These points can then be used to connect neural pathways and spark new thoughts and movements. You score a surprising number of evolutionary skill points simply by swinging around and using your instincts to focus and observe points of interest. You improve your clan through a "neural pathway map" that's probably Ancestors' closest thing to a traditional skill tree. Regardless of whether you choose to explore the jungle by yourself or with a young pal, it's important to retreat to your oasis, sleep, and better yourself. Since your life is likely to be cut short courtesy of a love-bite from a prehistoric leopard, it's important to pass on your findings to the next generation (which is accomplished by carrying young clan members on your back as you forage and explore). That includes the unfortunate bodies of deceased clan members. You're largely cut loose after the crash course, but your goal is no longer a mystery: Avoid getting eaten or otherwise killed long enough to search your surroundings. Thus, Ancestors teaches you how to move, how to find shelter, and how to use your senses and intelligence to find points of interest. News flash: You need to drink water to live. One more "body swap" lets you take charge of another elder, locate the baby, and bring it back to your home oasis. Then you let loose a distress call (more like a screech, really), that alerts the rest of your nearby clan. You briefly play as the infant and learn how to locate a hiding spot in a thicket. The game opens with a small cinematic wherein a clan elder is killed by a huge prehistoric eagle, leaving their baby to scramble for shelter. That's not to say Ancestors leaves you totally helpless and naked in the jungle, as provocative as that sounds. Namely to observe, adapt, evolve, and most importantly, survive. Sure, I nearly killed off every elder and child in my circle to make my tiny bit of headway for humankind, but I came away with a good idea of what Ancestors expects from its players. By the end of my play session, however, I was swinging through the trees like a pro and using my senses to track down food, water, and observe changes in the environment that helped my clan move through vital evolutionary paths. I initially felt a bit like a half-evolved ape myself when I fumbled through this strange, overgrown African jungle that wasn't interested in offering me instruction or direction (the opening moments of the game even warn you "Good luck: We won't help you much" via stark white text on a black field). I recently played about two hours of a preview build of Ancestors at Panache's studio in Montreal. Your survival depends on your senses, your budding intelligence, your observational skills, and, of course, your opposable thumbs. There's no inventory, no crafting menu, no weapon cache, no map markers. Though it's an action-adventure title that doesn't appear too dissimilar from Désilets' best-known works at first glance, a bit of hands-on time is all you need to discover Panache is serious about putting you in the hairy pelt of prehistoric humankind.Īncestors lacks most of the staples we take for granted in action-adventure games. Instead, it aims to cast your thoughts to the very dawn of humankind: Over ten million years ago, long before good old homo sapiens spread across the planet-and even before its forebears, homo erectus, started playing with fire around two million years ago.Īncestors is the long-awaited debut from Panache Digital Games, the studio founded four years ago by Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Désilets. If your anthropological education is especially lacking, you might even think of modern stone-age families that push around wise-cracking mammoths in lieu of vacuum cleaners.Īncestors: The Humankind Odyssey wants you to forget about "cavemen clichés" like clubs, animal skins, and half-tamed dogs. What images do the words "prehistoric humans" spark in your head? Chances are you think of stone-faced cave-dwellers who hunt saber-toothed cats with crude spears.
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