56 / wfmag.cc
ReviewRated
The food chain in
Ancestors isn’t huge, but
ʰouԇre ǁefiniteȢʰ ƃt the
bottom of it to begin with.
Ãƃʰƹe ʰour preǁƃtors ʥiȢȢ
just eat each other?
The beginning of the end for Planet Earth
of recent years, except Ancestors is so incredibly
opaque that much of your time is spent trying to
figure out what you’re supposed to be doing and
how you’re supposed to do it. This makes sense
conceptually, considering you’re in the body of a
protohuman discovering the world for the first
time, but it doesn’t take long before the whole
game descends into a monotonous grind of
repetition and frustration.
Take the routine discovery of obMects in
the environment as an example. This is done
by using different senses to examine your
surroundings, but the act of doing so Tuickly
becomes a laborious test of patience. (ach time
you opt to use one of your senses to uncover
the various plants, water sources, and other
animals lurking amidst the Mungles, swamps,
and savannahs of Africa, you have to come to
a complete stop and spend time hovering over
a surfeit of icons that appear on the screen.
If you find something foreign, you need to pick
it up and examine it to reveal its true identityInfo
ReviewGENRE
Survival
FORMAT
PC
DEVELOPER
Panache Digital
Games
PUBLISHER
Private Division
PRICE
£32.99
RELEASE
Out nowAncestors:
The Humankind Odyssey
ReviewRated
REVIEWED BY
Richard Wakelinghe beginning hours of Ancestors:
The Humankind Odyssey are filled
with promise and intrigue. The first
game from Panache Digital Games,
headed up by Patrice Désilets – best
known for creating the Assassin’s Creed series –
takes place ten million years in the past, putting
you in the primitive body of an early hominid. It’s
a fascinating premise for a video game, revolving
around humanity’s evolution from early apes to
something more closely resembling humankind,
whether you’re gradually learning how to walk
on two legs or discovering how to craft spears
to defend against the myriad predators stalking
the African continent. Beyond those first few
hours, however, I spent the rest of my time with
Ancestors Must waiting and hoping for it to evolve
in some way if you can pardon the pun).
Your long-term goal is to advance the species
and ensure your clan’s lineage by surviving
across eight million years. What this boils down
to on a moment-to-moment basis is relatively
simple you’ll venture out into the wilderness,
discover your surroundings, and find ways to
use tools and the local flora in order to survive.
It’s a similar structure to other survival gamesHIGHLIGHT
I once decided to make my
whole clan follow me out into
the jungle. Surely our sheer
numbers would intimidate
any predators, right? Wrong.
Watching my clan of apes
struggle to work out how to
run away from a giant cat
eating their mates would’ve
been funny if it wasn’t
so disheartening.
ťou cƃn onȢʰ eƃrn neuronƃȢ energʰ ƹʰ
doing everyday tasks with an infant
on your back. Figuring out how to
mƃte is neeǁȢessȢʰ ʤƃgueӗ thoughӝT