Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Reviews
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 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.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is one of the most fascinating video games of the year, but it's objective to be so open-ended hinders itself with a complicated control scheme and steep learning curve.
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.
Help your early ancestors tame a savage landscape and evolve towards modern humans.
My wish for the end game of Ancestors is to have our character evolve into what we know as the common man, but I honestly have not made my way far enough to know if this is where things go yet, but I’ll keep playing and enjoying my time in the world. I only wish I could make my progression more enjoyable. I have no clue what to expect as I evolve further and I guess that’s the point, to be curious and excited about what’s next.
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
A very unique game about the evolution of man that isn't afraid to drop you in the world and make you figure out everything for yourself, which may turn some people off immediately.
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.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is not a game for anything perfect, but it is an innovative project that gives us some fresh air, leaving behind many of the dynamics already seen in games of the same genre.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an exercise in repetition. One that has tons of intertwining gameplay systems that occasionally breathe new life into the survival genre
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 rewarding survival gameplay at its core, but it has too much early imbalance and repetition before you can find it.
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 teaches us the evolution of humanity. But the game is not very successful about mechanics.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Open world survival game with not so funny evolution. There are some good ideas, but gameplay is stereotypical very soon.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey takes us on an incredible journey through the beginnings of man and his odyssey. In this game of survival and action, we will have to complete our evolution and brain enhancement to survive in hostile environments. In spite of its good ideas, it has a complex beginning and sins of certain repetitiveness that extends throughout the game, in addition to a handling that can give us many problems. Otherwise, a good option for those who want something different and with teaching
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Ancestors:The Humankind Odyssey is a mixed experience. The idea behind the game which takes you through 8 million years of human evolution is wonderful, but on the other side forces many limitations on the developers, and in the end you'll either fall in love with it or hate it.
Review in Persian | Read full review
At full price, I wouldn’t recommend this game to anybody except people who truly love the idea of playing as prehistoric human beings trying to discover fire for the first time in the most tedious of ways. It’s obvious that Ancestors is a project made with a lot of passion and ambition. Personally, I found that those elements weren’t properly translated into video game mechanics that actually felt fun or gratifying enough.
You control a clan of primates and the game was designed to make you feel as one while playing it. There is almost NO EXPLANATION or tutorial of how the game works, neither mechanics or how to progress. There is no game trigger to "push" you to do things. You can spend thousands of years eating herbs and drinking river water. As humankind evolution has been, it's your will to learn and explore that expands the game possibilities. The biggest condition to fully enjoy Ancestor is to master its gameplay and after that, build a flawless LINEAGE. Beyond that, if you like SELF-LEARNING and solving problems by TRIAL AND ERROR, you will immediately have fun with this game.