However perverted this might sound, being able to fight off bloodthirsty women as well as men makes me so god damn happy. Whether these nameless, cookie-cutter foes are being used as meatbag distractions during a boss fight or are the kind that roam across an open world and are all too happy to open fire on you, having a mixture of men and women in their ranks is one step closer to equality between the sexes in video games, and helps to get rid of the damaging notion that women aren’t aggressors. Let me explain why. 

Mixed-sex cannon-fodder

It might just sound like an aesthetic choice, a small tweak that you don’t really notice when you’re gaming. But having both men and women attack you slowly but surely erodes the idea that men are the default setting for generic enemies: that they’re nameless cannon fodder, disposable and meant to be killed without a second thought. However, great as it is to have major female NPCs, treating men and women the same when it comes to the lowest level of nameless-NPCs is just as important. This is far from a new trend, though: Skyrim (opens in new tab) has mixed-sex guards and bandits, Far Cry 5 (opens in new tab) has cultists and Highwaymen of both genders, the soldiers patrolling Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (opens in new tab)’s forts and cities are both male and female, and other games like Dishonored 2 (opens in new tab), all the Bioshock (opens in new tab) games, and Left 4 Dead (opens in new tab) have the same gender balance. Most recently Borderlands 3 (opens in new tab) joined the party by giving us female psychos (at last). 

Whichever way you look at it, it’s good to prove that like men, women can be dicks and join causes that belong to the baddies, as well as leading those hordes of evil ne’er-do-wells. Pretending otherwise is just putting women on a pedestal, implying that we’re without fault and couldn’t possibly contemplate hurting another living being. But even though most games already include lethal ladies, part of what is holding some titles back (and could have occurred to you too) might be that faint and outdated idea that you shouldn’t hit a girl, no matter what. And you shouldn’t, as a rule, but – and I hope this is so obvious that I don’t have to point it out – nor should you hit boys. But there is one big exception: if they seem thirsty for your blood, gender doesn’t really matter when it comes down to making sure your vital organs actually stay inside your body. It’s like that scene in 22 Jump Street, where Schmidt doesn’t want to hit Mercedes (opens in new tab), or Colossus’ initial reluctance to fight Angel Dust (opens in new tab) in Deadpool (opens in new tab). 

Time to point out the obvious: if some girl is trying to whack your head in with a baseball bat, it’s alright to fight back. For whatever reason, for some fighting women who are pretty ok with fighting you seems to be one of those old weird chivalry rules that hasn’t quite gone away yet. I sincerely hope that if any of us were faced with Mickey and Lou from Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab), Doom (opens in new tab)’s Olivia Pierce, Irene Engel from Wolfenstein 2 (opens in new tab), God of War (opens in new tab)’s Valkyries, or Lady Butterfly from Sekiro (opens in new tab): Shadows Die Twice, we’d be ok with shedding some blood in the name of survival. 

Monstrous mobs

This goes far beyond just low-level female and male mobs though, and into the depiction of monsters and the monstrous in video games. Although with some creatures it’s almost impossible to tell their gender due to their androgynous appearance – like Devil May Cry 5 (opens in new tab)’s Hell Atenora or Metro Exodus (opens in new tab)’ humanimals – other games seem to incline more towards having a majority of monsters with masculine physical qualities. Take Outlast (opens in new tab) and Outlast 2 (opens in new tab), for example. Even though the second game had horrific female enemies like Val and Marta, the Heretics that you fought near the end of the game are all men, as evidenced by their almost-naked bodies and, ahem, genitalia. Then Outlast only had male enemies, despite there being a female ward at Mount Massive Asylum. 

Helwalkers, Trolls, and Draugr in God of War all have male physical characteristics too (broad shoulders, slim hips), plus in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (opens in new tab) Lynels, as just one example, are all evidently buff lion centaur dudes. Depicting most monsters as having typically male qualities is limiting to say the least. Although they look cool as heck in a kind of horrifying way, monsters can and should have female characteristics too, like God of War’s Revenants or Left 4 Dead 2 (opens in new tab)’s Spitter and Witch special infected. By the way, those two examples also prove that women can be monstrous without using their gender as the reason for their monstrosity, which is unfortunately the category that enemies like Marguerite Baker from Resident Evil 7 (opens in new tab) fall into, with her twisted form seemingly relying on a twisted mockery of pregnancy (opens in new tab) to disgust us. 

