Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Preview – Mankind in Jeopardy

By Brandin Tyrrel

If the first few hours of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey taught me anything, it's the fact that it is a miracle. The third-person survival game from Panache Digital Games is set ten million years ago. The goal is to live long enough to pass knowledge down the generational line and recreate our evolution as a species. That's a hell of a premise.

I was ready to birth civilization into existence as we know it. But fast forward to 45-minutes into my playthrough and the last fertile ape in my community – I'm going to kill a wound – signaling the inevitable extinction of the clan and, with it, I guess, the human race. Sorry, everybody.

Thankfully Ancestors is not all broken legs, poisonous berries, rampaging warthogs, mind-bending venomous snake cocks, skull-crushing giant birds, and starvation. Though it's pretty clear in the opening hours you're not careful.

But I had some things in my life. And that's really the message of Ancestors, learn, grow, pass down that knowledge. Ancestors is an intriguing mixture of raw survival and community shaping that I find fascinating.

As an ape, you will be able to learn more about food, unique locations, dangerous animals and plants, and more. Scanning the forest in this way turns into an inquisitive detective, marking things to go and picking up and turning over in your hands. Like a prehistoric mashup of Curious George and Batman, you're a primitive detective, with the catch being about 50 percent of the things you can kill, kill you, or eat you.

But you also rely on the bestial heightened senses to the sounds of the environment, pinpointing threats, lost clan members, or outsiders to soothe and welcome into your growing community. It's tough to spot the predators at night, even under the clear view of the Milky Way overhead. And in one particularly close call, I had scampered within five feet of a giant adder and its venom-tinged fangs. Luckily I had stopped and listened to the forest for the sake of the world. That probably saved my life, and I know it, maybe my whole clan since I was running low on age-appropriate apes to create the next generation.

Similarly, much of the game is about that organic, natural progression through foraging, making discoveries and building a catalog of "things you know about." When you scan the blanks in the distance that point out, you're initially greeted with nothing but vague question marks. But as you inspect each one, and add new discoveries to your memory, you'll start to see the world as you grow. Fruit, berries, sticks and rocks for makeshift tools, leaves to create bedding, fresh water sources, medicinal plants, and more strange and unique items are inspected, modified, and crafted through trial-and-error discovery.

As you explore and make discoveries by climbing, leaping, and swinging through the forest you can begin to unlock new skills that you interact with in new ways. You will be able to communicate with your community and build your social networks with other people.

The other side of progress happens in an almost sterile, microscopic view of the neurons growing and firing in your brain, building pathways to new unlockable skills.

For example, one of the first abilities you can unlock with a switched object. That seems like a shockingly low run in the evolutionary ladder, I know, but it's not. Upon these tiny foundations of success, you evolve. The dry branch you're carrying around, you're ready to change. So, you've got a dry stick. A tool. But what can you do with it? You can counterattack animals that you are at. You can pry up heavy rocks that might hold nutrient-packed insects underneath. Maybe you can not get away from it. I do not know yet, but I know it, you can uncover it. That's how Ancestors has hooked me.

There's a really engaging level of discovery and experimentation in Ancestors. With each new neural unlock, you can affect the world around you, allowing you to do a little more. And if you take care of your community, you can pass this knowledge to the next generation. You need to survive, they're so young that they're ready to go, and when they're ready, you've got a lot of fun. Now they are all grown up and they have grown stronger, they will have new knowledge, they will have their own, and they will be teaching new and old. And so on and so forth. That's the hope anyway.

After a little over two hours playing, I have more questions than when I started: what was that meteor that exploded overhead? I can see the smoke in the distance. How do I conquer my fear when I do not return to familiar ground. How do I reach the other biomes? I know are out there: the coastal, savannah and swamp rentals beyond the lush forest. How in the hell am I supposed to survive against a monstrous saber-toothed tiger that just single-handedly murdered the giant constrictor snake that's been dogging me? Or the terrifyingly massive carnivorous birds? Or the ape-eating crocodiles?

I guess we start this year on Xbox One, PS4, and PC – priced at $ 40 USD. What happens when I bang two rocks together? We'll take it from there.

Brandin Tyrrel is IGN's Xbox Editor. You can find him on Unlocked, gold cat over on Twitter at @BrandinTyrrel.