Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Reviews

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is ranked in the 30th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
Eurogamer
Top Critic
No Recommendation / Blank
Aug 27, 2019

Ancestors is ambitious and clunky and not much fun - and it's often quietly thought-provoking too.

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Dan Stapleton
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
Aug 26, 2019

In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, survival is easy once you decipher the basic mechanics of evolution and sit through the cutscenes, but the journey is full of moments of discovery.

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58 / 100
Aug 26, 2019

A novel premise wrapped in an awkward and repetitive survival slog.

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Metro GameCentral
Top Critic
4 / 10
Aug 28, 2019

A tiresome and unforgiving survival game that purposefully makes things as difficult and repetitive as possible, while offering very little in the way of entertainment.

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Aug 26, 2019

A bright idea made dull by constant repetition and diminishing rewards.

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5.5 / 10.0
Aug 26, 2019

Moments of beauty and distantly spaced moments of sublime discovery are separated by hours and hours of tedium and frustration

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4 / 10
Aug 27, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an unfulfilling survival game, one that never provides a compelling reason to see its journey all the way through.

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Polygon
Top Critic
Unscored
Aug 26, 2019

Equal parts baffling, frustrating, and thrilling

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USgamer
iew by Caty McCarthy, Features Editor
Top Critic
Aug 27, 2019

For every cool "a-ha!" moment in Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, there has been something that has me on the verge of rage quitting. There's a fascinating, novel concept in Ancestors, but with so many bugs and other tedious issues blocking it, the joy of this survival game feels like it's constantly kept millions of years and a bundle of evolutionary feats away.

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7 / 10.0
Dec 6, 2019

Ancestors is a large, fussy, and at times uneven survival experience, but it's also deeply gratifying once you sink your teeth in. Make it through the wringer, and you'll come out wanting to share stories about your run-of-the-mill open-world exploits to anyone who will listen – no small feat in 2019. The console versions are smoother than their original PC counterpart, so if you've been curious, now's the time.

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Aug 26, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is like no survival game I’ve played before.

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76 / 100
Dec 6, 2019

Ancestors is more than a survival game. Panache Digital developed some interesting mechanics about evolution, learning and neuronal development. Bt the game has technical issues and gets repetitive after a few hours.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

TheSixthAxis
Steve C
Top Critic
4 / 10
Sep 27, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey promised so much, but it ultimately isn't any fun to play. The lack of direction, the clumsy controls and unwieldy mechanics make this a huge missed opportunity that just doesn't hang together as an experience. The DNA of a great idea may be here, but it needs a significant amount of evolution before it can become realised.

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76 / 100
Aug 26, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a fresh take on the survival genre, one that takes us through the steps of human evolution, but falls short of its potential with a gameplay loop that becomes monotonous really soon.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

Shacknews
Top Critic
8 / 10
Aug 26, 2019

Although a great game, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey falls short of perfection.

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7.5 / 10.0
Aug 26, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is one of the most interesting survival games I've played in the last few years. With very interesting mechanics and a gameplay capable of evolving together with the brains of the apes, Ancestors lets us experience the struggles of the human evolution. Unfortunately cumbersome controls and a difficulty that easily leds to frustration partially ruin the experience.

Review in Italian | Read full review

VG247
Top Critic
Unscored
Aug 26, 2019

Ancestors feels wilfully stubborn.

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8 / 10.0
Aug 26, 2019

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a risky, brave and immense game. Evolution as the key to everything. A huge and difficult experience just like life.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

4 / 5.0
Aug 26, 2019

Yet despite its complicated objectives, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey challenges players to think outside the box by using contemporary, evolved knowledge to survive in a prehistoric world.

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6.5 / 10.0
Sep 16, 2019

Initial bewilderment gives way to fascination as you understand what Ancestors is trying to do, but fiddly controls and a lack of hand-holding leads to frustration

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