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And yeah, I know my entire argument can be simplified into ‘let me kill more women in video games, dammit’, but I’m ok with that. You want to support a tyrant? A cult leader? You can, no matter what’s between your legs! Including women among those low-level mobs undermines the idea that women can’t be aggressors, and helps to combat the sexist idea that women can’t be violent. A notion like that harms both genders, and who knows, this could just be a small step towards men being treated as women’s equals in other bits of real life too. Since we’ve started to talk more about equality between the sexes it’s no coincidence that current trends indicate men are feeling more able to open up about being the victims of violence: reports of sexual offences against men having tripled in the last 10 years (opens in new tab), and reports of men being domestically abused have risen (opens in new tab) also. Having a balanced depiction of generic, evil men and women in video games might seem like a trivial point, but it’s small things like this that end up making it easier for all of us to be treated equally. 

If you want to know what’s going on this week, here’s our pick of the week’s best TV, movies, and games (May 6-12) (opens in new tab), or look below to see it in video form!

The post Men arent cannon-fodder: the addition of low-level female enemies in video games is one of the best patterns in gaming appeared first on Game News.

In fact, you might not even know how to get Far Cry New Dawn’s Circuit Boards until the point at which you need them the most, when crafting high-tier weapons are a must for taking down elite Highwaymen during the late stages of the game. With that in mind, we’ve laid out a breakdown of every way to collect Circuit Boards in Far Cry New Dawn, and how much completing each activity will net you. 

• Trade a Monstrous Bison Skin – 10 Circuit Boards
• Trade a Monstrous Cougar Skin – 10 Circuit Boards
• Complete a 0 Star Expedition – 15 Circuit Boards
• Complete a 1 Star Expedition – 20 Circuit Boards
• Complete a 2 Star Expedition – 25 Circuit Boards
• Complete a 3 Star Expedition – 25 Circuit Boards

The best and fastest way to collecting Circuit Boards, as the list shows, is by completing Expeditions. You can go on an Expedition by upgrading the Expeditions Facility at Homebase to Tier 1 for 75 Ethanol (check out our guide to collecting Far Cry New Dawn Ethanol (opens in new tab) for more about that), and speaking to the pilot at Prosperity before opening your Journal. Each Expedition has four tiers of difficulty, which you’ll progressively unlock access to as you play through their respective star ratings from zero to three, and completing harder tiers results in a larger quantity of Circuit Board rewards. 

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If you’d prefer to hunt and trade animal skins for Circuit Boards instead, you can find Monstrous Bison in the central region of the map, just North West of the The Refinery Outpost, while Monstrous Cougars are located in the hills to the North of Prosperity, but be warned. These Elite beasts are a challenge to take down, so make sure you’re a high enough level and have brought one of your Far Cry New Dawn best Guns for Hire (opens in new tab) to guarantee a successful hunt. You can then trade these Skins for 10 Circuit Boards a piece at any Workstation from a Liberated Outpost, or back at Prosperity. 

You’ll need Circuit Boards to craft almost any Third Tier or Elite Tier weapons, alongside a bunch of other crafting materials, so it’s a good idea to start thinking about the Circuit Board ground when you’re just under halfway through Far Cry New Dawn’s story. These weapons crafting requirements range from around 5 to 25 Circuit Boards each, with Elite Tier firearms costing the most. To make every weapon, then, you’ll need around 200 Circuit Boards in total. In other words, you best start heading out on those Expeditions right away, Captain. 

Watch our Far Cry New Dawn tips video below, and if you want more guidance on what to do in the pink apocalypse check out our full suite of guides below that.

