Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is something I didn’t think was possible. It’s a survival game I actually enjoy. OK, perhaps enjoy is a strong term. I’ll say I find Ancestors more tolerable than titles like Don’t Starve or Ark. That’s because the usual survival mechanics make sense when you’re playing as an ancient hominid. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey isn’t perfect but it does a fine job of delivering a palatable survival experience.
Set 10 million years ago, Ancestors puts players in control of an ancient clan of hominids. The only goals are to survive against a hostile environment and propagate the species. To evolve, one must venture into the world and gain knowledge through exploration. This means examining and eating new food sources, discovering new habits, and avoiding becoming something’s lunch. Every action leads your clan closer to evolving into homo sapiens.
Like our ancient ancestors, players must navigate the world with little guidance. There is no mini-map and no quest markers. Even the tutorials aren’t much help. Players have to figure out the vague mechanics on their own. This involves a great deal of trial and error. I lost an entire clan and had to start over from scratch because I had no idea what to do at first. While this is more “realistic,” losing hours of progress sucks. But this is a survival game so I suppose that’s par for the course.
Gaining knowledge comes by using the hominid’s innate senses. Intelligence helps identify food sources, threats, other hominids, and new locations. Smell and hearing also help in this regard. Eating plants enables beneficial buffs in addition to staving off hunger. Some buffs protect against the cold while others prevent bone fractures. Certain plants lead to poisoning. After a few hours, you’ll get a sense of what’s okay to eat and what to avoid.
While you can only control one hominid at a time, you’re free to play as any member of your clan. Like our ancestors, the hominids are perfectly adapted to their environment. They can climb most trees and cliff walls. Swinging from tree to tree is a good way to get around, as is running on the ground. Performing certain actions like climbing down from a tree isn’t as smooth as climbing up. There were instances where I broke a leg or got myself killed while swinging from trees. If the hominid you’re currently controlling dies, you’ll gain control of another tribe member.
Eating, drinking, and sleeping at regular intervals is important. You can gauge your primate’s health via a green circle in the middle of the screen. The smaller the circle gets, the closer it is to dying. Food is plentiful, as is water (at least in the early portions). The only tricky thing is sleeping. Yes, you can let the hominid sleep on the ground. However, that can result in a saber-toothed tiger having it for dinner. The best way to avoid that is to take a nap on a tree branch. You’ll only need to take care of these needs once per day. This removes the stress of always having to manage your hominid’s health.
The world is full of dangerous animals and predators. While a boar won’t eat your primate, it can kill it just the same as a sabertooth tiger or crocodile. This is why it’s important to carry a weapon. You can craft spears from dead branches or use animal bones as clubs. Time slows down whenever an animal attacks. You’ll have seconds to either dodge or counterattack. Spearing saber-toothed tigers or crocodiles through the chest at the last moment never gets old. Best of all, if you have the proper stone tools, you can even skin and eat these predators. Learning how to defend and attack is tricky, but once you nail it, it becomes second nature.
One of the more interesting aspects of Ancestors is overcoming fear. When entering new locales, the world around your hominid turns grey. They hear the hissing and growling of predators and see visions of them dancing across the screen. To master fear, you’ll have to remain in an environment and continue examining it. After a while, you’ll master your fear and open up a new area to explore. Overcoming fear is awesome because it makes you feel the terror our ancestors did. I really enjoyed its implementation.
Experience points come in the form of neuronal energy. You gain this energy by performing everyday actions in the presence of baby clan members. This means either having babies following you or carrying one on your back. With neuronal energy, you unlock matured neurons that evolve your movement, intelligence, senses, and communication. It’s a clever take on the standard skill tree seen in other games.
After unlocking enough neural nodes and completing evolutionary feats, you can advance to the next generation. Doing this moves time forward by 15 years. Babies grow into adults, adults grow into elders, and elders die. The main drawback of advancing generations is you cannot carry all your experiences with you. You can only transfer traits you’ve reinforced before advancing. To reinforce nodes you’ll need points obtained by performing feats like dodging enemies or eating different fruits and animals.
Evolving your hominid clan takes a long time. In fact, even after over ten hours of playtime, I’ve only advanced my clan 50 years. From what I understand, Ancestors is the first part of a planned trilogy. This particular game encompasses roughly 7 million years. I’m no math whiz, but that is a whole lot of game time. While I’m curious to reach the “Lucy” stage at the end of the game, I’m not sure if I have the patience or devotion to reach it. If you plan to get that far, prepare for a long haul.
I have to give Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey credit for being a survival game I can play for more than an hour. Its premise is different from anything I’ve experienced before. I can’t say I’m now a survival game fan, but I can at least point to one game in the genre I’m okay with. Patrice Désilets and his team over at Panache Games have something unique and special in their hands. I look forward to seeing where the studio takes the franchise next.
Buy Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey from the Humble Store
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