![]() ![]() Ancestors isn’t the best game I’ve played in 2019, but it’s one of the few that feels new and novel and boundary-pushing-and thus deserving of the time I’ve sunk into it, and then some. I don’t know how it happened, but I wish it were more common. Amazingly ambitious and incredibly niche, it is arthouse in the guise of mainstream mass-appeal. That Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey got greenlit, funded, and released is a minor miracle. This industry and medium are notoriously risk-averse, especially nowadays in the era of ballooning budgets and longer development cycles. I don’t think so, but I also wouldn’t be surprised. How far does this experience go? Does it lead right up to the beginnings of homo sapiens, to early hallmarks of civilization like agriculture and pottery? I feel like I’ve discovered most of the major systems and seen the vast majority of the world-but I’ve still only discovered 50% of the potential feats. I have, in essence, evolved alongside my apes to understand Ancestors.Īnd I’m still curious how much is left. I’ve stood on top of cliffs and gazed out over an alien landscape and felt only curiosity, not fear. I’ve given names to the plants, learned which ones to eat and which to avoid. I’ve built a rudimentary home, deep at the bottom of a gully where the tigers can’t get us. Those first fraught steps into a dangerous world seem so distant now. That said, I’ve found it so damn rewarding. Oh, and plenty of unskippable cutscenes as well, which is an odd and somewhat frustrating choice.Īncestors takes patience, in more ways than one. There are also myriad technical problems, contextual controls that don’t trigger reliably, and apes that get permanently stuck in waterfalls or clip through rocks and instantly die. And that’s an element the designers chose to implement. Clan members you’re not actively controlling are dumb as rocks, for instance, which has led to many a quick demise in situations that a player-controlled ape would’ve easily avoided. Like the cult classic Far Cry 2, Ancestors is slow and janky, and also maddening in the not-so-rare moments when the experience breaks and you’re the one left paying the price. I’ll be surprised if Ancestors has any sort of mass appeal, if we’re honest. This (surprisingly) isn’t an instant death sentence, but… Half my clan died in the first hour, most from poorly aimed treetop jumps that resulted in crashing to the ground and snapping limbs. Ancestors doesn’t teach you much of anything, outside a few movement controls at the beginning. ![]() You will almost certainly mess up, as well. ![]() You constantly need to forage for food and seek out water sources, and sleep on a semi-regular basis. Sharpening a stick is a 30-second process. ![]() Ancestors is a slow, methodical experience-or at least it has been for me. I’m now about five-million years in the past, with no idea how far this timeline goes. I’ll admit: More than 20 hours in, I haven’t reached the end. My first time, I’d banked enough feats to leap forward two million years at once, rejoining the distant offspring of my original clan, now a bit less ape-like and a bit more recognizably human. Completing certain actions-discovering landmarks, new tools, food sources, and so on-unlocks evolutionary “Feats,” which roll the clock forward thousands of years at a go. Then after a few generations you can take larger leaps forward in time. Proceeding to the next generation allows you to lock in a certain number of these traits, “evolving” your apes so you start from a better baseline the next time around. Dodge enough predators, and your reaction times improve. Use your nose to search for food, and it will get more sensitive. Run around for a while and you may discover how to walk on two feet. Making excursions with a child on your back earns “Neuronal Energy,” quite literally experience points, which you spend on improving your ape clan. And conveying your knowledge gains to subsequent generations, if you’re lucky. ![]()
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