Far Cry New Dawn review (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn tips (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Timber the dog in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Horatio the boar in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Far Cry New Dawn fast travel (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn best Guns for Hire (opens in new tab) | Get Far Cry New Dawn perk points (opens in new tab) fast | Earn Far Cry New Dawn ethanol (opens in new tab) fast | Far Cry New Dawn music players (opens in new tab) locations | Far Cry New Dawn photographs (opens in new tab) locations | How to find Far Cry New Dawn Joseph Seed (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn ending (opens in new tab) explained | How to find your Far Cry 5 character in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab)

The post How to earn Circuit Boards quickly in Far Cry New Dawn appeared first on Game News.

Far Cry New Dawn review (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn tips (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Timber the dog in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Horatio the boar in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Far Cry New Dawn fast travel (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn best Guns for Hire (opens in new tab) | How to get Far Cry New Dawn circuit boards (opens in new tab) | Get Far Cry New Dawn perk points (opens in new tab) fast | Earn Far Cry New Dawn ethanol (opens in new tab) fast | Far Cry New Dawn photographs (opens in new tab) locations | How to find Far Cry New Dawn Joseph Seed (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn ending (opens in new tab) explained | How to find your Far Cry 5 character in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab)

How to start the Audiophile questline in Far Cry New Dawn

You just need to find one of the music players to trigger the Audiophile mission, which tasks you with finding 10 Far Cry New Dawn music players, so we’ll start with the one closest to Prosperity and continue northwards up the map from there. Let’s get started:

1. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Banbury Woods

You’ll find the first Far Cry New Dawn music player in Banbury Woods, just a little north of Prosperity. It’s on a shelf inside one of the buildings, and it’s particularly easy to find if you play through the Bean specialist mission. 

There’s a small shack near where he stands at the last section of the quest, that’s hidden behind some breakable boards that you need to smash through. 

The music player is on a shelf inside, next to a safe and some crafting materials.

2. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Big Mike’s Dale

Big Mike’s Dale is more of a hovel nowadays, but it’s situated over on the south side of the map, along the shoreline that runs out east from Prosperity. Or is it? To the east of the building itself, you’ll find a yellow hatch in the ground, almost hidden by some trash bags.

Go down inside the hatch and you’ll see where Big Mike’s really been hiding out this whole time. 

The music player is on the desk, just up and to your right inside the underground shelter.

3. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Fillmore’s Hovel

Over to the very east of the map, you’ll find a location charmingly known as Fillmore’s Hovel. Really paints a picture of grandeur, right? Oh gosh, it really is a hovel isn’t it… Anyway, somehow there’s another vault door in the ground here, just to the east of the actual abode.

Turns out the hovel is actually quite well established, complete with laundry room somehow, as you’ll see when you head down into the underground vault. 

Plus, you’ll immediately see the music player on the edge of the bed. 

4. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Near Deadgas Crossing

Interestingly, this music player isn’t nearby any other named landmark on the map, but the closest place to it is Dead Gas Crossing. However, the actual player is along the road to the east, at the southernmost point of the little teardrop-shaped lake. 

At this point of the lake there’s actually a short jetty with a hut at the end.

To actually get inside though, you’ll have to go around the water side of the hut and grapple in through the window. 

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see the music player on the small bookcase inside.

5. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Frobisher’s Memory

Just north of the last teardrop lake is another, much smaller, teardrop lake, and at the southern point is a location called Frobisher’s Memory. Now, this is actually a small cave system that looks like this from the outside:

Head inside until you reach the lit up area – watch out for the snake – until you see a small settlement, complete with washing line. Look over to the left and you’ll see some of those telltale blue ropes suggesting there’s another level slightly higher up. 

Climb up there and you’ll find the woman’s son has made his own little den on the ledge. 

The music player is on the little table in between his long-abandoned stuff. 

6. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Surgey’s Place

You’ll need to head downstream from the broken railway bridge with all of the scattered containers, which lies along the river that cuts the map almost in two. Walk down the western bank along the small road/old railway line there, and you’ll find a location called Surgey’s Place. It’s no more of a collection of railway cars, but there’s one that’s gone some boards protecting some goodies within.

Smash through these and you’ll find some more boxes and loot inside. 

