Survival games have been growing in popularity and developers are beginning to create intriguing new takes on the genre. This rings very true for a new adventure game recently released by Panache Digital called Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. Unlike most survival games where players start off as a bare-naked man rummaging, scavenging and creating new gear, Ancestors transcends time, 10 million years in fact where you take control of primates and aid in their evolutionary changes. If it sounds deep, that’s because it is and developers do very little hand-holding in the game, so much so that the intro message from the creators literally says, “Good luck, we won’t help you much”.
Ancestors adds a whole new aspect to the survival genre. Players will take control of primates set 10 million years ago in a lush beautiful yet unforgiving forest in Africa filled with dangerous predators. Your goal is to survive, but not much is said to help you do that. Players will have to use their own instincts and own two hands to figure out how to navigate and manipulate the world around them. One example is simply finding a stick that can then be sharpened with a stone. This allows the ability to hunt for food more easily but learning how to use the stick properly is also a challenge in itself.
Nevertheless, players are in charge of your evolution so everything they do will be observed by their offspring. When an ape dies, the offspring will flourish and become stronger which will allow the player to unlock neurons in the brain to access more actions that the apes ancestors did not understand. Players can continue to evolve their primates all the way to 2 million years ago. This will then allow players to reach the Australopithecus era from 4.2-3.9 million years ago where our ancestors began to walk on to two legs.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is sure to excite those who are a fan of the survival genre. Although, the game does very little to inform the player on what to do for those who like a sense of direction or guide so it may be more fore players who like to figure out the game on their own. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is available now on PC, and a release for Xbox One and PS4 is planned for this December.