wildlife has been warped and twisted to suit the new setting, with missions and hardware tailored to suit a futuristic world.

Far Cry 5 had its DLC last year – and it was a bit of a mixed bag, truth be told – basing stories on characters met in the game while amplifying settings to the absolute extremes. New Dawn is something completely different, even though it’s set in the same universe. This is a continuation of the story arc, not an embellishment of it.

Far Cry New Dawn is its own self-contained tale. Not a DLC, not technically a sequel, very much a Far Cry game. Time will tell how it is received and what impact it will have on the future of the franchise.

One thing is for sure, it won’t be getting any DLC of its own. You think they want to confuse things even further?