From the creative director of several Assassin’s Creed titles comes a brand new survival game set in a historical setting. After his journey with Ubisoft, Patrice Désilets revealed his first ever indie game – Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.
By now, it would be obvious that he’s used to presenting his vision for a game. Especially after his experience in creating multiple Assassin’s Creed titles and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
But this game is the beginning of a brand new journey for Désilets.
The game has been surrounded by mystery since it was first announced and Désilets is setting expectations. Much like his previous craft, this showcases his strength in creating characters that interact with their 3D worlds.
In Assassin’s Creed, the players get to interact with the crowd and climb buildings. With Prince of Persia, players swing and run on walls. And with Ancestors, players experience what it is like living as a primitive ape 10,000,000 years back in the past. They get to explore an open world of vast prehistoric jungle.
It has a very ambitious game setting. The main goal is to have the ape survive in the wild and grow. What is unique about the game is that the ape doesn’t know anything at the start of the game. Sure, players can climb on trees and swing from one tree to the next around the jungle.
But if the apes discover a coconut on a tree, they wouldn’t initially know how to interact with it. That is unless they develop and learn how to use their hands and a rock.
Initially, players couldn’t do anything, and the ape would just stare dumbly at various things. But as the game progresses, the ape starts to learn and evolve. It would be able to figure out how to use tools, build their own place, and communicate with other apes. Everything the player does is tied to and affects the development of the ape.
There’s no help system in how things exactly work in the game. Players would have to use their own instincts in figuring things out, much like how it was in early times. If the ape gets poisoned from eating something, they’d have to find a remedy as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, the ape dies after a while. Again, there’s no system that would give a hint, so players would have to rely on their instinct. This aims to inspire curiosity and experimentation. And it’s up to players to decide how they want to evolve from ape to homo sapiens and how fast.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is definitely an interesting game that should be watched out for.
