Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Reviews
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey puts humanity's evolutionary past in your hands and leaves you to figure out the rest. The unstructured gameplay is more frustrating than compelling.
Our ancestors didn't have it easy, and that's the for-better-and-worse message reverberating through every interaction in the game.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a wonderful idea that fails to deliver on almost every level. While it can be breath-taking to look at, it is a tedious chore and needlessly unforgiving. I applaud Patrice Désilets and his team for attempting something new and fresh, but great ideas alone do not make for great games.
While the idea of being able to influence the evolution of your clan of apes seems novel and exciting the reality is that it's a bit of a repetitive slog. Through bad decisions or sheer bad luck, it's far too easy to wipe out your whole clan which means that you'll have to start all over again from the beginning. It's an interesting experience but one that's tough to recommend to anyone but the most patient of gamers.
The evolution simulator offers a lively, original world, but grind and half-baked ideas leave a bland aftertaste.
Review in German | Read full review
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey was such an interesting idea on paper but from its complex and unexplained environment to the severe lack of exciting objectives and goals to work towards, the game doesn't quite manage to entice the player to make the very best of humanity.
Ancestors is a great step forward for the survival genre. It has all the pieces you'd expect, including water and food requirements but also a few unique ones. All of these tie into the game in a much better way than in most other survival games. Plus, its narrative of guiding humankind through its early evolution in prehistoric Africa makes for a great story to play in a beautiful place to do it.
Overcome the difficult initial impressions and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey turns out to be a rather engaging and fun survival game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
I may come back later when it’s had time to sit with the general population only to really discover its wonders. But for now, my dear reader, I’d rather forget about my ancestors lost to time and play a game like Ape Out instead.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey has a huge gene pool of potential, but endless repetition and clunky controls need to be removed from its DNA. For die-hard survival and exploration fans there is a worthwhile experience here, but for everyone else this is a game that's so repetitive it'll drive you bananas.
Ancestors The Humankind Odissey is tough to master but fascinating to play, thanks to the freedom of its atypical open world. Every discovery becomes an exciting moment, although not always easily interpretable; in addition, the later release of the console version allowed the developers to improve it in all its features.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The things that make Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey so appealing are the same thing that make it frustrating. Many things stand in the way of your progress, many of those things being mechanics, and rewards come sparingly. At the same time, there is something wholly unique here that, if you can properly sink your teeth into it, you could find yourself completely engulfed in it.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a great survival game with an extremely steep learning curve.
So far, I have put about six hours total into the game between both sessions. I am very excited to learn how to weild a weapon to kill predators, and to explore more into the jungle. This has been a really unique and challenging experience, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. You can get Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey on PC via the Epic Games store on August 27th, and for PS4 and Xbox One in December of 2019. It's currently retailing for $39.99
I wrote most of this review, then felt maybe I was being too harsh. So I took a break and went back. I wanted to enjoy it.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey replicates the fumbling, trial-and-error progress of evolution, which often isn't fun, but there are monkeys in the game, and that is brilliant.
Ancestors is likely going to be a polarizing game, but it's something so out of the ordinary than what you've come accustomed to in either the survival or third person open world genre, that it's worth a look.
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
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
Ancestors feels wilfully stubborn.