You’re a monkey. Actually, you’re a Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which is a fancy way of saying you’re a proto-hominid hanging onto a tree branch for dear life in Neogene Africa. Below you, a giant golden eagle is circling. Behind you, a Machairodus (basically a prehistoric sabertooth) is sniffing the air. You have no map. You have no quest markers. Honestly, you don't even know how to hold a rock properly yet.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey doesn't care about your feelings. It doesn't want to help you. Panache Digital Games, led by Patrice Désilets—the guy who basically birthed the original Assassin’s Creed—decided to make a survival game that is actually about survival. Not the "I need to eat a candy bar every ten minutes" survival, but the "if I don’t figure out how to pass this knowledge to my offspring, my entire lineage is deleted from history" kind of survival.
It’s brutal.
The Learning Curve Is a Literal Cliff
Most games teach you how to play. They give you a tutorial where a helpful NPC tells you to press 'X' to jump. In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, the "tutorial" is basically the game saying, "Here is the jungle; try not to die." You have to use your senses—Intelligence, Smell, and Hearing—to identify things in the world.
At first, everything is a blurry mess. You see a weird green fruit. Is it food? Is it poison? Only one way to find out. You eat it. You get a stomach ache. Now you’re stumbling around with blurred vision while a giant snake slithers toward you. This is the core loop. It’s about trial and error. It’s about the slow, painful process of evolution.
The game uses a "Neural Map" system. Think of it like a skill tree, but one fueled by dopamine and repetition. If you want to learn how to walk on two legs, you can't just click a button. You have to stand up. Again. And again. You have to wade through water. You have to carry things. Eventually, your brain goes click, and you develop the neurological pathways to stay upright for more than three seconds. It’s a slow burn.
Why Your Clan Is Actually Your Only Resource
If you play this like a lone wolf, you will fail. Hard.
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Your clan is everything. You need to breed, you need to protect the elders, and you absolutely must keep the babies close. Why? Because children are the only way to lock in your progress. In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, when you perform actions, you earn neuronal energy. But that energy is fleeting. To make those skills permanent, you have to "fix" them during a generation leap.
Each child you have allows you to lock in one trait. If you have no kids, you lose everything when your current character dies or grows old. It creates this genuine, low-key panic every time you leave the settlement. If you take a couple of kids out on a scouting mission to gain more experience, you’re essentially carrying the future of the species on your back. If a crocodile grabs you? That’s it. Those genetic markers are gone.
I remember losing my primary explorer to a fall from a massive tree. I wasn't just sad because I lost a high-stamina character; I was devastated because he was the only one who knew how to counter-attack predators. The rest of my clan were basically sitting ducks.
Dealing With the Fear of the Unknown
One of the coolest, and most frustrating, mechanics is the Fear Zone. When you venture into uncharted territory, the screen starts to warp. You see hallucinations of predators. The colors get washed out. Your heart rate—and the controller’s vibration—goes nuts.
To overcome this, you have to "rationalize" the environment. You use your senses to identify familiar objects until you find the "spark" that lets you conquer the zone. It’s a perfect representation of the primitive brain trying to make sense of a hostile world. It makes the world feel massive, even though the map isn't technically as large as a modern open-world RPG.
The Combat Isn't What You Think
If you go into this expecting God of War, you’re going to have a bad time. Combat is rhythmic. It’s about timing. When a predator lunges, you hear a specific audio cue. You have to hold a button and release it at the exact right moment while pointing the stick either away (to dodge) or toward (to counter).
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Early on, a counter-attack just means you poke the leopard with your hand and run away. Later, once you’ve figured out how to sharpen a stick using a rock, a counter-attack becomes lethal. There is no feeling more satisfying than finally killing the black panther that has been harassing your camp for three generations.
But even then, you aren't a superhero. You’re still a primate. You can still get an infection. You can still bleed out. You have to find horsetail to stop bleeding or eat coconuts to cure food poisoning. Everything has a counter, but the game won't tell you what it is. You have to remember it.
Evolution Is the Ultimate Scoreboard
Every so often, you can choose to "Evolve." The game looks at your achievements—did you find the Great Lake? Did you kill a hippo? Did you learn to use tools?—and compares your progress to the actual fossil record.
Sometimes you’re "ahead" of science. Sometimes you’re lagging behind. It gives the game a weirdly academic feel that I actually love. You aren't just playing a game; you’re participating in a simulation of the Lucy (Australopithecus) lineage.
The Mistakes Everyone Makes
Look, you're going to lose a few clans. It’s fine. But there are some things that people consistently mess up when they first start Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.
- Not carrying two babies. Always carry two. It doubles your neuronal energy gain. It’s a bit macabre if things go wrong, but it's the most efficient way to level up.
- Ignoring the "Switch" command. You have two hands. Use them. You can't strip a branch if you're holding a rock in your primary hand. You have to switch the rock to your left hand, grab the branch with your right, and then perform the action.
- Staying in the jungle too long. The jungle is safe-ish, but the real evolution happens when you move to the savannah or the caves. The game rewards bravery.
- Forgetting to sleep. Your stamina cap drops if you don't rest. A tired monkey is a dead monkey.
Honestly, the biggest mistake is trying to play this like a standard survival game. You have to think like an animal. If you see something big and scary, don't try to fight it with a rock. Climb a tree. Scream at it. Get your friends to scream at it. Use the environment.
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Is It Actually Fun?
That’s a complicated question. "Fun" might not be the right word. It’s engrossing. It’s meditative. It’s deeply stressful.
There are moments of pure frustration where the controls feel clunky, or you accidentally jump off a cliff because the camera shifted. But then, you’ll have a moment where your whole clan is walking through the tall grass, sticks in hand, intimidating a hyena, and you realize you’ve actually built something. You’ve moved from a scared scavenger to a dominant force.
The game is a technical marvel in terms of its procedural animation. Watching the way the primates move through the trees—it’s fluid in a way most games can't replicate. It captures the "flow" of brachiation perfectly.
Actionable Steps for Your First Journey
If you're jumping in for the first time, or if you gave up because it was too hard, try this specific approach:
- Focus on the "Motricity" branch first. Being able to walk through water and carry things in one hand while walking is a game-changer. It opens up the world.
- The "Identify" trick. Stand in one spot and identify every single smell and sound. Do this until your "Intelligence" stat stops growing for that area. It’s the fastest way to bank energy early on.
- Settle near water. Always. You need to drink, and water usually has the best medicinal plants nearby.
- Don't fear the leap. A lot of players get scared to jump generations because they don't want to lose their "favorite" monkey. Don't do that. The game is designed for you to move forward. The bonuses you get from maturing your brain are worth the loss of an individual character.
- Experiment with "Altering." Try hitting everything with a rock. Granite, basalt, obsidian—they all do different things. If you find a coconut, try hitting it with a rock. If you find a stick, try hitting it with a rock.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a rare breed of game that assumes the player is smart enough to figure things out but also okay with failing. It doesn't respect your time in the traditional sense, but it respects your curiosity. It’s a messy, beautiful, difficult experiment that everyone should try at least once, if only to realize how lucky we are that our ancestors figured out how to make fire so we didn't have to.