The music player is just sitting on a crate waiting for you to listen to it. 

7. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Sein’s Sanctuary

Up in the western foothills of the mountain to the east of the map, is a location called Sein’s Sanctuary. It was once someone’s home, but that was before the Highwaymen got there. Head through the house and out to the garden beyond. 

Just beyond the vegetable patches is a boarded up hole that you can smash through. 

The music player is just lying on the rocks below. I don’t even want to think about who this used to belong to. Poor kid. 

8. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Rotgut Pass

Doesn’t this location just make you feel hungry? No? Me neither. Rotgut Pass is to the east of the map, near where the land makes a U-shape, which some of you may know is the prison – aka the Bullet Farm. Well, over at Rotgut Pass, you’ll find a weapons table and a small house, half sunken into the earth. Head around the back of the house, and you’ll see a couple of fridges in the yard, but also an open window you can sneak through.

Inside you’ll have to pick the locked door in order to gain access to the room itself. 

Inside are three toilets. You’ll have to smash through the boards protecting the middle one, but don’t even worry about the Out of Order one. No-one deserves that. 

The music player is on a small shelf inside that middle cubicle. 

9. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Forgotten Barracks

Head over to the Forgotten Barracks, which lies in the north-eastern foothills of the mountain to the east of the map. It’s not much of a fortress though, but rather a cute home that’s overground with flowers. Head through the door that’s almost hidden by some shrubbery.

Straight ahead of you, you’ll see a half-broken box with some components on top. Take the Barracks Key that’s inside. You’ll need this to open the locked door to your left. 

You’ll need this to open the locked door to your left. Inside that room the music player is on the chest of drawers straight in front of you. 

But, you might also want to read the note on the bunk bed. 

Turns out this is where Ethan was born. The Father’s son. The pain in your butt. Was this the music he listened to in the womb?

10. Far Cry New Dawn music player location – Tombwater

The last music player is on the mainland just below where the bunker island is connected by a bridge. This location is called Tombwater, which feels appropriate, and is basically made up of a single building. Head inside here, find the locked door at the rear and pick the lock. 

After this, head inside to collect your various loot. 

The music player is just balanced on the edge of the sink inside. 

The post Far Cry New Dawn music player locations – How to bring the beat back to Hope County appeared first on Game News.

Pros:
– Utterly furious
– Sturdy
– Powerful against shielded enemies

Cons:
– He can’t come in the car with you

How to unlock Horatio the boar in Far Cry New Dawn

In order to trigger Horatio’s quest, you can either keep speaking to your scouts – the ones with the blue exclamation mark icon above their heads – until they drop you a tip on the little piggy’s whereabouts, or you can head up to a place called Elsinore Farm, which is way to the north of Prosperity, just northwest of The Pantry outpost. Getting here will trigger the ‘To Love a Boar’ quest, which will introduce you to Horatio. He’s hidden inside a shed on the farm, protected by Highwaymen arguing about the fact they’ve lost the key to Horatio’s jail. You’ll need to take them all out and shoot the padlock on the shed to free Horatio and let him join the fight.

When everyone is dead, there’s nothing left to do but give your new piggy pal a pat behind the tusks – you might even find he’s gone to lay down by the corpse of his former owner – and then he’ll be added to your roster.

Turns out the Highwaymen were going to eat him, so you’ve literally saved his bacon. Nice work, Cap. 

Far Cry New Dawn review (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn tips (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Timber the dog in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab) | How to unlock Far Cry New Dawn fast travel (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn best Guns for Hire (opens in new tab) | How to get Far Cry New Dawn circuit boards (opens in new tab) | Get Far Cry New Dawn perk points (opens in new tab) fast | Earn Far Cry New Dawn ethanol (opens in new tab) fast | Far Cry New Dawn music players (opens in new tab) locations | Far Cry New Dawn photographs (opens in new tab) locations | How to find Far Cry New Dawn Joseph Seed (opens in new tab) | Far Cry New Dawn ending (opens in new tab) explained | How to find your Far Cry 5 character in Far Cry New Dawn (opens in new tab)

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